Terminal Rush

TERMINAL RUSH here has the spark of potential, as it was one of the few films of Don Wilson's that I didn't buy on a whim and was actually excited about beforehand. Disappointingly, it's humorless DIE HARD knockoff that makes the works of Jean-Claude Van Damme seem stellar by comparison.

The story: When the Hoover Dam is overtaken by hostage-holding terrorists (led by Michael Anderson Jr. and Roddy Piper), it's up to troubled Native American policeman Jacob Harper (Wilson) to infiltrate the monument and disarm the criminals.

Considering that Wilson's own ethnicity is a complete non-factor in most of his movies, it's kind of cool to see him branch out and play a character of a different race...even though said character is as bland as sofkee. The real attractions here are Michael Anderson and Roddy Piper, though their appeal is likewise limited: at the best, they echo Gary Busey and Tommy Lee Jones in UNDER SIEGE, but particularly Piper isn't given much room to play with his character, and neither of their deeds are quite nefarious enough to make them stand out. The entire film's like that: the premise is interesting enough to warrant a look, but in the end, the movie is played and directed so lifelessly (and yet so seriously) that it's going to take a very specific fan to really get interested in it.

The same goes for the action, but with ol' Don, I've come to expect that. TERMINAL RUSH actually has fewer fight scenes and generally less action than the average Wilson flick: there's a bit of kicking and punching and at least one shootout throughout, but only three outright hand-to-hand fights. The movie presents Don with two ready opponents - henchman/karateka Michael Bernardo (who attained slightly better results as a villain in Wilson's VIRTUAL COMBAT) and pro wrestler/judoka Roddy Piper - but though one showdown is marginally better than the other, they're both basically crud, proving that Don doesn't need Art Camacho working on his movies to deliver substandard fight choreography.

Of the cumulative fifteen Don Wilson films I've watched, this one ranks low, because it's just no fun to watch. Even the other movies had a greater appeal based on silly scripts, but TERMINAL RUSH just acts as a sleeping pill for me. At the 12-minute mark, I was already bored with the movie, and if I had known that it wasn't going to get any better, I would've stopped watching then.

Jacob Harper is the only one that was above a 1 rating. The FBI Agent was dumber than dirt. The plot lacked any version of credibility. Some of the action scenes worked OK, but there seemed to be an unlimited supply of bad guys. And then where did they all go at the end?

TERMINAL RUSH is a very poor showing, even for fans of Don "The Dragon" Wilson and his admittedly less-than-stellar filmography. This one's one of those DIE HARD rip-offs that filled video shelves at your local Blockbuster back in the 1990s, with terrorists taking over the Hoover Dam and lone renegade cop Wilson the only man who can stop them.

Sadly, this film is so cheap-looking and ineptly staged that it's impossible to enjoy. There isn't much action really, just a lot of overacting, and the action when it does arrive is mechanical and rather dull. Wilson isn't really on form either, and seems to be struggling with his role; he never really convinces as a Native American either.

The bad guys are played by the tag-team of Michael Anderson Jr. (LOGAN'S RUN) and Roddy Piper (THEY LIVE), doing their best impressions of Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey in UNDER SIEGE. Their overacting is frankly an embarrassment. Old-timer Brett Halsey (RETURN OF THE FLY) has a minor part, but there's no reason to bother tuning into this waste of money and time.

"Terminal Rush" was not the first "Die Hard" rip-off that Don "The Dragon" Wilson appeared in. Four years earlier, he starred in the Roger Corman-produced "Bloodfist VI: Ground Zero". As bad as that movie was, it looks like professional filmmaking compared to "Terminal Rush", especially since this movie was directed by Damian Lee, one of Canada's worst directors. This movie is bad in every way you can think of - the cinematography looks bland and washed out, the sound is poorly recorded, the camera-work is clumsy, the locations look bland, the fight scenes look like they were choreographed in five minutes, the script has a number of plot holes, and Wilson doesn't look or act very enthusiastic. The biggest sin the movie makes is being so incredibly dull. It's poor efforts like this which explain why Wilson stopped appearing in movies.

The premise of taking over a dam and threatening to blow it up if the terrorist's demands are not met is interesting enough, yet I doubt you'll ever get that far into the movie. From the very beginning of the opening credits, you can tell it's yet another lame movie HBO will probably use to fill up dead air time at three in the morning. The acting is laughable, the camera shots off-center, out of focus and they constantly wobble all over the place, and the music is just some guy tapping on the lower end of his keyboard continually. And it is more than obvious no one ever came into physical contact with anyone else while throwing a punch. Gunshots are barely heard and sound like popcorn popping and there is no blood - even when people are shot in the face at point blank range. At one point some guy gets blown up by a grenade and one moment later you see him just lying there, no damage done. Maybe it knocked him out? Also, another hysterical point of interest is how the bad guy kills like six of his own men just because they ask him a question. Pretty lame, even as a "bad movie night" entry.