The Alternate

The video that I watched calls it "Agent of Death" but AKA "The Alternate" and "The Replacement."

Basic story: Election day is approaching and the President of the United States is not doing well in the popularity polls. Elizabeth, his Chief of Staff and organizer of his re-election campaign, decides to hire a gang to stage a fake kidnapping of the President thinking that this will give him lots of free TV coverage. When one of the members of the gang doesn't show up, a former CIA agent (Eric Roberts) is hired as the replacement. The kidnapping is staged as planned until the leader of the gang (Bryan Genesse) reveals that they have turned it into a real kidnapping and they have no intention of letting Eric and the President leave the building alive.

At first it was a little difficult not to compare this film to "Heaven's Fire" or "Die Hard" but it turns out to be a totally different film.

One happy difference -- the FBI agent outside the building, who was sort of annoying in "Heaven's Fire," is replaced by a much smarter and more entertaining Agent Briggs (played by Michael Madsen) in Agent of Death. His smirk is worth a thousand words.

Another plus is having Steven Lambert as stunt coordinator. While his work on the film "Titanic" probably reached a wider audience, true fans of mayhem will remember his work on films like "Total Recall," "Army of Darkness" and John Carpenter's "Vampires."

The second half of the film showcases a variety of weapons from handguns to blow guns to a flame thrower but they take a back seat to the martial arts. Eric Roberts looks in good shape and has shown off his martial arts skills in other films but with Bryan Genesse both choreographing the fights and playing his adversary, we have a situation where the good guy doesn't get in all the good moves. As Eric and his tux get the worst of the deal, Eric quips, "There goes the deposit."

Watch for the running gag as, behind the main action, the ditzy blond television reporter (played by Heidi Jo Markel) ducks and dodges but never lets go of her mike.

Fans will also recognize Larry Manetti (Rick on Magnum PI) playing Agent Harris and Eliza Roberts, real life wife of Eric Roberts, playing Chief of Staff Donaldson.

I don't want to give anything away but, please stay for the credits.

I bought this on a double set DVD with Black Moon Rising for £2.99 here in the UK. I didn't have particularly high hopes after reading the majority of the reviews here. Nevertheless, I decided to watch it anyway and it more or less met my low expectations. I certainly didn't find it as bad as some people are making it out to be for sure. Some have labelled this as "the worst Die Hard wannabe ever", "funniest movie ever" and even "the worst movie ever". It's none of these. Go see "Blast" if you want to see the worst Die Hard clone ever. See "Disaster" or a Jim Wynorski movie if you want to see the most unintentionally funny movies ever. See "Crazy Six" if you want to see the worst movie ever. People who aren't used to "B-grade" movies probably watch it based on the familiar names in the cast and overreact. Because while by no means good, it passes fairly painlessly.

The plot, while just another take on the basic Die Hard plot, is acceptable enough for the kind of movie we're in and although it takes a while before getting onto the real kidnapping, overall it moves at a comfortable enough pace and is rarely boring.

What the biggest problem the movie is faced with is that for the majority of it there is only one villain and he makes some incredibly stupid decisions, and they both appear to have appalling shots. Most of the gunplay consisted of firing thousands of rounds of ammo and destroying background scenery rather than hitting the targets. Plus those scenes had zero suspense as he was only up against one person, so you knew neither of them were going to hit until the end. There are also certain times when both could have taken each other out and don't, and some ridiculous decisions from the villain - he decides to chase Eric Roberts character around with a flame thrower for ages and has no success. However, the action scenes and the stunts do get better as the movie progresses and there are some entertaining hand to hand action scenes, and a relatively exciting climax. There is a faked helicopter crash which looks surprisingly convincing, and some pretty explosions.

The production values in general look okay with good lighting and clean, earthly colours but there is grainy stock footage of police cars that occasionally pops up and adds absolutely nothing. There are also certain other things that make it obvious that costs have been cut such as the older cars that explode and especially old police cars that I find hard to believe would have been in use by LAPD as late as 2000, and then there's the protesters that others have pointed out.

