A quemarropa

I decided to roll the dice when renting POINT BLANK. My desire for a B-action film became unbearable and past experience proves that solid B-action films do exist in the direct to video market (e.g. Black Cat Run, The Guyver II: Dark Hero). Mickey Rourke is an established actor (YEAR OF THE DRAGON) who in the past years traded his legitimacy for a few inches on his bicep (I did enjoy DOUBLE TEAM however). But then the ripoffs within POINT BLANK became unbearable... Mickey Rourke plays an ex-military, ex-Texas Ranger now working for Pa who mentions to him one day that his brother is one of a group of convict escapees now holding an entire shopping mall hostage. Pa also mentions his brother's future is in his hands. An overriding theme of sentimentality plays well in the movie between the two brothers and even with some of the convicts revealing their human side. I also enjoyed the music played during these sequences. But that's about it... Paul Ben Victor (over)plays a gay ex-business man convicted of money laundering coming back to roost in his office underneath a mall, now stashed with military weaponry. Having masterminded the convict breakout, his motives conflict with the other convicts including Rourke's brother (who merely wants freedom and money....I think....the storyline gets a tad muddled here). With the ok from lead Tex Ranger in charge, Rourke makes his way into the mall and "pays homage" to many of the action movie greats of the 1990's: Martial arts by a non-martial artist, two gunmen shooting at each other between obstacles a la John Woo's Hard Boiled and Hard Target (but looking MUCH more clumsy), high floor mini gun without the dramatic punch of T2, and finally the most blatant artistic theft possibly EVER coming straight from Luc Besson's THE PROFESSIONAL (you've got to see it to believe it). Couple this with extremely sloppy editing and you've got yourself a film that maintains the reputation that direct to video films are of low quality. As an action hero, Mickey Rourke does have potential. He possesses a cool, calm bad ass quality reminiscint of an early MAN WITH NO NAME Clint. His physique compares to that of a Van Damme (of course without the grace or charisma). However, if he ever wants legitimacy as an action hero, a film of "grander" (not necessarily more expensive) proportions is needed.

This is one bad film. With clumsy editing, terrible performances and rip-offs galore! One of the major missteps is the editing. Rourke's character Rudy is a supposed "Karate Master" but when he does a roundhouse kick to a guy it first cuts to the foot then jaggedly cuts to Rourke killing him. This is Rourke's monotone years, where you need subtitles to hear what's he's saying. If you somehow hear the wretched dialogue he's reciting, mute the TV. It is better without the sound anyway. Danny Trejo gets shot like 15 times (twice in the HEAD!) and he's wearing a motorcycle jacket! Just don't watch this film unless you're having a party and everybody is drunk.

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This movie is so great and has alot of action!!!!! Why do all you idiot non-action fans hate this?!!! I think it is the best movie as a matter of fact, I am going to dub it or buy it for my movie collection! The hostage plot was so cool because some of the criminals actually didn't mean to be harmful and most were really mean!!! Alot of action and I recommend it to people who love action! Don't listen to those stupid people asses who don't know what they are talking about!!! They are the ones who like stupid movies and hate good ones like this!!!! Point Blank rules!!!!!!!

May not be the sorriest I've ever seen, but it's very very close. It's certainly the worst I've watched in a good while, and keep in mind that I've seen "The Haunting". I am totally serious when I state that the title must be the filmmakers' admission that the film has no 'point', that it is literally an entertainment 'blank' or void.

A bunch of hardened convicts break out of captivity and immediately take 8 or so hostages (business must be down) at a local mall? Then they hunker down and wait for their ruthless, business-guy ringleader to figure out what demands they're going to make as Local and Federal law enforcement surround the place? And one of the cons starts indiscriminately blowing away hostages as another con's former Marine (or something) brother shows up to dispatch the villains one by one Die Hard style? WHAT? HUH? WHAT? Who wrote this? Escaped cons would never do that. They would never ever ever do something like that. It is one of the most moronic concepts I've ever heard of. For starters, there would be like 40-50 points of access which they could not possibly guard. And why would they ever put their trust in someone (though he bankrolled their breakout) who they all despise and they know is stringing them along? Doesn't work. Can't do it. Better come up with something else, Mr. Screenwriter. He, like the ridiculous characters in this movie, boxes himself in and tries to blast his way out, with predictable results.

Even given this premise's painful absurdity, the film could at least deliver on all of the routine but fairly dependable and mildly diverting staples of this genre, like say the way the ones starring Charles Bronson and I don't know, Michael Dudikoff do. But it fails badly when it even tries to do that little, as the action sequences are so gratuitously illogical and disconnected to narrative (what little there is) you will cry. And only two of the hostages are even given close-ups (a pretty girl in a mini-skirt and a slutty girl with a drug habit) so it seems like there's about 5 hostages or so, instead of the hundreds you'd think would be roaming the mall at the time of the takeover. Plus, there's lots of inertia in this movie, lots of standing around, as if the actors had to constantly be reminded that yes, they were taking part in the filming of a motion picture and that, don't worry, everything will come together in the editing room. (Uh, not quite.)

As if that weren't bad enough; self-pitying, disinterested Mickey Rourke is the putative star. The film is quite unspeakably ghastly on its own, to be sure, but Rourke's involvement is very much like dropping a ten ton elephant on an already sinking ship. He gives another one of those deadening, lobotomized non-performances that he first patented with that "Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man" bomb about ten years ago. He shuffles and mutters his way through the debacle as if he'd lost some bet to the producers when drunk and had no choice. (Though he must've made them agree, I suppose wisely, that his participation was contingent on his not having to speak more than 50 words of dialogue.)

Rourke is an actor who at some point evidently decided that the drama and spectacle of his own strange life far surpassed that of any movie he could possibly be in. Every movie like this he does seems like a cry for help, just another installment in his sorry, self-conscious saga of self- (and career) destruction. Amazing when you consider how surprisingly good and professional he is in a fine made for TNT movie he appeared in around this time called "Thicker Than Blood".

Every film, no matter how bad, must have a central theme, and this one's seems to be that "It's bad to hurt innocent people". (At least, Rourke's character mentions something along those lines a few times.) Anyway, I think that's something we can all agree on.

So why make this film?

This is a very bad movie.

The actors seem to be on drugs, the action scenes are unspeakably clumsy and the plot virtually non-existent. There is a lot of sadistic and unnecessary violence featuring weird slow-motion scenes, which could be intended to cover up Mickey Rourke's slow, bulky moves. There are also terrible sentimental scenes where the convicts tell their life stories in a weepy voice.

Above all this nonsense a lot of boring guitar music plays in the background. In one scene, where a dying man goes nuts with a Gatling gun while thinking about his wife, the music choice is "Silent Night"... It is almost too absurd to speak of.

All in all, this movie is a horrible shame to everybody involved. But even the worst movie can be good in an appropriate situation: Watch this in good company when having a hangover, and there is no end to the joy. This could also be good when drunk, but I couldn't forgive myself if I rented this a second time.