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Two crooks, one half dumb, the other the full package, are interrupted during a shady deal and kidnap a feisty teen almost by accident. As her father owns a bank, she suggests they ransom rather than kill the living witness, so off they all go to the West Coast pursued by a lovesick teenager and the other half of the busted deal.

This starts out with the promise of teen romance but ends up as a buddy buddy/coming of age drama. No one is killed but it can't be said that everyone lives happily ever after, including you if you watch it until the end, but the half-decent soundtrack might just about get you through it.

Well, not full-blown comedy, but this movie definitely has a lighter tone than most of Dudikoff's, and is one of his few that's not rated R. Dudikoff is a smuggler who reluctantly agrees to help nerdish high schooler Stephen Dorff when the most popular girl (Ami Dolenz) at his school, and the object of Dorff's dreams, is kidnapped. Watching Dudikoff interact with a young co-star is nice, seeing as how such a pairing hardly ever happens in his movies. Dudikoff also doesn't rely much on his martial arts, instead playing the character as someone who doesn't really like to get involved with action, which is a nice change. Not one of my most favorite Dudikoff flicks, but okay for when you want to see him in a different type of film.

They should put a warning label on this one. Movies like this are puerile by concept but they can be fun provided everyone plays it right. This turd does not. It's not fun or funny and the action is worse than the worst episode of The A-Team. The characters are all annoying, played with a complete lack of skill by the cast. Michael Dudikoff's work in the American Ninja movies is like Brando compared to what he's doing here. Avoid this at all costs. Any movie that opens with close ups of Stephen Dorff's armpits should have all copies burned.

The underlying premise of Rescue Me is the often proved notion that the adolescent male will do just about anything to win the affections of the female of the species. Post puberty is one dangerous age, some of us actually never grow out of it.

Stephen Dorff is this gawky 16 something who wants more than anything to win cheerleader Ami Dolenz. But in the pecking order of high school she's the property of jock Danny Nucci and he's the jealous type. But when a pair of dangerous, but not terribly bright criminals kidnap Dolenz to get ransom from her rich daddy, it's Dorff to the rescue, aided and abetted by former Green Beret Michael Dudikoff.

In this comedy, that doesn't quite click all the time, the best acting is done by the crooks William Lucking and Peter DeLuise. DeLuise especially is a whole suit short of a full deck. Good thing he's so dumb or Dorff would have been dead meat. As it is he's got to be pulled from harm's way several times by Dudikoff.

Rescue Me is your typical teen comedy that with the presence of action star Michael Dudikoff tries to expand a bit the normal audience for such things. You've got to have a juvenile mind to truly enjoy Rescue Me.

Red alert from the first frame of the titles: Fraser (Dorff) and the cheerleader he's after in lengthy shower scenes. It's so exploitive, it's obvious the studio decided "well, this picture's a turd, throw in some young skin." Though the amount of Dorff's armpit you see nearly defies belief. Also, Dorff looks somehow strange in this movie. Maybe his eyebrows are too plucked/defined?

Kind of seems like they had a possibly decent movie here, and some of it clicks in the buddy buddy area, but even that comes off half baked. Partly, it seems unlikely Dorff's character is still a virgin, but the bigger problem is it seems like they're missing half the story or something. Maybe they ran out of money and didn't shoot numerous scenes? They go for a lot of depth in the buddy buddy stuff, far beyond what's justified by what we see. And Fraser breaks down crying when he sees the ocean? Why now?

Mac waking up to Fraser firing his pistol is kind of funny.

The kidnappers and their motives? Uh, whatever.

The movie looks pretty good- they picked some great locations.

Actually, after reading another review where they saw it when they were a young teen and liked it, it could be you have to see it pretty young. Some movies like Stand By Me or what have you may hold appeal to younger and older audiences, but some don't.