Militia

Dean Cain stars as an ATF agent who teams up with a formerly paroled racist and ex-militia mad man Frederic Forrest (How does one go from Apoclypse Now to this?) who take down a plan to assassinate the president (or some high profile official) with a missile (not sure if it's nuclear because these generic flicks run together for me) and Jennifer Beals as Dean Cain's back up leads an all out assault against the leader of the militia (Another talented actor, Stacy Keach!) Actually I was puzzled as to whether these militia men were white supremacists or if they were just playing army, one thing is for sure the movie is completely hopeless. How bad is Militia? So bad it rips off stock footage from Terminator 2 (!), American Ninja 2 (!!) and Delta Force 2 (!!!) and somehow manages to be a disgrace to all three films. Militia is along the lines of borrowed action and the lengths they go to disguise the stock footage as their own action is truly hysterical. Indeed had they put as much attention in concealing their stock footage, into making a good movie, this movie still would've sucked. All in all a terrible movie.

* Out of 4-(Bad)

Jay Andrews aka Jim Wynorski. Most people would probably think "Who?" after hearing the name but if you know a thing or two about B-movies, you'll probably be aware that this guy is the master of modern day Grade Z cheese. Yes, his work is on par with the infamous "Grade Z" Sci-Fi turkeys of the 1950's. Under many different aliases over the years, he's directed a number of dreadful so called horror films with tons of pointless nudity, outrageously bad sexploitation flicks starring the likes of Julie Strain and Nikki Fritz and finally, hilariously bad "Action" movies made up of stock footage from bigger budgeted movies often starring has-been actors in the lead which he usually does under the alias "Jay Andrews". Militia happens to be just one of those.

To date I've only seen two of the "Jay Andrews" patchwork movies, this and Extreme Limits. This is a better quality movie in the sense that it isn't quite as cheap as the latter. There are about 3 original explosions and they actually hired helicopters here. WOW! Isn't that something? Compared to Extreme Limits however it is something, as it just used (extremely grainy) stock footage from Cliffhanger and Narrow Margin for helicopter scenes. However, what made Extreme Limits so unintentionally hilarious was the fact that it was the cheapest looking thing I'd seen outside of an Ed Wood movie, so the fact that this doesn't look quite as cheap kind of makes this a bit less fun to watch. But this is still pretty awesome in it's awfulness. The opening scene uses footage from Delta Force 2 and Rambo: First Blood Part 2. I am 100% against taking whole action scenes of stock footage from other movies. If you don't have the budget, then don't do it is what I say. The first thing that makes it obvious what's stock footage and what isn't is the fact the new footage is shot in dry California countryside, while the footage from these movies is jungle scenery. There are countless errors like this but more later. Later we are treated to Terminator 2 footage. Some advice Jim, if you insist on using stock footage in your movies, try to find some relatively obscure footage that people haven't seen. Terminator 2 was a highly successful movie and nearly everybody has seen it, so nearly everybody will recognise that. And besides, why would you want to watch an action scene you've seen in a far superior movie all over again in a movie that is inferior in every way? On the positive side, the new footage is edited together with this relatively well and isn't nearly as obvious as any of the scenes in Extreme Limits but the fact that everybody has seen Terminator 2 makes it obvious. In another scene, there is a brief chase in which Dean Cain and Frederic Forrester's characters jump from a moving truck which cuts to a scene of a truck crashing and exploding courtesy of footage from American Ninja 2. There was nothing remotely good about the original American Ninja 2 footage which was a relatively low budget movie itself and this particular scene could have been emulated very easily on a small budget. Just goes to show how little effort went into this project. Not only that, but both vehicles are different colours. And the patchwork only gets worse towards the end. I'm not quite sure where this footage comes from, but it is hideously grainy and the difference in quality is absolutely obvious. And again, we have the scenery conflicts. At one point we are treated to two missiles being fired at a building from stock footage, which we are meant to believe is the building Dean Cain and Stacy Keach are inside, yet we saw them walking into a completely different building earlier on. I can only assume that they thought we would have forgotten about that by then. Unfortunately, I had not.

The performances are largely terrible. Dean Cain and Frederic Forrest don't look like they're interested in the film they're in at all. Jennifer Beals is very pretty, but has almost nothing to do in her part. The award for the worst performance by far goes to Stacy Keach, who hams it up in a totally over the top character who spends most of his time sitting on a chair and only interacts with 2 or 3 characters.

Extreme Limits directed by Jim Wynorski as Jay Andrews has to be the most hilariously bad movie I've ever seen. Militia disappointed me in the sense that it wasn't quite as bad as that one, but this is still awful, Grade Z cheese of the worst kind and for that, it's still hilarious to watch.

The movie started out with an inaccurate portrayal of a law enforcement search warrant/raid. It indicated a military raid, complete with gunships and rockets. Buildings, without regard to the occupants or threat, were destroyed in a typical Hollywood fireball. Not only is this a poor reflection on law enforcement tactics, it depicts the ATF exactly as many of the radical militia groups believe them to be.

The film also showed the militia persons as dangerous radicals . Many are and deserve the attention they get However, most are actually law abiding persons with just a prepared-for-the-worst view. They believe the government is selling out the Constitution. We are heading toward government by foreigners. With the current state of affairs(Clinton, China, NATO, Los Alamos,etc) it's easy to see why.

Having been in law enforcement for almost 20 years, I have dealt with federal agents before. Yes, they do sometimes have the holier-than-thou attitude and charge into situations better handled other ways. Waco and Ruby Ridge are perfect examples of ignorance in tactics. But most of the time, they do things in and orderly, detailed, plan to avoid the confrontations this film eagerly inflates.

I believe the film reflected poorly on both ATF and militia groups. It was obviously biased and definitely anti-gun. This is so much the norm these days for Hollywood. Bad mouth gun owners and Second Amendment rights, yet show all the bloody gun battles possible in the film just to make a buck.

Bad acting, lousy special effects among other things, transform what was suppose to be an action movie into one of the best comedies I´ve ever seen.

I specially like the parts where they took scenes from Terminator 2, Rambo: First Blood Part II and Delta Force 2 to make them part of this film.

For a good laugh, I strongly recommend to watch this one.

I gave this film a 4 only because my favorite Superman actor, Dean Cain, was in it. The acting isn't that bad but everything else is, the premise, the plot, the pace, the predictability, etc. All movies require some suspension of disbelief, but there were too many things going on here to seem believable. In fact everything seemed contrived. My nagging question the whole time I was watching this was "Who financed this mess?" Was it some venture capitalist with nothing better to do with his money? Was it friends of Stacy Keach, or Jennifer Beal, or Dean Cain? Was it the Writer's Guild trying to help some unemployed members? How could decent actors get sucked into a film like this? This whole film seemed more like a second rate cop show from the 60s than a movie from this millennium. Don't waste your time unless you are a die-hard John Beck (Deputy Director Anderson) fan.