It's all about the guns.  The short version: Christopher Lambert is a film called Mean Guns and Gunmen.  It's a weird coincidence and it is just that- a coincidence.  Regardless, they're both kind of fun films about shooting.  In both films, Lambert is not exactly a nice guy.  In both films, he is working with a black actor notable for appearing in B-Movies.  In Guns, he faces off with Ice-T.  In this film, he is friends/enemies with Mario Van Peebles.  He's great, even if his Resume includes Jaws: The Revenge and Highlander III (also with Lambert).  It is also important to note that this film was Written by Stephen Sommers.  Yes, the same guy who made The Mummy, G.I. Joe and Van Helsing.  The film also features a couple interesting Actors including Dennis Leary and Patrick Stewart.  The plot is simple: people want money, have guns and will use them to get it.  To find out how well the film holds up on a second look, read on...
Lambert is an enigmatic prisoner who knows the secret to getting at a bunch of money.
A man- Patrick Stewart- wants it.  It's nice to see that dude from Lifeforce getting a big break.  I hope things worked out for him.
A government agent- Peebles- is hot on his tail and this sets up the basic structure of the film.  People catch Lambert, Lambert ends up with Peebles, people catch Lambert, etc.
Lambert and Peebles have a whole love-hate relationship.  There's actually a plot point of them both shooting each other in the leg.

Ha ha ha- that could (and probably would) kill you.
They make up, sort of, by working together to get the money.  Hurray- they threaten and kill others!
A high point of the random action scenes: this guy doing a flying spin to 'sell' that he was shot by a rifle.  I haven't seen one guy commit so much to his craft since The Octagon.
In the End, the pair find the money and ride off into the Sunset.  The name of that boat, you ask?
It's the 'title line' of the film.  Is this the early version of 'Put the title at the end of the movie' trope?  The End.
Guns guns guns!  There's not really much to the film.  It's a bunch of action scenes strung together with a pretty loose plot.  It is interesting to see the people involved, whether its Sommers, Leary or Stewart.  Other than that, it's pretty basic.  That's not to say that it's not fun.  The problem is just that there's not much else to say about it.  Shooting, fighting and more fighting- ahoy!  The most memorable thing to me is still this image of Lambert...
Up next, another Bollywood film.  Despite being a familiar title, it is actually a rip-off of something else entirely.  Stay tuned...

I'm sorry, but is that even a thing?  In this flimsy pretense to review a few Jean Claude Van Damme films, I wanted to do Sudden Death.  I mean, it's Die Hard...but in a hockey game.  Fate had other plans, leading me to this film that actually fits me better than I could have imagined.  How so?  For one thing, is stars Art LeFleur.  Secondly, it features Patrick Kilpatrick, a very underrated villain.  It's kind of a shame that he doesn't do a lot here though.  Finally, it is by a very acclaimed and successful screenwriter, getting his first credit here.  Who is it?  I'm not telling just yet.  The plot is simple...kind of.  Van Damm goes undercover in a prison to discover why people are being killed there.  Here's a guess- it's a prison!  In all seriousness, there's some sneaky dealings going on in there and it's up to this Belgian kickboxer to get to the bottom of it.  To find out more, read on...
Remember the guy who wrote the Blade films and Batman Begins?  Well, he started here, folks!
This movie gives a big, exposition dump early on.  Van Damme is a Mountie- never in uniform, sadly- who is going after the killer- The Sandman- who killed his partner- never shown or even named.  He shoots him and that's that.  Surely there's more later...
As a Mountie who is apparently just hanging around the city for the next 16 months, he's sent undercover in a prison.  As a nice guy, he only does it after he gets the hots for his 'contact' there.  Nice.
Thankfully, he has the help of Abar, the First Black Superman in there.  Sadly, it's not really Tobar Mayo.  He'd just mind-control everyone anyhow.
He's also got Benson on his side.  He has a pointless eye scar to boot.  That's...not really all that important, thanks.
Things take a turn for the worse when our hero's identity is uncovered.  How?  As it turns out, The Sandman didn't die, despite taking four slugs to the chest.  Who know that he was immortal?  I guess beer does that.
All of this boils down to a fight between Van Damme and The Sandman.  Clearly, he's the most important character, given that he only appeared in the first five minutes.

After controlling most of the fight, he opens the furnace doors...and just stands there.  It's Van Damme- guess what happens.
Inexplicably, the 'One Last Hurrah' cliche comes up and he jumps out of the furnace.  Within twenty seconds, he gets his head impaled on a pipe.  Odd.

With all of the villains dead, the movie just kind of ends.  What happens to the human organ trafficking ring?  I guess that's done.  The End.
Organs for everyone!  In spite of being about a black market organ ring, it's mostly about Van Damme looking weak.  I don't know this for a fact, but this doesn't seem like 'a Van Damme script.'  You can see films that are either written for him (or by him) or ones that lean towards his strengths.  This is not one of those films.  He does about a dozen kicks in the whole movie- low for him.  He spends most of the time trying to solve a mystery.  Clearly, the guy most famous for doing splits is the guy that I look to for my mystery-solving!  In all seriousness, this is not a bad script per se.  The problem is that it feels like big pieces are cut out of it.  For example, Van Damme's partner and his death.  It's not shown, nor is the character given a name.  Was there a flashback scene cut?  Was he in the original intro but cut for time?  There's a lot of extemporaneous stuff in this film, so it seems like they could have made room.  On a more minor point, I was denied the chance to see Van Damme actually dressed like a Canadian Mountie!  If you're not going to show it, just make him a cop or something.  Good grief!  If you want to see Van Damme do something different, this certainly qualifies.  It could have easily been a film starring Bruce Willis, Michael Dudikoff or anyone else though.  On the plus side, random black midget.  Happy Black History Month, courtesy of Mondo Bizarro...
Next up, the third film I got for Christmas from my friend.  Will Van Damme's sad mug help this hyper-violent revenge tale?  Stay tuned...

