Militia

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.

I'm stunned by how many commentators here think this film features footage either mimicking scenes from bigger budget films or that the filmmakers stole these scenes and put them in their films. The studios routinely offer footage from their movies as potential stock footage for others to use. The early episodes of the JAG TV series were filled with footage from the Jack Ryan/Tom Clancy movies. It works better if the footage is from big budget flops or if only brief sequences are used rather than entire scenes as is the case in MILITIA and it helps if some attempt is made to hide anything obvious that might tip off a viewer as to the source of the footage (the Cyberdine sign being an example here)but there's nothing new about using stock footage to make your movie look bigger than it is. It's been done since the early days of film. If you want a real laugh check out RAPTOR from the same director which uses tons of footage from the 3 CARNOSAUR movies. At one point some soldiers walking (supposedly) through a warehouse pass life preservers on the wall. The reason being that this is footage from CARNOSAUR 3 which took place on a ship.

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.

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.

Man, it kills me to see the direct-to-video fare that Jennifer Beals has been starring in recently. This predictable grade-C flick is passable only because it rarely takes itself too seriously. Jim Wynorski is the master of camp mediocrity, and so we see Fredric Forrest spoof his "terrorist looney-toon" persona that was hysterical but chilling in Falling Down, and Stacy Keach and Dean Cain try their hardest to not let us know they'd rather be anywhere else than on the set of this movie. That brings us to Jennifer. Why, oh why, is this gorgeous actress with passable chops whiling away her time in trifle like this and Turbulence 2 (or was it 3?).

Anyway, I watched it all the way through and if you ask me next week about "Militia" I promise you I won't remember ever having seen it. In the meantime, Corkymeter rates Militia 2 (out of 5) stars. (Yes, it rates higher than "Woo" because it knows it's piffle). Jennifer, Jennifer, Jennifer...