Mort, impair et passe

I thought the movie was fairly well done for a made for TV movie, and it contained both a lot of action and humor. I found the entertainment value worth watching, and would watch it again or a similar show again. I'm disappointed that Sean was not credited here on IMDb.

I can see a possibility for an action series based on this concept or a sequel with Sean once again playing for even higher "cash" stakes, since his life would be on the line again anyway.

I felt that Sean played the role very well, and reminds me of an actor by the name of Matthew Ashford who plays Jack Deveraux on Days of Our Lives - the Soap Opera.

After watching many of the "Next Action Star" reality TV eps TiVo taped this gawd-awful tripe for me. For some bizarre reason - and I only have myself to blame - I watched the whole thing, hoping that there would be *something* unique in the entire movie. After so much hype about Joel Silver's "Midas Touch" with action flicks, he might want to make sure he bones up on his alchemy.

First, the only redeeming value of the entire film was Billy Zane, and even he couldn't lift the slipshod writing out of the crapper. Having said that, Zane's performance falters about 2/ 3rds of the way through, as he doesn't even seem to know what else to do other than look smug.

Can't blame him here, though. The writing, quite frankly, sucked. Let's take ideas from "Rat Race," "Enemy of the State," "Terminator," "Midnight Run" and any bad gambling film you can think of and simply rehash it. And who's brilliant idea was it to have TWO bridge chase sequences in a ROW?

Sean Carrigan, the "man of the hour" of "The Next Action Star" shows all of the strengths and weaknesses the casting directors mention during the entire run of the series. A one-note johnny, Sean plays the dumb good looking jock very well, but struggles with shouldering the weight of the film. Quite frankly, we never quite seem to care about whether he lives or dies by about mid-way through, as Carrigan fails to provide a reason for the audience to even like him. His dumb-but-lucky routine gets old as there really isn't anything about the character to root for.

But Carrigan is a dream compared to the wooden, rigid Corinne Van Ryck de Groot. Did Howard Fine really tell her to pretend to be a Terminator for the first half of the film? I don't think so. I kept expecting her to quote Arnie. Her character "performance" can be compared only to the dramatic depths of "Freddy Got Fingered," though not nearly as well-developed. The camera loves her in dark, shadowy limousines, but in the harsh light of day her demeanor sucks all energy off the screen. Jeanne Bauer showed more natural life in her five minute bit part than Corinne showed at any part of her screen time.

Ultimately, Sean has the rugged good looks to provide a good lead in an ensemble cast, but shouldn't have been left to do this one solo. It was simply too big of a task for him. "Next Action Star" colleague Jared Elliot may or may not have had better luck with some more dynamic characterization, but it's hard to tell given Jeff Welch's lame script. Someone should take Welch's iMac away from him before he hurts himself or anyone else. And finally, Van Ryck de Groot simply was outclassed and way out of her reach, even for complete shlock like this.

Joel Silver should be ashamed.

This was the worst movie I have ever seen Billy Zane in. I understand that this movie was mainly to showcase the new comers, who did pretty good for newbies, but over all, the movie was not believable.

With all of the gunfire, you would think the police would have intervened. Even the coin being a bug on Sean was stupid. The way Sean suddenly realizes the coin is the bug, was not realistic.

Looks like this movie was slapped together fast. Poor job. Get a better writer.

The count down to the end was not in sync with anything. It took longer to fight. And what a coincidence that each time Billy was going to blast Sean, he'd be out of bullets. Once, I can believe, but not twice.

Actually, Billy's character was goofy. It was so stupid when Sean punches him out at the end. It was like a comedy. Bad! Bad! Bad!

This movie at first seems like a movie that was made just for the sake of debuting two actors, both do a decent job of playing their characters, acting-wise at least, the female lead has the "tough/good looking chick" look down. Billy Zane manages to keep his cool like most of his movies so although his character has probably been done before, he still keeps it interesting with his facial expressions representing one who is truly "sick." After the plot is introduced the action (chases/shootouts/which I'll get to later) is almost non-stop until the end, (very good pacing IMO) while it all has been done before, at least you CAN see what's going on unlike some recent over-edited movies like Catwoman (yes recent movies have lowered my standards by a LOT)

The bad parts? Well a LOT of improbabilities, if Billy Zane's character always hunts people (this isn't his first time) why is he such a horrible shot? The sequence when hes on the helicopter chasing the male lead down the bridge with a Grenade launcher and keeps on missing, why didn't he think of moving closer (while not too close) to get a better aim? Also I know that Billy Zane although obviously not Jet Li or Jackie Chan is somewhat competent in martial arts since he already did that (crappy) TV film Invincible(he sure knows how to keep that evil grin on as well, whether in fight scenes or shootouts) so why didn't the casting director pick somebody who knew martial arts (I was rooting for one such person during "Next Action Star" Ilram Choi since he already has experience in doing movies as well) as well as be able to act to keep up with Billy Zane instead of cutting to a different shot once every move, i mean this IS just an excuse for an action movie right? why not make the action as good as possible? But at least they learned NOT to keep the camera way too close (unlike Catwoman or Bourne Supremacy) or like i said before edit to the point where you can't see whats going on, it just should've been better

This is a decent excuse for a TV action movie, much better than whatever else is on TV, but i expected better action, fortunately they didn't make anybody pay 9 bucks just to see it in theaters, i just enjoyed it for what it is, a movie that was made just for the sake of a movie.

I am born and raised in Cleveland , so my interest in this movie was the fact most of it was filmed here (About 90%), so the opening sequence is in Vegas , but then they show the Terminal Tower(Tower Casino) and other Cleveland landmarks,I mean the front of the casino was downtown Cleveland, what was the director thinking here?,maybe they couldn't shoot in any real Vegas casino?, but that kind of made it cheesy,then you fly to Cleveland and they show the Tower again and the same landmarks, the action scenes were OK but , why did they stay in one area if its a hunt?, why not use more of the city like many other movie do?(I guess budget was really low) then they return to Vegas ,only to see Cleveland buildings again? don't get me wrong I'm glad to see my city on film , most of the locations ,I have been myself, but be accurate with locations! overall for 2 first time actors it was OK (didn't know till I was told they were from next action star) but it entertained me