How many random actors can you mix together into one film?  This film tries to tackle that question in an interesting way.  For starters, the film stars Christopher Lambert, the man who everybody knows from Highlander.  The villain of the film is Craig Sheffer, a person that you might remember from both Turbulence 2 and 3- just as different characters.  Next up, we get Christopher MacDonald aka the bad guy from Billy Madison.  Sure, why not?  You might as well throw in a young Josh Brolin too.  Okay, I was kidding.  You aren't going to put in Joseph-Gordon Levitt aka the kid from 3rd Rock from the Sun and 500 Days of Summer now too, are you?  Fine- be that way.  Just for that, I hope you include David Arquette, the star of Ready to Rumble.  I should probably stop taunting you, now.  So yeah, this movie is kind of like The Hitcher, but with a dash of Death Wish too.  Enjoy.  Get out your Bonnie & Clyde style shoot-out for my review of...
Two pairs of people are driving around in the desert.  Amongst those people are Lambert, Levitt and MacDonald.  By the way, if you really want to stretch reality to the max, cast Lambert as the uncle of Joseph-Gordon Levitt!  Seriously, how am I supposed to buy that?  Levitt is hanging out in the middle of the road for some reason at one point and nearly gets run over by some men.  Why?  Well, his character is deaf and doesn't hear the cars.  Don't worry- this plot point doesn't amount to much as a whole.  Anyhow, the group- which also includes Lambert's wife and daughter- stops at a diner for some lunch.  They run afoul of the same men- including Sheffer, Arquette and Brolin- and they don't exactly apologize for what they did.  They go to leave, but the dad gets really upset by them.  Despite everyone's pleas, he challenges them to a game of 'Chicken.'  Gee, this won't turn out to be tragic and devastating.  Sure enough, he loses and his car crashes.  In a drawn-out and dramatic scene, he is not able to get out of the burning wreckage and he dies.  Way to get out of the film in the first twenty minutes, Christopher!
Lambert takes the death of his brother about as well as you would imagine.  He confronts the men- despite his family's pleas- and tells them he is going to get them arrested.  Immediately following that, he slowly turns his back on them and walks away.  Yeah, he gets clubbed in the head.  The group of villains split up, Sheffer and company taking the others hostage- since I guess they couldn't drive away- and Brolin being sent out to dispose of Lambert's body.  He proves to be far more cowardly than dangerous, however, and fakes shooting Lambert in order to shut up his berating girlfriend.  Well, men have done worse things for women, I guess.  With the rest of the gang, they have the family held hostage and, well, do nothing with them.  Why did you kidnap them again, guys?  Lambert eventually recovers from his beating and non-shooting & goes looking to call for help.  When a blood-soaked man shows up in a diner asking for a phone, would you let him?  After threatening the people- always a good call, Lambert- our hero ends up in jail.  He pleads with the Sheriff to help him out and save his family.  When he describes the titular 'road killers,' the guy leaves Lambert alone.  You're good at your job.
As it turns out, the guy is actually going off to stop the criminals himself.  It ends up about as well as it did for the Sheriff in The House of 1,000 Corpses.  During this part, we also get to learn a little bit about the so-called 'road killers.'  Arquette's character is a Rain Man-style guy, but he's not actually a savant in anything.  Yeah, I don't get it, but whatever.  Lambert escapes from the jail by knocking out the Deputy- so that's who did it!- with the aid of a fellow prisoner.  We get a fight/shoot-out with the villains, but they escape.  At some point, the guy who helped Lambert actually turns on him, although I'm not really sure why.  Yeah, I was kind of zoning out- sorry.  We get a great bit of shooting and driving before Lambert puts the safety of his family over revenge.  Stupid person and your logic-based compassion!  Sadly, Arquette's character is killed too.  Oh darn, I will miss him ever so much.  In the final showdown, Sheffer and Lambert battle...in slow-motion.  Yeah, don't try to make your film arty in the final five minutes, movie!  Lambert ultimately beats up Sheffer by slamming him onto the hood of a car and drags him along the road until a train hits it.  Ha ha- you just killed a guy!  The End.
This movie is surprisingly-dull.  The plot is simple enough to work and there is some good action.  The key problem is, like many films, the pacing.  They drag it all out for too long without a real point.  It's neat to see the villains actually have conflicts with each other, even if it never really goes anywhere.  This is also one of the few films to use David Arquette in a way I like- as a guy who gets killed.  Seriously, the only film of his I can stand is Hamlet 2- where he mostly has an extended cameo.  Most of the acting is good, although I should note that Brolin is miles away from his current acting level.  You wouldn't watch this film in 1995 and think 'that guy is going to end up being really good in  Cohen Brothers film at some point.'  His character actually has more than one-dimension, which is a plus.  Unfortunately, this movie did not live up to its potential for me.  I mean, you have what's basically The Hitcher, but with a group of killers...and it's less effective.  Mind you, none of the killers are played by Rutger Hauer, which is important to note.  As it stands, it's a decent action movie that doesn't accomplish much more.  It is a strange cast to look at though.
Next up, Sound Like Week concludes with the first of two movies with the same title.  How do extreme sports and super powers mix?  Stay tuned...