T-Force

Wouldn't it be nice if we lived in a world that had mastered the art of cyborg creation? We could have them serving us drinks and killing masked terrorists. That's essentially T-Force in a *ahem* box. In the not too distant future when Los Angeles law enforcement is unable to cope with high risk situations they call in T-Force. A group of elite cyborgs who were made specifically to deal with situations of deadly peril.

Unfortunately T-Force will do anything necessary to complete their mission within acceptable parameters including the death of hostages. Of course that's seen as unacceptable and the future of T-Force is all but sealed. They are to be dismantled, but wait - oops - it turns out they don't like the sound of that. So they escape and here enters Jack Scalia as the cop given the plum job of bringing them in a la Blade Runner.

What follows is the usual assortment of cheap action segments and an underlying question of morals. Are the cyborgs people? Do they deserve the same rights? Can cyborgs have babies? That sort of nonsense. Jack Scalia and director Richard Pepin team up for PM Entertainment. A production company notorious for dtv action titles and once again we find the same routine with Pepin bringing the movie in at a certain budget and Scalia turning in yet another burned out lone cop role.

T-Force isn't trying to fool anyone. It's a mindless low budget action flick that borrows upon ideas from other films. I don't see how you could be surprised nor left feeling cheated by T-Force. It has a fun moment or two, but you know it's not really worth your time.

The Story: Terrorists take over an embassy. Terminal Force, an elite team of android counter-terrorists wipe out the terrorists but accidentally kill six hostages. Faced with shutdown, the androids go on the run. Police lieutenant Jack Floyd is partnered with Cain, the sole remaining T-Force android, & sent to find & destroy the renegade androids.

This effort by action director Richard Pepin is unstinting when it comes to ripping off other films. The first half-hour shamelessly rips off "Die Hard", with a well-dressed terrorist taking over a building. But after this second-rate scene, "T-Force", which retools itself as a robot version of "Universal Soldier", actually becomes enjoyable. Lead actor Jack Scalia should get an award for getting into a performance above the call of duty, making his role as the bitter robot-hating cop extremely likable. Bobby Johnston, in the role as Jack's android partner, works with him admirably. On the other side of the coin, Evan Lurie does another of his bad performances, spouting campy one-liners as he dispatches his victims. As is the case with all of Pepin's films, "T-Force" has a lot of action scenes, plenty of heavy artillery & massive explosions, ensuring that action junkies will get their fix and more.

T-Force is one of these films you only watch one time. The acting is poor and the story ( typical Die Hard / Terminator combination ) is equally boring and equally unrealistic. The movie lives from his unnecessarily long and bloody action-scenes, especially in the beginning. All together: A typical PM Entertaiment Group film. Not worth to rent on video.

Some movies have potential and fail to live up to it and others are just bad from the idea to the final product and make you wonder how anyone could think "Well, this is an interesting project and I am interested in being a part of it"... Of course, T-Force has absolutely no potential and falls into the second category. The story is ridiculous and seems to try to be spiritual, with scenes focusing on the robots asking themselves who they are and what is their main goal in "life". The idea of it is stupid and the acting is so bad you will ask yourself how these persons can even be considered actors. Maybe they just needed people stupid enough to accept playing in an action movie with robot sex scenes... Yes, you have read it well, ROBOT SEX!!! But the robot sex is not the most ridiculous part of this movie(although it is really stupid). The worst is probably the costumes for the robots, which seem made out of silver-painted plastic pieces. But let's not forget that it is laughable for a movie that brags about being "full of suspense" that half of the scenes in this piece of c**p are set in a bar with Jack Scalia, which must have gotten the job because he looks like Bruce Willis, becoming a friend with a member of the T-Force around a pool table. Oh, and by the way, this movie reminded me of Operation Delta Force 2 because it overuses cheap slow-motions. Slow-motion can be nice if used in an intelligent way, like in Snatch, but in this case, it makes long action sequences even longuer... Even the title is bad! From another point of view, if you want a movie which will make you laugh because it has worst dialogue than Revenge of the Radioactive Reporter and because the acting is so pathetic you laugh out loud when you are supposed to be thrilled, I strongly recommend T-Force. If you are looking for a good action movie, watch Die Hard, with Bruce Willis, not a look-alike. I guess you have to be a bad actor like Jack Scalia to assemble a crew of bad actors like these and produce such a piece of pure garbage...

5%

OK....mix together elements of Die Hard, Blade Runner and the Terminator and hey presto - welcome T-Force! Yes it's yet more B-movie heaven from director Richard Pepin who apparently not only content to steal basic elements from the aforementioned classic flicks, additionally directly lifts scenes from them to(!), most notably an almost scene for scene swipe of big Arnie's attack on the police station from the original Terminator film. Well, normally I would berate any such blatant plagiarism with the utmost haste and deduct points from the offending film like there was no tomorrow......but you know what? - This film is simply so much damned fun that I can't but help to love it and actually find the rip off elements to actually ADD to it's bizarre charm (a factor which so often occurs in B-movies in fact).

Also adding to the enjoyment is the assembled cast including (in the beginning at least) Vernon (Bennett!) Wells, a still incredibly sexy Erin Gray (damn, I used to fancy her like crazy when she was in Buck Rogers!) and he of the cleft'd chin (no not Kirk Douglas!) Jack Scalia. I've just got to award another point to this for its inclusion of one of the most stupid excuses for a sex scene ever in which two of the cybernauts get down to it......after looking at a dirty mag(!!!!) Tremendously entertaining stuff from start to finish! Alas, shame there wasn't a sequel (yet.....)