Militia

Dean Cain stars as an ATF agent who teams up with a formerly paroled racist and ex-militia mad man Frederic Forrest (How does one go from Apoclypse Now to this?) who take down a plan to assassinate the president (or some high profile official) with a missile (not sure if it's nuclear because these generic flicks run together for me) and Jennifer Beals as Dean Cain's back up leads an all out assault against the leader of the militia (Another talented actor, Stacy Keach!) Actually I was puzzled as to whether these militia men were white supremacists or if they were just playing army, one thing is for sure the movie is completely hopeless. How bad is Militia? So bad it rips off stock footage from Terminator 2 (!), American Ninja 2 (!!) and Delta Force 2 (!!!) and somehow manages to be a disgrace to all three films. Militia is along the lines of borrowed action and the lengths they go to disguise the stock footage as their own action is truly hysterical. Indeed had they put as much attention in concealing their stock footage, into making a good movie, this movie still would've sucked. All in all a terrible movie.

* Out of 4-(Bad)

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...

The movie started out with an inaccurate portrayal of a law enforcement search warrant/raid. It indicated a military raid, complete with gunships and rockets. Buildings, without regard to the occupants or threat, were destroyed in a typical Hollywood fireball. Not only is this a poor reflection on law enforcement tactics, it depicts the ATF exactly as many of the radical militia groups believe them to be.

The film also showed the militia persons as dangerous radicals . Many are and deserve the attention they get However, most are actually law abiding persons with just a prepared-for-the-worst view. They believe the government is selling out the Constitution. We are heading toward government by foreigners. With the current state of affairs(Clinton, China, NATO, Los Alamos,etc) it's easy to see why.

Having been in law enforcement for almost 20 years, I have dealt with federal agents before. Yes, they do sometimes have the holier-than-thou attitude and charge into situations better handled other ways. Waco and Ruby Ridge are perfect examples of ignorance in tactics. But most of the time, they do things in and orderly, detailed, plan to avoid the confrontations this film eagerly inflates.

I believe the film reflected poorly on both ATF and militia groups. It was obviously biased and definitely anti-gun. This is so much the norm these days for Hollywood. Bad mouth gun owners and Second Amendment rights, yet show all the bloody gun battles possible in the film just to make a buck.

I'm stunned by how many commentators here think this film features footage either mimicking scenes from bigger budget films or that the filmmakers stole these scenes and put them in their films. The studios routinely offer footage from their movies as potential stock footage for others to use. The early episodes of the JAG TV series were filled with footage from the Jack Ryan/Tom Clancy movies. It works better if the footage is from big budget flops or if only brief sequences are used rather than entire scenes as is the case in MILITIA and it helps if some attempt is made to hide anything obvious that might tip off a viewer as to the source of the footage (the Cyberdine sign being an example here)but there's nothing new about using stock footage to make your movie look bigger than it is. It's been done since the early days of film. If you want a real laugh check out RAPTOR from the same director which uses tons of footage from the 3 CARNOSAUR movies. At one point some soldiers walking (supposedly) through a warehouse pass life preservers on the wall. The reason being that this is footage from CARNOSAUR 3 which took place on a ship.

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".