City of Fear

This was on a box set with 12 films which I bought for £8.99. This however was probably the worst of them all. Gary Daniels has done well on movies like Deadly Target, Recoil, Rage and Riot but since the demise of PM Entertainment who produced these movies, his choices have not been good. This is a NuImage production and while they have done several excellent straight to video movies, their main goal seems to be to make as many movies as possible per year and have employed the likes of Yossi Wein and Danny Lerner to direct ultra low budget and often hilariously bad flicks. This doesn't feel quite as low budget as some of the others in that it all consists of original footage and if there's anything positive to say about it, the lighting and picture are clean and the shots are focused and unlike most of those NuImage Bulgaria productions, it is actually set in the city it is shot in, Sofia!

However, City Of Fear is an "action" movie that completely fails to deliver in all counts. The plot is boring, the pace is absolutely plodding, the action scenes are few and far between and the few that are there are dull and way too short to give any lasting impression. The fight scenes are disappointing given Gary Daniels talents. The pace is very slow and a lot of the film consists of characters standing around being idle, often doing nothing that was sufficient to the story itself. The locations are dreary and overcast. Gary Daniels does his best to struggle through the material but his lack of interest clearly shows. The female lead while not only hugely unattractive and shows no interest either. Nobody is having any fun here, and I neither did I.

Basically, unless you are a huge, huge Gary Daniels fan, I could never recommend this to anyone. Not wretched enough to qualify as "so bad it's good" yet so lacking in any redeeming values to be classed as entertainment. If you want to see Gary Daniels in action try Deadly Target, Rage, Recoil, Riot, White Tiger or even Cold Harvest. Just stay away from City Of Fear.

As the other person who has reviewed this film says 'its cheap' it

cost me a pound from (suprise,suprise!) the pound shop. It is

obviously a low budget film though is far from being the worst film

for seen, i have definitely paid more for worse! in fact the low

budget style, pathetic special effects and crap acting almost give

this film a strange charm. Its fun, rubbish but fun and for a pound,

value for money. Don't pay more though. P.s look out for the old looking car that goes up a ramp and tips over, you can see through the front screen that there is no-one in the car because the camera work is so rubbish!

For me at least, alarm bells immediately start ringing if I learn that a recent action or horror film has been shot in an Eastern European location. Please note that is in no way whatsoever any disrespect to the utilised foreign crews, quite the contrary - they are entirely as competent as any other, rather my problem is that the recent trend to shoot genre flicks in said countries has invariably produced some of the most truly mundane and inane action and horror fodder there is going! The film in question only reaffirms my viewpoint in fact and proves to be a fairly lacklustre affair affair at best. Having said that, matters do at least get off to a cracking start with our hero, Gary Daniels having a great fight in a car park. Sadly, this is undoubtedly the highlight of the entire film and certainly the best action scene contained in its run time. To be fair, it's not a terrible film by any means and Daniels surprisingly gives a better acting performance than normal (no, really!) but I'd be hard pressed to recommend it to anyone other than die hard fans of Gary's work. A shame really.

I rented this movie because it had the Nu Image brand on it. (Nu Image usually makes better-than-average direct-to-DVD movies.) However, when I started to watch it I discovered that it was a coproduction with producer Harry Alan Towers, who has made a number of turkeys in the past. It looks like Towers had more control over this movie, which would explain why the end results are unsatisfying. It's somewhat cheap-looking, and while its laid back style is refreshing at first, it soon becomes so laid back in whatever it does - including action sequences - that you'll wish they'd liven things up significantly. The martial arts aren't spectacular, being both poorly directed and choreographed, and the gunplay is pretty pathetic. There are also a few times when it seems that important footage is missing, leaving some questions hanging in the air. On the other hand, this is one of the rare times where a shot in Bulgaria movie is actually taking place in Bulgaria, and the ending for a change is not 100% happy. This isn't one of the worst movies ever made, but it would probably land on a list of the most mediocre movies ever made because it doesn't seem to be trying that hard in any way you can think of.

Gary Daniels (SUBMERGED) is the star of the show in this low-rent C-grade thriller that eschews action for plot, and comes off all the worse because of that. The story is a convoluted mystery involving Daniels as a reporter investigating the death of an old buddy. Cops, robbers and the Russian mafia are inevitably involved and repeatedly try to kill Daniels before he finds out too much. Sigh.

Yep, it's a story as old as the hills and portrayed particularly badly here, with sloppy, nonsensical editing and a real 'cheap' feel to it in every aspect of the production. Like many modern B-movies this was filmed in Bulgaria, and the producers actually deserve kudos for setting their film in Bulgaria rather than pretending that Eastern Europe looks like America.

Otherwise things are strictly routine and the film follows the tired formula of plot, action, plot action ad infinitum. The bad news for action fans is that it isn't even very good. A car chase plays it safe all the while, offering nothing new or unseen to the genre, and the martial arts fights are few and far between. The shoot-outs are cheesy beyond belief. There are probably about half a dozen spread out throughout the film which is just not enough.

Now, Daniels is a great martial artist, and when he does get to fight, he does a damn good job. So it's bizarre that they didn't let him do it more often! Daniels is a better fighter than he is an actor but he does a good job here compared to others in the cast. He's one of those actors that are impossible to dislike. As for the rest of the cast, they're instantly forgettable. One guy does a poor Jim Carrey impersonation while the love interest is played by the particularly bland and unattractive Carol Campbell.

Things begin to make more sense when you realise this was written and produced by none other than notorious exploitation legend Harry Alan Towers under his 'Peter Welbeck' pseudonym. CITY OF FEAR carries on in Towers' cheap, anything-for-a-buck tradition that the 81 year old shows no signs of stopping just yet.