À Queima-Roupa

A cheap movie full of bad imitation of great movies and clichés. The writer/director desperately and clumsily tries to catch your attention using great ideas from other movies IE the first part trying to use the "Pulp Fiction formula" by Tarantino. Since this is a valid approach (the use of references from other movies) when done with quality and class, in this movie the director/writer comes with a a very unfortunate solution. Inconsistent plot: is a mixture of action movie, with a little of horror, a little of suspense a little of love and hate story, a little of friendship… . The characters are poorly defined, uses the ambiguous character formula in order to create a "obvious surprise" at the end. The acting is weak. A cheap movie, with awful story and direction. An insulto to the public.

And PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD... putting an explosive INSIDE a MICROWAVE does not mean that it "happens" to go off WHEN THE TIMER PINGS....

1. Any metal or foil would f' up the microwave and it would spark erratically 2. What if the timer was set to 1 hour? Would the explosive just sit there until it pinged.

STRIKING RANGE delivers what it promises, a shoot 'em up action flick packed with twists and exit wound gore. Lou Diamond Phillips gives a committed performance as a cash strapped gun for hire with a moral code that includes never challenging the US Government and never taking a bullet for a client (which is a good thing since most of his assignments appear to be protecting shady businessmen).

In STRIKING RANGE, Phillips and his three-person crew are charged with bodyguarding a "next generation" weapons maker who turns out to be an unscrupulous dealer who has no compunction against selling to the highest bidder. Naturally, squinty-eyed rogues, led by martial artist/actor Jeff Speakman, demand the latest weapons gizmo with a five-finger discount. This is where Team Phillips steps up to the challenge. However, a mysterious third party throws a hat into the ring putting the executive protection crew in a circle of crosshairs and ballistic mayhem.

The movie is a lot of fun, but by no means perfect. The opening sequence is a head scratcher as Phillips and his crew (including an excellent Tom Wright) casually banter about video games as they go on a search and destroy mission in an office building. The scene feels contrived and woefully unrealistic as we're asked to believe these guys need to alleviate boredom in the midst of a hostage rescue. And I'm still wondering what happened to Sharon, the poor executive they intentionally shoot to get the Bad Guy standing behind her. Quibbles aside, the low budget film looks great, shot in 35MM with fluid Steadicam moves, we also get nifty pyrotechnics, and a NRA member's wet dream in a variety of firearms. Thespians are first rate, giving us raw emotion in a scene where Phillips and Wright nearly come to blows as they argue about their failing executive protection business. Music cues nostalgically evoke 80's TV show "Miami Vice" at its highlight.

STRIKING RANGE doesn't offer anything new, but it gets its job done and it certainly gets a lot of bang for the buck.

This is, without a doubt, one of Lou's worst film. "Red Water" was better than this. Just horrendous. Even Lou's acting was bad...and it is usually decent.

I love Lou like the next guy, but I could not tolerate more than 40 minutes of this film - and that was the most tedious experience I have ever felt while dealing with a shoot 'em up flick. Ever.

I can not in good faith recommend this film to anyone. I am sorry if the director reads this, or anyone involved with the project, but this movie was just bad.

The worst, most inane, dialog of all time. Shifty and lame script that is all over the place. Bad acting, as well.

Not a pleasant experience.

Striking Range is a class C shoot em up film about a business man who creates a destructive ray gun that can revolutionize military combat. He needs more money than his backers are willing to give him and that sets off a fight to save the crooked business man from his angry backers as they try and steal the technology and kill the business man. A special force is called in to protect the business man but someone from the inside is helping the bad guys out. The business man's whacked out son adds some interesting twists, but is not carried off well in th acting department. This intrigue is readable from square one and leaves little to the imagination. The action is OK, but everything else is low quality. The relationship between the two stars is carried off in a pitiful manner by the directing. The actors are pretty experienced, so I don't feel comfortable assigning blame to them.