The Disappearance of Lenka Wood

If you like action, you may like this film, the hero - or is he? - is a US soldier/special agent who could give James Bond and Arnold Schwazenegger a run for their money and then some. He and his future wife decide to take their honeymoon before tying the knot, and she chooses Turkey where she is abducted while he finds himself accused of her murder.

Apart from the brutality of the police - three of whom are no match for him - Turkey sounds like a fun place to live. Even a humble barman has a palatial home, everybody speaks English, and there is a nice quiet toilet in the discotheque where you can torture and murder a police gopher, after you've drowned the barman in his swimming pool.

There is a twist in the final scene that gives the game away, this is not so much an action film as a political statement, but the long, circuitous route taken to make it beggars belief.

I begin to know who Paul Tanter is; it's a sort of British Uwe Boll, a director who gives us interesting schemes, such as this one, with a TERRIFIC twist ending, but so badly made, acted and edited. Paul Tanter is probably the worst film maker UK has ever had, but I always enjoy his films. They are enjoyable, corny but watchable, silly but surprising at moments you would never guess. This movie is very offbeat, because it points out the torture American soldiers did in Irak against, native and hostile prisoners. Do not watch it as a masterpiece but a better than expected, announced and commented grade B picture.

Yes, don't be angry with me, but I love this crap, and I recommend it. That's the way I am. Always fair and objective. I don't confound a film I like with a good movie, or a movie I dislike with a bad movie. Unlike so many folks unfortunately do.

But I admit that the best part of the film is during the last five minutes.

I expected this to be a poor movie, but it was worse than poor. According to IMDb the budget was $1.5 million but if that's the case, $1.49 million was spent on catering I think. A few things without giving away the movie to clue you in.

1 - There are guys carrying assault rifles, but they have shotgun shells around their waist.

2 - There is a rich woman with bodyguards and a chauffeur. She is being driven around in her ultra high-end $17k Hyundai Elantra.

3 - Think of the worst karaoke singer you have ever heard in your life. Well, the best actor in this move has less acting skills than that person did singing.

I must admit, I was not able to make I through the movie, it was just too terrible.

It starts off with Dexter, a special forces member who would extract information from those in Iraq he felt had info the US military needed. After leaving the army, Dexter becomes engaged to Lenka, and the two decide to spend their pre-marriage honeymoon in Turkey. They go out to dinner, and Lenka tells Dexter to follow her in a few minutes, because she is going back to their place to put on something sexy for their "alone time." He does so, only to find the place a mess and Lenka is missing. A lot of the beginning has Dexter in a police interrogation room, and there are plenty of flashbacks that show what I described. When the detective leaves, Dexter beats up three policemen, with one punch for each one. His fists must be made of dynamite. lol In fact, he sees a muscle-bound Turk on the streets and knocks him out with a single punch. Rocky's lucky he never went up against this guy. haha.

I didn't think this was as bad as the reviewer Feel-1 did, but it was nothing new. Dexter reminded me a lot of Thomas Jane, and Lenka reminded me of Naomi Watts - just in how they looked. Considering that it's low budget, the cinematography was pretty good. It clocks in at 73 minutes, and it is filled with plenty of clichés. I think it's as good as this could be with the low-budget, but it's nothing new. Parts of it were very reminiscent of "Frantic" starring Harrison Ford, and "Breakdown" with Kurt Russell, both of which were obviously better in every way.

One of the overly used clichés is that the only good-guy characters in this are Americans, and one British (?) guys. All the Turks are evil. In fact, only the lead character, his dad, and his dad's friend are the only good guys in this. That used to work in movies, but the real world is hardly as black-and-white as that. I know, this isn't reality, it's just a movie. Still, I wish movie makers would try to focus on realistic story lines if they're gonna bring realistic situations into the story.

There's very little action. A lot of the time, Dexter is spying out the area he intends to invade. I've seen worse, but I've definitely seen better. There is some nudity. A woman takes off her panties, and her butt is visible. She also takes off her bra, exposing her breasts. There was a twist at the end. I suspected it in the beginning, but as the movie went on, I doubted they'd do it. But they did it. I won't spoil anything.

I gave this a 4-star rating.

I didn't expect much from this film and unfortunately I was right in doing do.

The story is quite poor which makes it very easy to figure out the connection between the characters and therefore most of the plot/twist long before it is revealed.

The stereotyping is just appalling, almost about as bad as in the movie Midnight Express that was mentioned in the movie; the Turkish "bad-guys" were either pictured as steroid eating muscle bulging mountains or sly and cowardice rats.

I can't really go into the moral issue of the story without ruining the (attempt of a) plot, but I can say that it didn't make up for all the other awful aspects of the movie.

As a final remark, Mark O'Neal is about as good an actor as an average couch potato sports fan is at being one of the elite athlete he/she's watching. Just awful to watch.