Impatto finale

In my search to catch up on all the PM Entertainment movies that have somehow eluded me over the years, I finally checked out 'Final Impact' today. And I have to say that I enjoyed it.

I was a little disappointed by the lack of action, but genuinely surprised by the amount of drama.

Llamas plays Nick, a former champion kickboxer who can't handle the realities of life after losing to over-the-top bad guy Jake Gerrard, succumbing to alcoholism and depression. Nick finds a way to turn it all around by training a young Michael Worth (who delivers a good performance) to take on Jake and exact his revenge in the ring, fist-to-fist.

It's no 'Rocky,' though it tries to be. The fight scenes are decent and shot pretty well (the foley work is laughably cheese at times). But the performances are all around solid and the music is enjoyable. Vegas made for a beautiful backdrop to the film as well.

'Final Impact' reminded me greatly of another PM classic, 'Deadly Bet.' Though, 'Deadly Bet' has slightly better action so I give that one the advantage.

If you like PM Entertainment films, or a little drama with your kickboxing, you really can't do any better than 'Final Impact.'

This film is about an up and coming kickboxer, Danny (Michael Worth), who is trained by an ex-champ, Nick (Lorenzo Lamas), who also, it turns out, is a total idiot! And, an idiot with little in the range of acting.

Danny thinks he's ready for the big kickboxing tourney in Las Vegas. While he's good, he's also cocky and has a lot to learn. Nick takes him under his wing and very briefly trains him. Soon, Danny is kicking butt and doing great in the tournament....and Nick, inexplicably, starts acting like a total idiot. Can Danny win the big tournament even though his mentor has less common sense than a tomato?

This film is really good....and really bad. The martial arts are done well and Michael Worth is really good...though way too small to be a light heavyweight and fight with some of these opponents. But it looks good and he's impressive when in action. Lamas, in his limited fight scenes is pretty good. It's when it comes to story and acting it all falls apart. Too many cliches, too many times Lamas' character is an idiot and too little in the way of realism. Still, you don't watch a kickboxing movie because you expect an Oscar-contender! Brainless and enjoyable at the same time. My score of 3 might be a big generous.

Best scene in movie was the final big fight for the championship was very well done. The worst scenes were many.

Very entertaining martial arts film, starring Lorenzo Lamas as a washed up fighter. The cast includes Kathleen Kinmont (Lamas' wife at the time) as his girlfriend and a very young Michael Worth as Lama's protégé, a skilled fighter heading to Las Vegas for the World Kickboxing championship. The filmmakers waste no time in setting the tone, B film nonsense, by opening the film with bikini clad models covered in oil entertaining bar patrons. This film is notable for the entertaining storyline (seen a hundred times before, but always fun), the nice fight scenes, and the very good performances (as far as B films go). Jeff Langton as the evil kickboxing character Jake is the type of villain that makes these films so much fun.

Both Lamas and Worth headed up their own MA films, but there are a few faces in Final Impact that did as well, starring as ring fighters are Gary Daniels and Art Camacho (who would go on to direct many MA films himself). And Mimi Lesseos, who was the lead in several MA films, has a small role as Jake's girlfriend. Joseph Merhi (himself an MA star) co-directs here, with Richard Pepin serving as cinematographer. Both men went on to form the now famous (and defunct) PM Entertainment.

Does anything original happen in this movie? No, you've probably seen it a million times. I think a huge reason I didn't turn this movie off was because Lorenzo played the part so well and it didn't seem forced or out of character if that makes sense. He brings this coolness to the character even though you should dislike him. Besides him there's not a single memorable character in this.

The kick boxer that Nick (Lorenzo) trains is pretty meat and potatoes. He can fight but his acting is like some high school kid doing the bare minimum to pass a Spanish class, shooting for that 60% or so. However the worst actor by far has to be the old man perpetually smoking cigars who is the other fighters coach for Jake the bad guy at the end of the movie.

The sets were diverse, there was a few scenes I was tempted to laugh at how poor the acting was and the cheap keyboad musical scores I'd take points off but all in all, this movie turned out to be better than I thought it would as really I just put this on to fall asleep to.

Lorenzo Lamas stars as Nick Taylor a washed up kickboxer who trains a kid named Danny (Michael Worth) to fight the fighter (Jeff Langston) who humiliated him in this poor fight flick. Final Impact is a movie with a low degree of style and imagination making this one for only die hard martial arts junkies, however even the fightscenes are surprisingly sub-standard, making this a movie with no real worth.