Red Line

Actually this is just another thirteen in a dozen movie, you'd think. But the location (Russia) makes the movie a bit more original and gives it a certain atmosphere and second Hauer is acting very convincing. These kind off roles (mysterious ruthless man) are perfect for him..

Low budget, near future Sci-fi (hanging on the coat-tails of Blade Runner). Basic movie making with enough bombs, bullets and female nudity, not to turn it down. Features B-movie heavyweights Rutger Hauer and Marc Dacascos.

I read the tags before watching it, they said Cyborg, there was no cyborg. I like everything I've seen Rutger Hauer in. This is a budgeted film, not really a bad film. More T&A then I prefer but, no Cyborg! So that lowered it to 5 from probably 7.

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.

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.