G.O.D.

Made before, Besson's similarly-themed actioner 'Transporter', the cult martial arts maestro Jalal Merhi is the reserved, no-nonsense tough guy Ray Stanton, a Stoic champion whose 'special kills' are put to devastating use against an especially belligerent coven of vicious B-movie thugs headed by handsome bad guy, Adrian Kaminski (Olivier 'Savate' Gruner). Nigh on inconsolable after a personal tragedy perpetrated by these callous hoods he finally attempts to pick up the remnants of his life by investing in his own delivery service (G. O. D) and before long he is hired by smooth criminal, Adrian to deliver a suspect package for $1.000. Later, en route, much to Ray's surprise the deliciously blond package (Justine Priestley) escapes, thereby desperately propelling them fatefully towards a hard-fought confrontation with killer Kaminski.

While relatively light on the expected fisticuffs, which proved doubly strange considering, Olivier Gruner's exemplary fight flick pedigree, and the showdown between, Merhi and renowned martial artist, Darren Shahlavi was, sadly, a little under cooked. So, in terms of blazing action, running contrary to its brash title, this fight-lite feature didn't exactly deliver the God-like goods, but nonetheless, this proto-Transporter still makes for a pretty zesty ride with a decent slam bang thank you, Van Damme, abandoned warehouse gun-fu climax! I genuinely like, Merhi in this, not only is he a capable director, his low-key hero was a likeable, fleet-fisted Kung Fu cat and Ray's grizzled buddy, Norm (David Carradine) worked well as his gnarly, shotgun-toting sidekick.

...and that's about all the positive stuff I can say about this movie. Actually, scratch even that, because the murky and dark photography make my city look horrible. Speaking of "horrible", that's what can be described about everything else in this movie. Jalal Merhi is horrible; not only is his acting bad (sometimes his accent makes it impossible to make out what he's saying), his martial arts sequences are unbelievably amateurish and boring.

Olivier Gruner, on the other hand, gets NO opportunity to perform martial arts. Yes, they hired a martial arts actor, and NOT ONCE does he do any martial arts! David Carradine looks badly weathered and ill, sluggishly doing the little he's given.

Though running just 90 minutes, I swear it felt more like 150. The movie is so slow, so boring, so uneventful that it soon became agony to watch. Even masochists would have a problem sitting through this. Even die-hard fans of Gruner or Carradine would be better off passing this up. As well as fans of Merhi - that is, if he has any left after the long string of absolutely awful movies he's made during his "acting" career.

While Jalal Merhi would not officially put his career in action movies on hiatus 'til later that decade, 2001's GUARANTEED ON DELIVERY marks the last action vehicle he'd star in for about 15 years. It's understandable: Merhi was never one of my favorite karate guys, but he had done way better than this in his prime and seems to be running on fumes, here. Despite its cool cast and provocative title, this is a pretty boring action flick that, at best, is a poor version of THE TRANSPORTER.

The story: When a security guard-turned-courier (Merhi) realizes that his cargo is actually a victim of human trafficking (Justine Priestly), both of them are hunted by the minions of the perpetrator (Olivier Gruner).

There's few things that the film outright does wrong, but nothing it does otherwise ever really clicks. The story is almost completely devoid of surprises. The characters move the plot from point to point, but none of them really catch your attention – even Daddy David Carradine, in his role as Merhi's ex-employer, is forgotten as soon as he's off-screen. The look of the film is flat and the acting's exactly what you'd expect from a Merhi movies.

The action's surprisingly minimal, coming from the guy whose movies used to be stuffed with adrenaline scenes. There's some shooting and some punching, but only about three scenes of gunfighting and fisticuffs, each. Carradine doesn't fight at all and neither does Olivier Gruner, leaving the brunt of the action scenes to be carried by Jalal. Though his on screen opponents include kickboxing star Luraina Undershute and the much-missed Darren Shahlavi, none of the fights are particularly good and they uniformly suffer from lax editing.

Stay away from this one. Us action fans can do a lot better.

For a movie that boasts starring David Carradine, Olivier Gruner and Jalal Merhi... It's actually not that bad.

Merhi delivers his best performance (which isn't saying much) and gives the best fight scenes he's ever had on screen.

Carradine is sleep-walking through the role, but is entertaining nonetheless. The guy has a presence that most action star these days would beg to have.

And Gruner, well, he is decent. He doesn't throw a single kick or punch in the flick - can the guy even fight? - but he's acceptable as a villain. Nothing special.

The real star was the director, who managed to make this an entertaining film despite the low budget. Props to him for making a pre-"Taken" movie before "Taken" even existed. This is a solid action flick with some really good fights and a decent storyline. It's worth checking out if you're a fan of the genre. I remember renting this on VHS when it came out and being quite surprised with it. So much so that I tracked down a DVD copy years later and watch it every now and then. It truly is one of the better direct-to-video action flicks of the time.

And that's saying something with Merhi in the lead.