Deathline

This movie has two pluses in its favor. First, Rutger Hauer looks great. Second, the sets and art direction are very interesting. The movie has a strange blend of Old World buildings, futuristic props and 1940's style furniture. Other movies (yes, most notably Blade Runner) have used a similar look more successfully, but the total effect was still compelling. I did get the impression, however, that they used the same building over and over and just changed the furniture when it was supposed to be a different location.

Unfortunately, the filmmakers appear to have spent so much money on the set that they had no funds for other essential movie elements such as a script that made sense, costumes for the actresses and an acting coach. I found the plot utterly incomprehensible. I have no idea why any character in the movie did any of the things he/she did. I have no idea what the ending was supposed to mean.

Equally baffling was the fact that the women in the movie wore no clothes. The film is set in Moscow; you'd think they would get cold. Okay, I can understand that prostitutes in brothels are not going to fully clad, but come on--topless women boxers? nude women assassins?

Finally, with the exception of Hauer (who really has given some great performances in his career), no one in this movie can act. NO ONE!! Robbie the Robot gave better line readings.

In short, if you're looking for a movie filled with meaningless violence and even more meaningless sex, you'll love this one.

Rutger Hauer has done a number of action films in which the story and overall production where much more entertaining e.g., "Split Second". However, I am an avid "Action" movie devotee and my personal appraisal of them is usually much higher than say, most movie critics. For what its worth, I think most action lovers would enjoy this film. I, however, never expected more than the action promised in the given film synopsis i.e., until I saw Miss Yvonne Scio. In my opinion, this young lady stole the movie in both an acting and physical sense. She has a wholesome beauty and a fantastic physical presence. I became a "Fan" immediately.

Further, I was just as pleasantly surprised with Miss Scio's action performance as I was with Mira Sorvino's in the "Replacement Killers". 'course the critic (Maltin) only gave this movie 2.5 stars and I thought it deserved at least 4.5 stars. Hell, I guess I'm still the only one who thinks "The Matrix" was the best movie of the year and can't understand why I must be the only one with such keen insight. Oh well, I'm buying the DVD (USA) version titled "Redline", if for no other reason than to ogle Miss Scio.

Gee, what's not to like about this movie? The acting? It's serviceable enough considering this isn't a big budget film. Rutger Hauer's finest work is not demonstrated here, but still this is a Rutger Hauer film which means that it will be a bit different from the regular straight-to-video junk you see. The shootouts were laughable? Of course they were! Shootouts are always laughable in every movie in which a hero survives totally unscathed. The two notable exceptions are "Saving Private Ryan" and "Tombstone". There are a few others, but at least Hauer and Scio aren't sliding down glaciers on a car fender or something of that ilk.

Let's put things in proper perspective. When you have a movie that sounds good before it goes on paper, but doesn't look nearly as good after the ink has dried you find ways to make it not a complete waste of time. So you do the following:

1. Get Rutger Hauer

2. Buy lots of bullets (hero resistant, of course!)

3. Get a beautiful actress (and in this case

Yvonne Scio is a 10!)

4. Buy some more bullets

5. Show lots of skin (Nude female bodybuilders with

soft muscles...hmmmm)

6. Have sex ...lots of it

7. Buy a few more bullets

8. Kill all the bad guys (but only after you reveal

that some good guys are bad and worse than the

bad guy you were originally after who turns out

to be easier to kill than expected)

9. Throw in convoluted ending (like my previous

parenthetical remark)

10. Have more sex

For Pete's sake, people this is a cable channel movie. Enjoy it for the adrenaline and the visual pleasure. Don't get hung up on thinking about it. I'll watch this one again, if there isn't anything else on, or I need an Yvonne Scio fix.

Wade (Rutger Hauer) is an American smuggler of biotechnology, during a Russian job, he's quickly disposed of by Merrick (Mark Dacascos). But this being the future, Wade is brought back to life via a clandestine soviet experimentation and goes about gaining vengeance on the people that offed both him and his girlfriend.

Make no bones about it, this film is highly forgettable, but for the time that it's on it's entertaining enough. A highly simplistic, derivative story for sure, however for fans of excessive cartoon violence and gratuitous nudity that doesn't advance the plot in the least bit you'll be entertained.

Eye Candy: Anita Neszmenyi; Ildikó Szücs, and numerous extras also appear topless; Szilvia Bizek & Yvonne Sciò show everything

My Grade: C-

DVD Extras: Picture gallery; trailer for this film; and Trailers for "On the Border", "October 22", & "the Peacekeeper"

Look - the situation is this: I've got two toddlers, a tired wife, an allotment and a full time job. When I sit down to watch a film I'm not there to be mildly amused by the juxtaposition of social hierarchies or what have you - I want things to move briskly, blow up, be gory, be naked, be crazy and above all not be boring. Hence: I like films like this.

This film is set in some futuristic Russia where people can plug themselves directly into things. I'm not really sure if any of that was explained but the plugging in aspect seemed to involve fulfilling your dreams via cable or something. Anyhoo - Rutger is a smuggler smugling some biomechanical circuits when he's double crossed by his buddy Machis and shot in the head. His missus, who betrayed him, also gets shot in the head but when the Russian army turn up they burn her and get right to reviving Rutger using some sophisticamated doo-whackies. Obviously, when Rutger wakes up all he wants to do is shoot his partner in the head two or three hundred times.

Rutger sets out to kill everything (which is endorsed by the folks who revived him for reasons I couldn't quite understand) and therefore travels through Moscow in a series of set pieces which convey to me that the film had a higher budget than I thought or else filming in Russian is very cheap. Either way, the set design in this film is something to behold. Very impressive indeed.

Anyhoo - Rutger hooks up with a hooker (Yvonne Scio) who also played his missus at the start (err..not sure why) and tries to track down Machis...However, it turns out that Machis is only the icing on the cake when it comes to Russian crime syndicates.

Look - The story is flimsy as hell, and director Tibor (something or other) seems to realise this, and therefore fills the film full of nudity and gore. Believe me when I say this, but this film had more naked women than I've seen outside of Italian cinema. Ever Rutger gets to do the nasty with Yvonne Scio (an Italian Scream Queen arriving 20 years too late), on several occasions, and if that ain't enough, he even gets attacked by naked assassins.

Add to that the gore (a guy having his fingers cut off and being fed them), and Rutger being attacked by machine gun wielding tramps - what are you waiting for? Oh, the ending? Lame, but the rest of the film is entertaining enough.