Militia

Like another reviewer I also saw this late at night with nothing better to do. ( I should have looked some more) I would like to add some more details to the rip-offs of scennes. Of course everyone noticed the T2 scene, but when they left the building in the SWAT van you could actually see a large man with sunglasses driving. Also at the end when they blew up Monte's House (Stacey Keach) the explosion was from the drug kingpin's house in Clear and Present Danger. 1 out of 10 stars...

I gave this film a 4 only because my favorite Superman actor, Dean Cain, was in it. The acting isn't that bad but everything else is, the premise, the plot, the pace, the predictability, etc. All movies require some suspension of disbelief, but there were too many things going on here to seem believable. In fact everything seemed contrived. My nagging question the whole time I was watching this was "Who financed this mess?" Was it some venture capitalist with nothing better to do with his money? Was it friends of Stacy Keach, or Jennifer Beal, or Dean Cain? Was it the Writer's Guild trying to help some unemployed members? How could decent actors get sucked into a film like this? This whole film seemed more like a second rate cop show from the 60s than a movie from this millennium. Don't waste your time unless you are a die-hard John Beck (Deputy Director Anderson) fan.

This TV-movie premiered locally on HBO last Friday night(August 4). I was favorably impressed with it.

Frederic Forrest(played mystery author Dashiell Hammett in the Zoeotrope film "Hammett" with finesse and style) played an imprisoned militia and right-wing fanatic. Dean Cain(also of the "Superman" TV series), played an ATF agent who had captured him. Stacey Keach played a malevolent and reckless militia movement leader with chilling authority.

In today's "politically correct" climate, it would have been easy to portray all of the militia-men as morons or thugs. HBO's production, however, deftly distinguished between degrees of fanaticism and various types of men. The result was more dramatic, more thoughtful and more optimistic than a standard "PC" piece of **** would have been.

In the wake of its errors at Ruby Ridge and Waco, the ATF and the FBI have already taken to heart the implicit message of this fine film--even paranoids want and deserve their "day in court".

Jay Andrews aka Jim Wynorski. Most people would probably think "Who?" after hearing the name but if you know a thing or two about B-movies, you'll probably be aware that this guy is the master of modern day Grade Z cheese. Yes, his work is on par with the infamous "Grade Z" Sci-Fi turkeys of the 1950's. Under many different aliases over the years, he's directed a number of dreadful so called horror films with tons of pointless nudity, outrageously bad sexploitation flicks starring the likes of Julie Strain and Nikki Fritz and finally, hilariously bad "Action" movies made up of stock footage from bigger budgeted movies often starring has-been actors in the lead which he usually does under the alias "Jay Andrews". Militia happens to be just one of those.

To date I've only seen two of the "Jay Andrews" patchwork movies, this and Extreme Limits. This is a better quality movie in the sense that it isn't quite as cheap as the latter. There are about 3 original explosions and they actually hired helicopters here. WOW! Isn't that something? Compared to Extreme Limits however it is something, as it just used (extremely grainy) stock footage from Cliffhanger and Narrow Margin for helicopter scenes. However, what made Extreme Limits so unintentionally hilarious was the fact that it was the cheapest looking thing I'd seen outside of an Ed Wood movie, so the fact that this doesn't look quite as cheap kind of makes this a bit less fun to watch. But this is still pretty awesome in it's awfulness. The opening scene uses footage from Delta Force 2 and Rambo: First Blood Part 2. I am 100% against taking whole action scenes of stock footage from other movies. If you don't have the budget, then don't do it is what I say. The first thing that makes it obvious what's stock footage and what isn't is the fact the new footage is shot in dry California countryside, while the footage from these movies is jungle scenery. There are countless errors like this but more later. Later we are treated to Terminator 2 footage. Some advice Jim, if you insist on using stock footage in your movies, try to find some relatively obscure footage that people haven't seen. Terminator 2 was a highly successful movie and nearly everybody has seen it, so nearly everybody will recognise that. And besides, why would you want to watch an action scene you've seen in a far superior movie all over again in a movie that is inferior in every way? On the positive side, the new footage is edited together with this relatively well and isn't nearly as obvious as any of the scenes in Extreme Limits but the fact that everybody has seen Terminator 2 makes it obvious. In another scene, there is a brief chase in which Dean Cain and Frederic Forrester's characters jump from a moving truck which cuts to a scene of a truck crashing and exploding courtesy of footage from American Ninja 2. There was nothing remotely good about the original American Ninja 2 footage which was a relatively low budget movie itself and this particular scene could have been emulated very easily on a small budget. Just goes to show how little effort went into this project. Not only that, but both vehicles are different colours. And the patchwork only gets worse towards the end. I'm not quite sure where this footage comes from, but it is hideously grainy and the difference in quality is absolutely obvious. And again, we have the scenery conflicts. At one point we are treated to two missiles being fired at a building from stock footage, which we are meant to believe is the building Dean Cain and Stacy Keach are inside, yet we saw them walking into a completely different building earlier on. I can only assume that they thought we would have forgotten about that by then. Unfortunately, I had not.

The performances are largely terrible. Dean Cain and Frederic Forrest don't look like they're interested in the film they're in at all. Jennifer Beals is very pretty, but has almost nothing to do in her part. The award for the worst performance by far goes to Stacy Keach, who hams it up in a totally over the top character who spends most of his time sitting on a chair and only interacts with 2 or 3 characters.

Extreme Limits directed by Jim Wynorski as Jay Andrews has to be the most hilariously bad movie I've ever seen. Militia disappointed me in the sense that it wasn't quite as bad as that one, but this is still awful, Grade Z cheese of the worst kind and for that, it's still hilarious to watch.

Man, it kills me to see the direct-to-video fare that Jennifer Beals has been starring in recently. This predictable grade-C flick is passable only because it rarely takes itself too seriously. Jim Wynorski is the master of camp mediocrity, and so we see Fredric Forrest spoof his "terrorist looney-toon" persona that was hysterical but chilling in Falling Down, and Stacy Keach and Dean Cain try their hardest to not let us know they'd rather be anywhere else than on the set of this movie. That brings us to Jennifer. Why, oh why, is this gorgeous actress with passable chops whiling away her time in trifle like this and Turbulence 2 (or was it 3?).

Anyway, I watched it all the way through and if you ask me next week about "Militia" I promise you I won't remember ever having seen it. In the meantime, Corkymeter rates Militia 2 (out of 5) stars. (Yes, it rates higher than "Woo" because it knows it's piffle). Jennifer, Jennifer, Jennifer...