Showdown in Manila

At least we know who should play in the life and times of Imelda that being Tia Carrere (Ms. Wells) who all of a sudden is looking a bit maidenly. Ms Carrera however was by far the best actor in this mess. Alex Nevski (Nick) should stick to being a thug rather then a depressing leading man. Even Veteran Casper Van Dien (Nick) was off key in a part that only Dirk Benedict could love. Everybody else was forgettable and struggling with a script that could have used a couple of rewrites. Nick's girlfriend Sofia (Maria Bravikova) pop's in from time to time and seems to be from a different movie, it is weird. The only good things about Showdown in Manila are - the music is not bad, the ending had some finality, and sniper Victor (Dmitriy Dyuzhev) looks a lot like a young Martin Landau, but other then that don't waist your time.

I saw this movie via my satellite TV's movie package, and it was such a waste of 90 minutes of my life. The movie drew me with its cast of former action stars Don "The Dragon" Wilson, Cynthia Rothrock and Oliver Gruner plus Tia Carrere but gosh, the (lack of) acting, plot, flow and everything else made it one of the worst movies ever. Please do yourself a huge favor and avoid this turkey.

Just another Nevsky-Kurytsin lame movie making attempt. Talentless in all ways, pointless and ridiculously stupid. See for yourself.

All the members of a Violent Crime Unit, excluding main man Nick (Nevsky) are gorily decimated by an evil cabal of dope peddlers headed by The Wraith (Tagawa), and the broken, but far from unbowed Nick vows his revenge! Now working as a private detective with serially sleazy partner Charlie (Van Dien) a tough case ultimately leads them to a bloody showdown with The Wraith and his gun happy goons. While the formulaic premise is somewhat battle fatigued, Showdown in Manila is a must-see, gung ho B-actioner just for the illuminated action hero cast alone! Mathias Hues, Casper Van Dien, Mark Dacascos, Don 'The Dragon' Wilson, Tia Carrera, Alexander Nevsky, Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa, Cynthia Rothrock, and Olivier Gruner!!! Come on!!!! Only the most churlish of churls would refuse such a glittering array of (almost) immortal DTV royalty! There's plenty of ballistic bang for your buck, and if y'all didn't pay for the privilege, then you have even less to complain about! Unleavened machismo oozes from Dacascos's punch-packed, ordinance overloaded actioner, like the feral stink off a Tijuana bitty bar, it ain't exactly subtle, but it sure hits the spot! 'Showdown in Manila' admittedly takes a wee while to reach maximum revs, but the noisome climactic battle is one righteously old school Commando-style bullet bonanza!!!

Ok. The middle part of this movie was terrible. I even considered turning the movie off. But aside from all of that, the beginning and the end (the first 25 minutes and the last 30 minutes) were pretty good. Those scenes were not too boring, included lots of action, and the acting wasn't that bad. A lot of the time. Keep in mind that I said a lot of the time. Because there was one actor (the main actor in the movie, Alexander Nevsky) who was absolutely horrible. He has only been in a few films ever, does not even speak good English (he has a Russian accent so it is occasionally difficult to understand what he is saying), and simply looks bored when killing the bad guys. On the plus side, he is not seen much in the action scenes, only moreso in the middle of the movie. To conclude, I think this film should be watched at least once, as some parts of it were very enjoyable, and at the end, the fifteen minute long fight scene with guns and explosions is one that I just can't stop watching.