Dangerous Men

I, like most people I assume, wandered into a screening of this film because it fit the time slot and was totally obscure. I went with four other buddies and I must say we were blow away by how unbelievably terrible it was and how much fun we had at the same time. Saw it again on Saturday at the Lamelle Sunset and it was even better the second time. We spoke with John S. Rad, he's taking Dangerous Men on tour and putting out a DVD, Dangerous Men even has a myspace address, everyone should look it up, he also has a dozen more movies and some music and poetry. If anyone you know has seen this movie you will have the keen ability of telling inside jokes at the expense of Dangerous Men for a life time, which is worth it's weight in gold. To sum up, this movie is terrible and obviously John Rad had a tough time figuring out what he really wanted to do, but I feel that future projects, hopefully, can only be better and Dangerous Men is a great time at the theatre even if it's an atrociously awful film.

I guess Jahangir Salehi Yeganehrad, a.k.a. "John Rad" or "John S. Rad" was overly ambitious with this movie (e.g., Director, Producer, Screenwriter, Music, Cinematographer, etc.). He stretched himself too thin, and everything got scrambled in the process. In addition to the poor acting, the film has no continuity and makes little sense. However, the RiffTrax guys take full advantage of this nonsense, and have a blast with it! The RiffTrax version actually rates 10 stars, so the 5 stars above is kind of a compromise.

This is one of the worst films I have seen. Not good. Not "bad good." Not "so bad it's good." Just bad. Not quite as bad as The Creeping Terror, Monster-A-Go-Go or The Guy From Harlem, but right up there as one of the premiere entries in the hall of amateurishness.

Unlike in something like Samurai Cop, which has a light tone and jokes in spite of (or more accurately, probably because of) its status as a low budget Lethal Weapon ripoff, Dangerous Men doesn't have any intentional humor (except for maybe the naked guy covering himself up with tree branches) and is trying to be the next Death Wish. Only it fails so miserably on all accounts, it makes Ed Wood look like David Lean.

There is really nothing to recommend it. The writing and directing are horrible. The actors are all painful to look at. Segments shot 20 years apart mean suddenly we're back in 1982, oops no wait, we jumped forward again. The story construction is abysmal and makes no sense, since segments shot decades apart were attempted to be stitched together into a single story (hackmeister Al Adamson was famous for doing this, but at least his movies weren't shot 20 years apart!). The sex scenes are not sexy. And that MUSIC! Not since Mesa of Lost Women has there been a more repetitive, annoying soundtrack. At least that wasn't composed on a Casio keyboard bought on lay-away from Sam Ash Music, like this piece of tripe.

When you're treated to an opening credit sequence promising one person as writer, producer, director, editor, composer, art director and costume designer (at least he didn't make himself the lead actor), you know you're in for trouble. I didn't heed the warning, and I paid the price. Please heed my warning. Unless you are the most masochistic consumer of z-grade film atrocities imaginable, please stay away from DANGEROUS MEN.

The beginning of this movie & the end do not correspond. Everything in between is not better. Horrible & awful. Stupid & dumb. Awful dialogue. The WORST musical score in any movie EVER! Every bad guy for unknown reasons all want to assault every strange woman. This is a example of how NOT TO MAKE A MOVIE. Zero story. Badly acted. Watch this drunk or at a party.

What is there to say about Dangerous Men that hasn't already been said about Afghanistan? The filmmaker, John S. Rad, clearly set out to make the worst movie of all time, but it ended up entertaining me more than most films I've seen. When watching it, I felt I was the butt of some sort of Emperor's-New-Clothes joke, but I couldn't help but laugh. The acting and cinematography are reminiscent of the worst After School Special ever made.

If you are willing to put aside the horrible cuts, dubbing, acting, and film-making technique in general, you might enjoy this surreal and absurd piece of work. I found myself forgetting the finished product and instead wondered how Rad convinced these people (especially the women) to take part in such ludicrous and graphic sex scenes, considering there is no chance that anyone ever dreamed that this movie could make any money.

I am glad to see that it is now on IMDb, after a direct challenge from LA Weekly. Even though the attempt to make it so was contrived, it deserves to be a cult classic shown at midnight on screens across the country.