One Tough Bastard

I saw this movie on HBO about a year and a half ago, and I absolutely loved it. I've never heard of Brian Bosworth, who seems to be the typical American action movie star (he's better than Jeff Speakman by far, though). The throwaway plot in this film deals with the not-so-accidental death of North's wife and child at the hands of a couple of street hoods working for a Disney Dollars counterfeiter or an herbal tea smuggler or something. Johnny sets off in pursuit of the dudes and is led to Karl Savak (Bruce Payne from Passenger 57), the aforementioned bad guy.

There are some very well-done fight scenes here, and the story actually develops (somewhat) as North tries to lure his nemesis out of the woodwork by posing as another criminal, and is eventually offered a chance by Savak to avenge his family's death. The dialogue is laughable at points, mainly Bosworth's lines, but for the most part this movie is well-paced. Payne is right at home as the villain, and the showdown at the end is incredible. The supporting cast did well with what they had, also.

If you find this one at the bottom of a sales bin, you would do well to pick it up. Hell, I'll buy it from you. No rental store around Chicago has this film.

Bosworth shows us now, that he can act. He's very good here, putting a lot of heart into his performance. He plays Seargeant North who runs an army corp. Unfortunately for his little daughter and ex wife, they were in the wrong place in the wrong when they're witnesses to a shootout involving some bad guys, one being the ever villainous Kober of course. Bosworth comes a little too late, him taking a bullet too, but surviving. Only there's more dangerous people higher, corrupt DEA agents, led by the versatile Payne as Drew Savaak. Payne creates a real piece of work here, where killer Kober, a real piece of s..t here, is kept under his protection. Bosworth who finally has to pull the plug on his daughter's life support, where the wife'e was executed, starts asking questions and getting involved, as smelling the rats, where he exacts his own investigation and revenge. He forms a friendship with a black kid, Mikey, who helps him, while Bosworth may of found a new love, as he develops a soft spot for Mikey's mother, a social worker if memory serves me correct. Mikey has his own vendetta too, wanting to go after the guys who shot his friend. I loved the scene in the restaurant between the two, exchanging their resolutions on the killers, when they find 'em. Bosworth, a great role figure here, telling Mikey it's wrong to kill, warning him on the consequences. Mikey then asks Bosworth, "What are you gonna do, when you find em". Bosworth of course not stating the obvious, comes out with a safer answer "This is different". OTB is a solid actioner with heart too, you wouldn't expect the movie to be this good. Bosworth is a force to be reckoned with. I loved it when he was kicking a..e as you so much wanted him too. His acting, particularly at the start, really impressed. There's no denying, Payne's evil presence here is fantastic. He even brought some of his mob from Passenger 57 on board, a film I loved him in.

This movie has all the elements a good movie should NOT include. Really bad acting. A script filled with cliché's.

It's about drill seargent north. A mixture between terminator and the kindest father alive. One day his family gets killed, and he gets shot. Now he's after revenge. By only listening to this you KNOW its a bad movie. Add to that all the things like a corrupt FBI agent, a boy with trouble and a big drug dealer. This film is among the worst ever seen. But you can always see it for a laugh.

Being a fan of Kurt Wimmer, I decided that this movie was a must-see for me. Equilibrium is a genuinely great movie and Ultraviolet, though heavily flawed, had enough good action and heart to separate from similar movies. One Tough Bastard, however, is a bad 80's revenge movie made in the middle of the 90's. It would be a typical revenge flick, except it pretty much forgets this fact with some silly subplot involving experimental guns (actually Mini 14's with slight cosmetic modifications). These superguns are a letdown too, since they're only fired once during a test run.

The fight scenes aren't very good, but they have their moments, where Wimmer shows his distinctive innovations.

There aren't many interesting characters, except for corrupt agent Karl Savak. He is distinctively cheesy and entertaining, even though his quips are rather lame (as is most the dialogue). Aside from (don't laugh) MC Hammer's appearance as a villain, the movie does not have many interesting characters. An inner city black child whom Bosworth takes under his wing is particularly clichéd and uninteresting.

It's almost hard to believe that Wimmer went on to make Equilibrium and Ultraviolet.

I haven't made it all the way through this movie yet, but I have to say that this is one of the best terrible movies I have ever seen. It's an almost standard "good guy vs. cop gone bad" story, but the level of "bad" that the cop has going for himself is ridiculous. The bad guy is so bad that in the first scene that I saw him in he shoots up a room full of drug dealers, then someone else comes in to shoot him and he shoots them too. Blood all over the place. Again, standard fair for a movie like this. The best scene in this movie was where the bad guy is talking to an informant while holding an ice cream cone. The informant doesn't give him the information that he wanted so out of nowhere the bad guy kicks him in the crotch so hard the informant throws up. I hadn't really been paying attention to the movie up until this point, and maybe it says something about my generation, but I couldn't stop laughing at that. It's like the script writers went "OK, he's bad sure, we've shown him smuggling drugs and shooting people and being in general a terrible person, but what can we do to make it clear that this is the bad guy? I know! Let's have him kick a guy in the crotch really hard! BRILLIANT!" Of course, the other possibility is that the actor was a method actor and this was an improved action on his part. If so, that is the most brilliant director in the world to allow it to be kept in, since that's not what's happening, it's still a really odd action movie.