Scorpion

Okay, full confession: My "review" is based soley on Razorfist's review on his YouTube channel, and even through that "buffer" the movie was painful to watch.

In short, avoid the movie proper -- unless you're a gluten for punishment -- watch Razor's review.

An American secret agent called Scorpion is tasked with protecting a terrorist who is set to testify against his cohorts. The job goes wrong and Scorpion's childhood friend is killed in the process, he now has a personal agenda and hunts down the killers.

Scorpion is a typically low budgeted Crown International Pictures release. It's a martial arts action flick which is extremely generic. That said I did find it consistently entertaining so it gets pass marks from me. It does have a fairly non-descript leading man, who it seems wasn't really an actor to begin with and didn't go on to make any other films. Yet the film does have a sprinkling of other people you may recognise from other b-movies, most surprisingly to me was seeing John Lazar – who played the indescribable Z-Man in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) – appear in an utterly minor role late in the film. What a waste! Anyway, it was at least nice to see him pitch up in something else. Anyhow, for what it's worth the action in this one takes place in Spain and Hawaii, as well as mainland USA. There are quite a few fights and guns to ensure things remain interesting. All things considered, I thought this one was pretty good fun. Oh and I also thought the poignant 'shoving over the statue' scene was pretty funny.

One of the stupid sub-genres I love is low budget action films starring foreign born "martial arts masters." This one features Tonny Tolleners, a dude whose primary claim to fame is that he once beat Chuck Norris in some type of contest. That must have been many years before this movie was made.

I am usually willing to grade on a curve in the case of these low budget films. Actually the budget on this probably wasn't too low since it had a few semi-known professional actors in it. But since it was a product of Crown International Pictures, I'm sure they didn't break the bank putting this down on celluloid.

Those professional folks do the best they can, but the movie is stuck with a lead who can't act. This was Tolleners' only film. Where he should stand out, the action/fight sequences, he also fails to impress. And that my friends, denotes a BIG problem. When you have a "martial arts master" who can't fight worth a damn (or at least appears that way due to the way the fights and stunts have been staged), then you are really doomed as a movie. Pacing here is deadly slow. I was hoping for the hero to get shot just so some excitement would ensue. Also aggravating is the middle 1980's synthesizer based musical score, which has not aged well in any way, shape or form.

I did like the scene filmed in my old neighborhood, downtown Los Angeles around Fifth and Main, seen in far too many films and TV shows standing in for "generic urban slum." Bet that's not the only time somebody got shot in the stairwell of the Rosslyn Hotel.

This movie can be avoided by all but the most masochistic fan of 1980's action films.

Somewhere in the lackluster shell of this boring, undistinguished movie is a much better movie trying to get out. Oh, wait...that better movie is "Bullitt", which was already a classic, so this movie is entirely superfluous.

It's weird how all these "Crown International Picture" action releases make me long for the days of Cannon/Golan-Globus, who may have made this kind of genre action/martial arts movie with their frontal lobes firmly stuck in "neutral", but at least knew how to pace their scenes and pack them with delirious, cheesy silliness.

There are some decent individual performances here especially from the actor who plays the hero's partner. There are even some good setups and some nice framing shots.But the lead can't carry the movie. Think Chuck Norris without the charisma, and you've got poor Tonny T. He's not a complete stiff, but he's in over his head, and the director can't seem to help him. I feel bad for the guy - whatever potential he had, this movie buried his chances of ever improving as an actor.

Throw in some king size plot holes, some badly choreographed action sequence and some major failures of common sense in the screen play, add some leaden pacing and clinker ridden dialog, and you're left with an extremely forgettable movie.

Don't bother with "Scorpion" unless you are desperate for a movie fix.

So far, the majority of Crown International Pictures films I've watched have been sex comedies, and pretty much all of them have been sub-par. My next was SCORPION, a Crown action film, and I can report that it's as inept as their comedies. This comes across as a cheap knock-off of a Chuck Norris movie lacking the pure entertainment value of a Cannon film from the same era.

The extraordinarily wooden Tonny Tulleners stars in the titular role, playing a secret agent used by the American government. When personal tragedy hits he goes on a killing spree to bring down the terrorist group responsible. What this all boils down to is a mixture of dodgy emoting and exposition scenes mixed with some very lacklustre action bits.

Tulleners obviously has some skill in the martial arts stakes but the fight scenes are so slow and laborious that any true fan of the martial arts will merely laugh at them. I can't help but feel that SCORPION could have been a good film, somehow, despite the deficiencies of the budget; it has potential, perhaps. But in the hands of documentary maker William Riead it's a really inept movie.