To start off with this easily dismissable garbage, I should say that the premise is great. An action picture needs a plot like this one to set up the sequences, but this one manages to be...bad. Very bad.
The direction is probably the biggest weight to bringing it down to the bottom of the barrel. Director Albert Pyun has had a lot experience with the profession, but this movie is directed with a questionable ineptitude. He makes an embarrassing error in setting the film to an elevator music-like jazz that doesn't fit even in the least bit well. This film is obviously on a low budget, but better music would have been easily obtained...this shows a purposeful decision. A bad one at that. The lighting is one of the director's worst annoyances in this movie. The film is shot with a blue filter and the light from the windows shine in, getting in the way. The film looks absolutely terrible . The acting is my next major complaint. Christopher Lambert who, year by year, becomes increasingly more generic gives a generally bad performance. He is cocky, not in a good Bruce Willis "Die Hard" way either. He's like those nerds I used to see in middle school gym class who would walk around like they're the stuff and then embarrass themselves when we would play basketball. Ice T is just himself, an angry, sleazy, platinum-toothed gangster. He is funny to watch and quote in his bizzare and equally bad performance. I don't want to complain too much about the writing, because of the original idea, but the script is filled with Tarantino-wannabe dialogue and weak action, with a laughable climax on top. I didn't expect much at the video store when I passed this one in the action section. I atleast wanted some action, not seaking good direction and acting, but everything is last rate...disappointingly enough, the action scenes.
