The Owl

This film is real bad, its a real bad film i tells ya. It even stoops to the rapping bad guy level, in fact barring sesame street i cant remember rap being used so effectively. Anyway, Bill Cosby is the rapping bad guy who is trying to kill the owl, other wise known as Alex L'Hiboux. The French name doesnt really explain why the actor playing the role keeps slipping into an English accent. Their are very few things to recommend this film. One of them is Uscar nominated Branscombe Richmond who is at his impeccable best as chief Walks with a Limp, the guy who taught the owl everything he knows. A star turn by Billy "Sly" Williams as gullett also stand's out.

this film was truly awful, it was a mess, I can see why it was credited to Alan Smithee, the fictional name of a director of a film when no one wants to take responsibility for a film.

main character, the Owl, you are subjected th flashbacks which went on for up to 10 minutes, replaying the car explosion that killed his wife and daughter....we got it the first time, yes we know why you're tortured and out for vengeance.

these flashbacks also include scenes of him doing his martial arts training....again they laboured the point.

One of the baddies is a rapping gangster who gets one of his henchmen to play his ghetto blaster so that he can rap his dialogue...and truly awful rapping it was.

And you hardly see the real baddie, except in this repeated flashback scene when he is driving away from the explosion

the little girl...typical american girl....you want her to die...

it went on for way too long...

and you find yourself watching it to see how bad it can get, and it never disappoints you...

An ex-investigative journalist can't sleep – he walks the street as a vigilante, taking on cases. He is driven by the murder of his wife and daughter years before and uses his martial arts skill to fight crime. When he finds a new drug Instant Iron creating crime, he is hired to stop the supply. Coincidentally a young girl hires him to find her father, a chemist, who may have been kidnapped to make more of the drug for criminals – does this connect to the man who murdered his wife?

I hate most TVM's. I especially hate those that are only designed to become cheap TV shows. This was clearly one of those – th plot sets up all the elements the producers wanted for the series, a love interest, a bar room friend with whom he has a shady past, a revenge story line, a criminal nemesis to wheel out regularly and some sort of semi-super powers. Unfortunately they forgot to add any type of spark – this is evident from the credits where we see the director is…oh dear…Alan Smithee.

The plot is lazy and predictable, the action is worst. The film is dull throughout and it's little wonder no-one picked it up. It's not helped by having cardboard cut out Adrian Paul in the lead role – can't he act at all – there's nothing funnier in the whole film than seeing him wailing to the sky in despair after the loss of his kid! Brian Thompson (X-files' Alien Bounty Hunter) is OK but the rest are as bad as Paul.

There's nothing to like here, the film is lazy and poor in every area. It's dull and even Adrian Paul seems to think he's better than this – and if HE looks down his nose at something then you know it'' gotta stink.

I voted 5 because I didn't want to influence the overall average. I haven't seen the movie but I read the original novel and was sorry to hear the film being savaged so. I would have hoped for a better treatment of the film by its author but apparently, from what other people have said, he was not trying to translate the novel on to the screen so much as he was trying to create a salable product and get a series going. Too bad! The novel was highly readable. It had a rough, crude vitality. Sure, it was unnecessarily violent but it was not the sort of book one picks up to read for its literary qualities. It was the sort of book one buys from a bus station paperback rack. It was fun, and best of all, the main character was memorable. He wasn't believable, he had no redeeming qualities, but he was memorable. Oh, well, another opportunity for good entertainment sacrificed on the altar of the desire for fame and money.

Based on a novel by Bob Forward, this had all the trappings of something interesting. Sadly the movie was poorly executed for reasons I'll go into later, and it is easy to see why it did not get commissioned as a TV series. All the better for its star, Adrian Paul, it seemed. Not long after he was picked up for Duncan Macleod in the extremely successful HIGHLANDER: The Series. You could argue this was a good canvas for Paul's talents and later casting as the Scottish Immortal, if anyone had bothered to see it. I don't know if the Producers of Highlander watched The Owl, but Paul's natural agility and martial arts experience shines through here and was one of the most interesting aspects in the film. With long, drawn out scenes of Paul working out spliced between flashback segments of his former life, the movie is drawn out instead of getting on with the story. What is more, it tells us very little of what we want to know. How did he become The Owl?

A word on the music. Moody and atmospheric, you could say no more from Sylvester Levay (Airwolf)

The cast. I have to say, the Wooden Spoon Award must go to the awful rapping bad guy, Cool Ice. He's just plain silly. His stringy haired henchman are no better. Brian Thompson makes a worthy appearance as Bobby B, the bar keeper of a backstreet bar The Owl frequents. He is L'Hiboux's confident and informant. Patricia Charbonneau plays a cop, and L'Hiboux's on and off girlfriend. Hutchins, played by Alan Scarfe was obviously meant to be the recurring nemesis of The Owl. He seemed like a great foil, but sadly we'll never know what might have become of it.

Bob/Robert Forward wrote two Owl books. I confess I have not read them. What put me off is that they are written in first person, i.e from the character's perspective, which is a good idea to get into the head of the character, but so often doesn't work. I must try them, as reviews of the books are generally very good. Maybe they might throw some light on how L'Hiboux got to be The Owl. The movie makes little attempt. Again, maybe they left this to be revealed as the series progressed. In summary, this movie is worth a shot. It's very hard to get hold of though which doesn't make the job easy. In Australia it was called "Night Owl"