Young Rebels

It's an Armin Shevran film allright.

It's what you'd call good-bad. There's some unintentional laughs in there, whether by dialogue or the way it's edited.

Grab a few friends, some drinks, and you'll have a wonderful time.

The third film I've seen by Iranian-born action director Amir Shervan, following on from his later-made KILLING American STYLE and SAMURAI COP. Sadly, YOUNG REBELS lacks the so-bad-it's-good quality of those two movies, the inherent entertainment in their cheesiness, although it is very similar in look and feel. Somehow, this one lacks the edge and subsequently is just a poor B-movie.

The action-focused storyline is very similar to those of Shervan's two other movies. A group of bad guy criminals go around wasting rivals and innocent people caught up in their crimes. Robert Z'Dar is one again a hulking henchman. The nondescript heroes give chase and attempt to ambush the villains, resulting in plenty of shoot-outs and cheesy action violence. Old-timer Aldo Ray shows up in support.

Needless to say this is a film affected by the curse of the B-movie: awful acting, badly scripted dialogue, and just a couple of locations in which to set the action. It's a particularly weak film in terms of story with around half of the running time made up of striptease sequences from various actresses you don't particularly want to see nude in the first place. There are also an inordinate amount of sex scenes included to pad out the running time although most of them get interrupted before anything happens. The action is over the top but not as well staged as in, say, KILLING American STYLE. One other thing I have to criticise is the sound design. The gun fights are accompanied by ridiculously loud cannon booms every time a handgun or shotgun fires, so you have to turn the sound right down and end up missing most of the dialogue, which annoyed me.

While there seems to be a lot more going on here story wise, this thing is really all over the place, quality wise it's pretty much on par with Killing American Style. I will say though Amir has no problem putting beautiful woman in front of the camera, and I definitely appropriate that, as with the lack of rape this time around and thankfully we get Robert Z'Dar back goofy hairdo and all to. Also cheers to Cinema Epoch for making this thing look brand new.

This film sits well in the badly made but good to watch because it is category. It seems to have been made by someone who has never been to America before, so we get their vision of what America is like in their mind, and it is quite entertaining.

The story is something to do with drug dealers and helicopter pilots but nobody is watching this for the narrative.

What this isn't however is well made and its not just the dialogue that is laugh out loud terrible. Its also the recording of the dialogue which varies from okay that sounds reasonable in volume to very loud/very quiet, not in synch with the actors lips and even at times voices that obviously do not come from that actor. An old mans voice from a guy in his 20s? Such madness is on show. The other whacky sound issues are the punch noises which only seem to kick in after the first few silent hits land, as if the sound effects guy has been caught out because he is watching something else more interesting. But its the gun noises that take the biscuit. Handguns sound like a Howitzer, shotguns ricochet like bullets from a spaghetti wester and people get shot but they somehow manage to shrug it off. It must be the magical bullet proof blouson leather jackets on show which is where a big chunk of the budget went. Apart from one guy whose leather had a massive hole in the sleeve.

Other stand out scenes are the stripper scenes of which there are about three too many, which all use the same terrible synth music which is funny in itself. I am guessing the director loves strippers, in particular ones who wiggle their backsides at people. While most movies will have one lady do this scene, we actually get to benefit from one girl finishing her act and then another girl comes in and does hers. Unnecessary but you likely won't be complaining. As long as you can avoid noticing the bad sunburn and lack of grooming on the girls. But it's not just female nudity, the male lead seems to have an aversion to shirts and there is no way of knowing the temperature this was filmed in. Because we have guys wearing full on winter coats while others roam around bare chested. There are plenty of action scenes however, many involving the big chin man. He is also involved in a love making scene which borders on partner abuse, with him on the receiving end.

All in all this is a highly entertaining movie for those well versed enough to spot how badly it has been made. If you approach watching this as a standard Hollywood movie you will be disappointed.

As others have mentioned, this is not as inspired a piece of dreck as the same director's "Samurai Cop," though it does have many of the same basic elements, from WTF screen presence Z'Dar (has any actor's face ever been QUITE so square?) to the incessant lame "martial arts" to actresses with implants who were probably discovered as strippers, and in fact largely PLAY strippers here. (And they're not even impressive in that mode.)

In fact most of the cast appears to have been cast for their bodies, male and female--maybe they found their "talent" between gyms and strip clubs. So, needless to say, the acting is highly variable, and the certifiable professionals (like Aldo Ray, who yells his way through a couple scenes) are not at all reliably on the "better" end.

I guess what most distinguished "Cop" is that the dialogue was just jaw-droppingly awful at times--I can still quote some lines. It's bad here too, but not quite memorably so. There's also a greater monotony to the "plot," which is pretty much just one shootout after another, each killing off a dozen or so extras introduced solely for that purpose. So, not a great bad movie. But still, an entertaining one if you're not too choosy.