Pressure Point

The movie itself sucks donkey balls. Boring. Poorly acted.

Easily one of the most hilariously awful movies I have seen in a very long time. Bill Murray look alike Don Mogavero's brilliant performance was the one redeeming aspect of this film, and I was shocked to find out that he was neither nominated nor awarded an Oscar for his tremendous acting effort. For a man with such an obvious and visible affliction (male pattern baldness), this performance was truly revolutionary. The female lead really brought this movie down, and probably was the reason the film did not fare better at the box office and in VHS sales. The special effects were mind blowing and the action sequences did not disappoint in this tour-de-force.

You've got a wannabe James Bond lead character who's instead balding (with a clown afro wig stuck on the back of his head), paunchy, and with all the sexual and action movie appeal of your average family dentist. Who runs with the grace and speed of a toddler and escapes from a max security prison (which was apparently built over... an industrial... power plant?) in a jumpsuit sized for Andre the Giant. Hilarious, true, but action packed and heart pounding? No. The rest of the movie is just a mass of cliches and action movie tropes stitched together, making it utterly forgettable. Steve Railsbeck is wasted and Mr. Paws the stuffed bear deserves more screen time. I applaud the Rifftrax team (Mike, Bill, and Kevin) for being able to stay awake long enough to riff this movie so hilariously.

With modest budgets, Edgewood Entertainment's action films do manage to entertain. They're paced well, by and large. The action is what they can afford. Something blows up in every movie, and sometimes three or four somethings blow up. That's why people watch action films, and there's plenty of action in this one. There's generally a one-dimensional bad guy (JK Roberts, Rolland, the wonderfully bald Bruce Campbell terrorist), and this one has the cliche gang of small town thugs (none of these films are exactly advertisements for moving to Vermont, but Edgewood is not the Tourist Board, after all) and one more complicated and subtle bad guy.

There's always a B-plot romance, and the one in here is quite tepid, more a mild flirtation. I like the female character and actress, but if you're hoping for an R-rated sex scene, nope. Not in this one.

These films get skewered by the MST/Rifftrax guys, whom I'm a fan of, but these films are far and away above what they usually skewer. If you can't see that, it's because you are judging not the film, but the insults in riffing, like being a bully laughing along while a smarter kid makes fun of the kid in class who might just grow up to become Bill Gates. Quit doing that.

While it's true that this is a bit of a dorky-looking action hero, he's a good actor. And I just watched 2 years worth of Jack Ryan Amazon TV shows with the dorkiest looking Jack Ryan I've ever seen (and dorkier than I could have imagined), so that's hardly specific to Edgewood. In fact, I think that makes viewer identification with the hero easier. Hey, look, it's an average looking Joe, that's me, says the male viewer. I think it's a smart choice.

I could rate this higher to bring up the average rating, but I honestly think 4-5 stars is about right. You're never bored. It's interesting enough to keep me from playing video games while I'm watching the movies. The mystery in this one is pretty well done. Crap blows up. You spent 90 minutes being entertained. Isn't that the whole point?

Action thriller. A CIA agent aborts his mission but serves life for murder anyway. He is sprung from the prison to do one more job... Don Mogavero is excellent. Everything is good about this film except the wife's acting. Thankfully, she is not there long enough to spoil this film. Not terribly original but all the familiar bits are nicely put together, the result is highly entertaining.