American Streetfighter

The DVD box displayed such phrases as "There are some streets you don't double-cross" and "When war comes home, and home is the streets, you turn to... American STREETFIGHTER". Say that in the movie-trailer voice, and it will sound awesome. I was hoping that this would an overblown action movie, not good, but entertaining enough that I could laugh at how stupid it was. No luck.

The movie is... mediocre. The story is mediocre, the fight scenes are mediocre, the acting is mediocre. Okay, it picks up a little during a fight at the dojo, which is enjoyably stupid- featuring a motorcycle driving through a door that is quite obviously made of styrofoam, and the one guy in the movie with a gun choosing to pistol-whip people instead of, I dunno, shooting bullets at them. Still, the whole experience is mediocre- It's not bad enough to laugh at, and it's not good enough to enjoy. The whole thing is just boring. Two years later, Street Fighter, starring Van Damme and Raul Julia came out. At least that one you can laugh at.

And for a movie about street-fighting, there sure is a lot of time spent in the countryside...

The acting in this movie is up there with Tommy Wiseau The Room (2003) or Angel Town starring. Olivier Gruner from 1990. I had to pause the movie and laugh a few times.

The hair in this movie is glorious for our two heroes, the brother Randy certainly didn't get the role for his acting skills as if I was the director and had a bad day on set it would cheer me up where I'd believe in this movie again listening to Randy or whatever Gary Daniels actor "act". This made me want to watch the first two seasons of Arrow again. As in the only two watchable seasons.

Alright back to the movie, about 42 minutes in the movie got so silly that I lost any respect in it. Sure I finished it but the 10 year old boy absolutely RUINED the movie. One of them being a tired old cliche, the other being that he helps our hero become a better martial artist. It's like opposite land of the Karate Kid or similar movies where Mr. Miyagi is up on that wooden post doing the kicks and waxing the karate kids car in that decrepit apartment.

The fighting is good, hence higher than a 2 or 3 this deserves, some diverse shots but how the movie ends is just silly. The musical score is OK too for what it's worth. The bad guy was forgetful and there's some plot in there, some, don't get excited, it's far from the complexity of an adult film but who knows I'll probably watch it again for a laugh as the scene of the boy getting saved from a truck is deserving of some sort of youtube highlight reel of over the top silliness.

After the total disaster whose name was "Capital Punishment", every person with a tiny bit of sense in his/her mind should think that Gary Daniels would actually try to make a better movie this time. But no! This is nearly as bad. The only thing that's better here is the story. Although it was really bad, it still was progress from the total lack of plot in "Capital Punishment". Here, you could at least understand what was going on. Anyway, when a martial arts movie has a bad story (as they usually do), you focus on the fight scenes. There are lots and lots of them, but unfortunately they all just stink. It had been better if they had come up with ONE decent fight instead of about 15-20 extremely bad ones, but I guess the people behind this movie thought that quantity was the key.

Well....it wasn't!!

This movie has all the martial arts action Gary Daniels fans expect from the master. But, it also has a good story. It moves at a fast pace and there is a fight about every 5 to 10 minutes. The training scenes are awesome! A must see for Gary Daniels fans. Just don't waste your time on the so called sequel.

Successful businessman Jake Tanner (Gary Daniels) returns home after 10 years to help his troubled brother Randy (Ian Jacklin) who is dangerously involved in illegal fights. American Streetfighter is another DTV banger from burly Blue-eyed Brit Gary Daniels. A shark in the office, Jake throws down equally hard in the ring, bust's up head's on the streets like a boss, Jake Tanner's an expert all-terrain hard ass! If the gaudy sight of a VHS cover emblazoned with an oily-looking muscle mountain on the cover puts a man-sized twizzle in your pizzle American Streetfighter's for you, dude! While the dialogue is excruciatingly awful at times, and some of the lumpy fight scenes are poorly blocked, I still got a kick out of this entertainingly goofy 90s fight-flick. Notable high points for me are Jake's leonine hair, a sweet Ninja Turtles reference, all Gerald Okamura's scenes, and the beaten Daniels heroic return to fearsome fighting form montage is the don!