Overall, this is a very basic Die Hard clone which moves in exactly the way you'd expect it to and really doesn't do anything new or original and has a lot of problems. However if you catch it on TV or find it for a very low price and have nothing else to do, by all means watch it. Just don't actively seek it out or get your hopes up. Certainly a watchable, inoffensive affair but nothing memorable at all.

Umpteenth variation on the "Die Hard" formula stars Eric Roberts as an unnamed hero who turns out to be the only hope for the President of the United States (John Beck) when a traitorous government agent (Bryan Genesse, who also wrote the movie) takes advantage of events that occur. You see, it seems that the Presidents' ratings are very low and a member of his staff engineers a phony kidnapping to try to make him look sympathetic. Genesse, a part of the group involved, sees this as his opportunity to make a bunch of money. However, Roberts, an agent himself, still has some scruples and tries to foil Genesses' plans.

The movie isn't completely worthless. Director Sam Firstenberg, who'd guided so many classic martial arts movies of the 1980s, keeps it moving forward at an adequate pace. Some of the action set pieces, such as the fights and one amazing stunt, are competently done. However, the script isn't very good, and the nods to "Die Hard" are way too obvious. The characters are fairly nondescript, good guys and bad guys alike, although some of the actors try their best. If one is watching this for co-stars Ice-T and Michael Madsen, be warned that they never do very much. Things very much fall on the shoulders of Roberts and Genesse. The oddest touch is occasionally cutting back to a redneck couple watching the whole event on TV and making commentary.

A cast of familiar faces helps some. The movie co-stars Roberts' wife Eliza as the Presidents' Chief of Staff and Genesses' wife Brooke as one of the villains (with whom Roberts has a big fight scene). Also appearing are Larry Manetti, Sal Landi, and Brookes' TV dad Bill Kirchenbauer (from the series 'Just the Ten of Us') in a cameo as a "loud Texan".

If you stick it through to the end, you do get rewarded with some fairly amusing outtakes that play out alongside the ending credits.

Five out of 10.

This is a truly poor excuse for an action film. the characters act so stupidly and have so little charisma, it's hard to care for them one way or another. At one point, the villian fakes his death through a helicopter crash. Though he has the money he'd asked for as ransom and has no reason what so ever to go back to the site of his crime-he goes back. Another ridiculous plot point- the hero, having saved the president from a "Die Hard" style terrorist attack, doesn't just walk the Pres out of the building, but rather sits around, making calls on his cell phone.

This idiocy would all be okay if this flick had some decent action, but the fight scenes are choreographed with the energy of a sloth monkey and the shoot outs take place with enemies twenty feet from eachother, yet unable to hit a damn thing...and would the hero really shoot back at the villian if the President, this movie's "macguffin" was between them? Yes he would in this flick, because it means he can dive between pillars. This movie isn't bad because it's dumb- dumb ain't bad, I love dumb action movies- it's bad because it's insulting even to the undemanding.

Watching Agent of Death aka The Alternate I had the feeling that the movie was going to suck. After all it had a good premise, fake kidnapping of the President goes bad when someone decides to make it real. It also has a cast of famous names, Eric Roberts, Ice-T, and Michael Madsen. Yet the film went direct to video, not a good sign. After watching the film, I know why it went direct to video. The screenplay is filled with terrible dialogue and bad scenes. Several times in the movie, either the bad guy (a bad performance by writer Bryan Genesse) or the hero (a bad performance by Eric Roberts) has an easy chance to kill the other one, but gives it away by talking to them. Ice-T is ok, until his character disappears from the movie right away. Out of the rubble comes the great actor Michael Madsen to save this movie. This might have worked, except they gave Madsen the terrible role of the FBI agent in charge of getting the President back. Madsen is as good as possible, but is given nothing to do. Don't watch this movie.