Deathline

Gee, what's not to like about this movie? The acting? It's serviceable enough considering this isn't a big budget film. Rutger Hauer's finest work is not demonstrated here, but still this is a Rutger Hauer film which means that it will be a bit different from the regular straight-to-video junk you see. The shootouts were laughable? Of course they were! Shootouts are always laughable in every movie in which a hero survives totally unscathed. The two notable exceptions are "Saving Private Ryan" and "Tombstone". There are a few others, but at least Hauer and Scio aren't sliding down glaciers on a car fender or something of that ilk.

Let's put things in proper perspective. When you have a movie that sounds good before it goes on paper, but doesn't look nearly as good after the ink has dried you find ways to make it not a complete waste of time. So you do the following:

1. Get Rutger Hauer

2. Buy lots of bullets (hero resistant, of course!)

3. Get a beautiful actress (and in this case

Yvonne Scio is a 10!)

4. Buy some more bullets

5. Show lots of skin (Nude female bodybuilders with

soft muscles...hmmmm)

6. Have sex ...lots of it

7. Buy a few more bullets

8. Kill all the bad guys (but only after you reveal

that some good guys are bad and worse than the

bad guy you were originally after who turns out

to be easier to kill than expected)

9. Throw in convoluted ending (like my previous

parenthetical remark)

10. Have more sex

For Pete's sake, people this is a cable channel movie. Enjoy it for the adrenaline and the visual pleasure. Don't get hung up on thinking about it. I'll watch this one again, if there isn't anything else on, or I need an Yvonne Scio fix.

This movie had the kernel of something different in its concept and layout, but blows it completely. Back from death movies with an action twist have been done several times, (good ones being "Robocop" and "The Crow") but this one doesn't even approach the philosophical aspects other than people looking at Rutger Hauer and saying, "I thought you were dead."

No, what made this movie start off different was the bizarre mix of old Eastern European backgrounds and settings with near future technology and lifestyle. This different look was reminiscent of (and done better) in Rutger Hauer's other recent movie, "Fatherland."

If the movie had tried it could have been a so-so Bladerunner set in Russia, or if it really made a leap it could have been something uniquely it's own. Instead it ruins any hope it had with endless shoot-outs and sex scenes. These in and of themselves don't make much of a plot or a movie, and I kept thinking of those parodies of Hollywood movies, which this one quickly became.

Wade (Rutger Hauer) is an American smuggler of biotechnology, during a Russian job, he's quickly disposed of by Merrick (Mark Dacascos). But this being the future, Wade is brought back to life via a clandestine soviet experimentation and goes about gaining vengeance on the people that offed both him and his girlfriend.

Make no bones about it, this film is highly forgettable, but for the time that it's on it's entertaining enough. A highly simplistic, derivative story for sure, however for fans of excessive cartoon violence and gratuitous nudity that doesn't advance the plot in the least bit you'll be entertained.

Eye Candy: Anita Neszmenyi; Ildikó Szücs, and numerous extras also appear topless; Szilvia Bizek & Yvonne Sciò show everything

My Grade: C-

DVD Extras: Picture gallery; trailer for this film; and Trailers for "On the Border", "October 22", & "the Peacekeeper"

I read the tags before watching it, they said Cyborg, there was no cyborg. I like everything I've seen Rutger Hauer in. This is a budgeted film, not really a bad film. More T&A then I prefer but, no Cyborg! So that lowered it to 5 from probably 7.

Merrick (Dacascos) and Wade (Hauer) are smugglers in near future Russia. Merrick betrays Wade, kills him during a deal and muscles in on one of the main gangs locally. Wade is brought back to life by a shadowy Government conspiracy and sets out to seek revenge enrolling the help of a call girl on the way.

I'm a big fan of Mark Dacascos, I don't know why but I just like martial arts and think he's got the charisma that should make him a bigger star. Probably one of the reasons for his lack of star power is that he regularly appears in stuff like this. It's interesting to see him playing a bad guy for a change but he really doesn't have anything to do. He gets to do a few big kicks etc but other than that it's all down to his ability to act menacing and bad.....and how does he portray his "bad" side - by having a black goatee beard. It's that simple, he does do evil things but it's like the beard is the main thing he does to make his character menacing. Hauer is as bad as he always is in these cheap thrillers (Omega Doom anyone?), at times it does feel like he doesn't care anymore and is just sleepwalking through this role because he needs the work. He isn't believable in the least as the man driven by revenge who returns from the grave, the whole film he has the demeanour of a man who is popping out to buy a paper on a Sunday morning - he could have put some emotion into the role!

The plot doesn't exactly help the actors do their work. The essence of 'man hunting other man' doesn't really stretch out a whole movie so they bring in lots of Government/police conspiracy involvement and gang war stuff to the party. This just serves to make a rubbish plot too complicated rather than adding value. They also add the Point Blank/Payback idea that Hauer is doing all this just to get his share of the money that he was owed from the deal. But the double crosses all get a bit silly and boring - especially towards the end where the scriptwriters clearly realises that what he's writing has no excitement or point to it and decides to throw in as many twists as he can to cover it up. Other issues in the film are left hanging - why is Hauer brought back to life? It's never really explained and eventually is used to create another double-cross. What about the brain plugins? They used several times in the film but there's not detail of them and they're not used any better in the plot than a TV or radio? There are several other strands that are not covered well, but I got so fed up with the constant double crossing that I've left them.

The direction and detail of the film just makes it even more annoying. Other reviewers have mentioned nudity, I didn't think there was that much but I know what they mean; topless female boxers, topless assassins etc it doesn't rely on sex to sell itself but it doesn't see the harm in using titillation even if it doesn't fit into the plot. Secondly the shootouts (of which there are several spontaneous scenes) are terrible - they don't even try to be close to reality. Imagine Hauer and a call girl on an open rooftop (with no cover), both have handguns. They are under fire by a large group with automatic weapons firing continuously from shielded positions. Both out heroes manage to dispatch the group and escape with great ease and without even one shot coming close to them. This is what most of the scenes are like - Hauer just casually shoots at all enemies and all shots at him hit the scenery all round. It really sucked all the excitement out of these scenes and just made it all look lazy.

The insulting bit is that the director still thinks he's making a clever film. In the middle of the film he puts a scene that is straight out of the Battleship Potemkin (a la "The Untouchables"). Is this an attempt to show us that he is a clever director that has seen classic movies and is using them to enhance his own style? Or is it a clumsy attempt just to look smart? The scene is so out of place as well and just makes the director look stupid - the fact that it is out of place just shows how shoddy the rest of it is. Did the same reference seem out of place in The Untouchables? No! because De Palma's film was all quality and the reason for the scene was not just to make a film reference (as is the case here).

Bad performances, bad plot, bad script, really bad action. I'd read the reviews before I saw it and thought it would pass the time and that Dacascos would multiply the value of the film. Unfortunately any number multiplied by zero is still zero.