The Circuit 2: The Final Punch

A good action director knows that the best way to start a movie is with something spectacular that will leave the audience in their seats wanting more. "The Circuit 2" starts off with a fight that lasts just a few seconds! Things don't improve that much after that opening scene. I suppose the movie looks good for what must have been a microbudget - there is some location shooting, and the movie looks okay for the most part, though we get stuff like visible shadows of the camera crew, and a hospital room where they couldn't get a hospital bed and used a gurney instead. But the movie has more faults than positive stuff. Despite having Lamas and Merhi in the cast, they are pretty much wasted (if you can call them "wasted" after witnessing their horrible acting). The movie takes forever to get started - Gruner doesn't get to prison until more than half an hour has passed. Movie is poorly edited and directed, with scenes seeming to start midway through instead of having a proper beginning. The story also doesn't make sense at times, with one character suddenly announced that is dead with no explanation why. Some fights later in the movie are okay, but there are times when you feel the participants are holding back instead of going all out. Gruner has made some good movies, but "The Circuit 2" isn't one of them.

The B-movie snob in me claims that ever since Isaac Florentine released his UNDISPUTED sequels, there's really no reason to branch into other prison fight flicks. Such snootiness was probably justified for the below-average Olivier Gruner vehicle THE CIRCUIT, but less so when it comes to that one's sequel. THE CIRCUIT 2 makes a genuine effort to address the shortcomings of its predecessor and is definitely the better movie, though its considerable faults will probably make it a waste of time for viewers who aren't already fans of the low-budget fight scene. Gruner fans ought to definitely investigate.

The story: When his significant other pays dearly for investigating an organized prison fighting circuit, the returning Dirk Longstreet (Gruner) goes undercover as an inmate to break the secret to the world…and exact revenge.

As far as prison flicks go, this one is pretty tame, with minimal exploitation and even a noticeable lack of outright brutality when it comes to the brawls. The utilization of the cast is likewise a soft touch: in addition to Olivier, the lineup's comprised of B-grade butt-kickers Lorenzo Lamas, Jalal Merhi, Michael Blanks, Shaun Benjamin, and Gary Hudson, and while Lamas, Blanks, and Hudson mix it up physically, they're definitely not being used to their fullest extent. Blanks' involvement is particularly disappointing, because he's set up as a strong supporting character but ends up not doing more than fighting. The storyline is straight-forward but still has time for the occasional fruitless detour and goofiness: warden Benjamin impresses on Gruner his need to have a dominant white champion to appease the supposedly racist audience, but this never seems to be an issue, and later there's an unintentionally humorous scene wherein Gruner engages in an hours-long foot chase with the main fighter (Jim Shagen).

There's a *lot* of fighting in this movie: only counting the fights that last at least ten seconds brings me to 21 separate brawls. Their quality is a major step up from the abortive scraps of the original feature, with an admirable variety of fighting styles on display, some choreographic highlights, and a satisfying scene wherein Gruner and Lorenzo Lamas team up to fight some thugs in a parking lot (it's a funny juxtaposition wherein Olivier is clearly giving his all but Lamas dispatches opponents with customary ease). Gruner looks legitimately skilled and powerful, like a UFC competitor, and faces a unique roster of opponents including a high-kicking Larnell Stovall and a whip-wielding Robert Chapin. Nevertheless, I can't point to a single encounter as an objectively great fight. Many of them are one-sided, and even moments of directorial ambitiousness are diluted by poor camera-work and editing. The film climaxes with a tournament, but it's meaningless because most of the matches are over so quickly that you hardly have enough time to distinguish between the fighters.

Still, I give the cumulative package a passing score, and with the final installment to the CIRCUIT trilogy unlikely to receive a North American release, we can at least say that the west's exposure to the franchise ended on a decent note. Fight fans can easily bear it on a slow night, and fans who enjoy Olivier's work mainly for the kickboxing ought to be happy with this. Don't go out of your way for this one, but don't give it the cold shoulder, either.

While slightly better than the first rendition of this series that's not to be taken as a compliment either, only because the first one was just so God awful! The sequel was just as bad, the fight scenes were boring and hosted some of the worst acting my eyes have ever laid sight upon. They seriously might as well just hold the script right in front of them and do a cold reading that's how heinous it comes out. The only thing that this had somewhat going for it was that the plot had a little bit better of a background and could have been turned into something interesting had the right screenwriters gotten their hands upon it. The other part was that there were one or two quotes that were cool, but make no mistake; it didn't save this movie in the least bit. They even brought back those corny tiki-torches for the end fight scenes that were used in the first one that any person can pick up at the dollar store easily. It goes without saying that the body count adds up once again with no one giving it a second thought. I really hope someone eventually breathes life back into the direct-to-video action movie genre soon...it needs revitalization horribly!

Final Queue:

Movies: Never quite made it there, luckily for the rest of us.

DVD Purchase: You've gotta be kiddin' me!

Rental: I wouldn't if I were you.

Olivier Gruner stars as a kickboxer who goes undercover (Using the alias Jim Morrison) behind bars to take down the bad guys who injured his reporter girlfriend. Also on board is Lorenzo Lamas who doesn't really have much to do. Much fighting ensues in this completely botched fight flick. One of the major problems with the movie is just how ridiculously stupid it is. We have Gruner looking more like Yul Brynner trying to kick ass, completely oblivious to the fact that a fight sequence needs a director who can hold the camera steady. I must admit I watched this movie, only because I found it for one dollar and I admit that the movie had me in stitches at regular intervals. It's just too bad the movie is meant to be so serious because it was just laughable. The fight sequences are also so sloppy and indeed i'm shocked that martial arts experts choreographed this fight sequences. I mean you take a B.grade action flick like Kickboxer 2:The Road Back (Seriously comparing this to even Kickboxer 3, is just too good for a movie like this) and you have fight sequences pumped up with much blood ready to flow. Circuit 2 comes off as if the choreography was done by people who don't know the difference between martial arts and disco dancing. Some unintentional laughs aside this is very bad stuff. However it's frequently hilarious and is a must for fans of goofy cinema. Watch the ending and note that we never learn the girlfriend's fate!

* out of 4-(Bad)

I have liked Olivier Gruner since his "Angel Town", and have enjoyed, if nothing else, his physical performances and skills over the years. I have also liked Jalel Merhi's pictures, at times, and he, himself is no martial arts slouch. However, in "the Circuit 2", somebody went to sleep in the cutting room. First,it's not well directed, and it appears choppy and disorganized. Loose ends abound. The killing of Nicole took forever, and was bad theatre in the story's context. I mean she was assaulted, raped and in a coma, and one murder squad had already been deflected. The second attempt, only mentioned not confirmed, seemed unlikely, now that hospital and police were alerted and on guard since the first attempt. The denoument at site of the big last fight did not make a lot of sense to me--unless we're going to see "The Circuit 3" Lorenzo Lamas was misused, and what newspaperman goes on police raids armed and shooting? C'mon, Jalel, you can do better.