Mission of Mercy

I heard about this movie after watching a documentary called "Life In The Trenches; The Lives of Independent Filmmakers". The documentary was full of interviews with indie guys like Kevin Smith, James Shamus and the guy who did this movie, Michael King. What funny guy. Every time the movie "Life in the Trenches" got dull, they'd cut to King and he would tell another funny story about making low budget films. He talked about his trip through hell to make this movie. The fact that he made the whole movie for under $5,000 and how it won an award from the Hollywood Reporter as one of the top 100 most successful straight-to- video movies of 1995, man what a story! I still laugh when I think about the guy talking about what it took to get the movie done. I did a Google search and found it on IMDb. I read the review and even if it was bad, I figured I had to see this film just to see the scenes that I knew the back stories about. It took a lot of searching, but finally I found it in a Miami video store. They had five copies on the shelf. I asked the guy behind the counter about it and he said it was one of his favorite movies. So with a bad review and a good one, I didn't know what to expect. I watched it and was surprised how good it was. In fact I have recommended it to several friends and they all liked it. They should release it on DVD with the documentary. I can't find the documentary anywhere, I saw it on a PBS station one night. But if you see it and then this movie, you'll dig Mission of Mercy. Even if you don't see the documentary, you'll like the movie. It's just a fun movie. Kinda like The Dirty Dozen Meets Ed Wood. Personally, I think its a cult movie in the making. That's my opinion. Check it out.

Am I wrong to regard a movie as similar to a business...in that it is supposed to make money? Then I watch stuff like this and imagine that many people who had anything to do with this must be bankrupt. It depicts five mercenaries, intent on rescuing a businessman's wife, who is reportedly held captive by a Panamanian thug; except when they get there, they find that the spouse WANTS to be where she is. This is preceded by a couple of scenes showing the martial arts proficiency of some of the group, and another wherein a psychic helps them locate the tropical estate. It's like what I would expect to see in a flashback of my playmates' imaginary backyard "adventures". So it seems even stupider that anyone would PAY to see grownups participate in anything so childish.