Darkness of Man (2024)

Darkness of Man has delusions of being neo-noir. Accordingly, it is loaded with voice-over narration by the hero, played by Jean-Claude Van Damme. You can easily see, or rather, hear what’s wrong with that. Van Damme's signature accent and delivery do not quite fit the brooding, enigmatic tone required for a neo-noir protagonist, to say the...

Ruthless (2023)

Ruthless stars the unlikeliest avenging badass. I don’t think a lot of people were clamoring to see Dermot Mulroney of all people kicking ass and taking names, nor do I think that this movie will make many converts to that particular cause. That said, this little Death Wish wannabe is nothing to be ashamed of...

The Bricklayer (2023)

If action movies are anything to go by, the CIA (and any facsimile thereof) is like the WWE in the early-to-mid 90s (then WWF) — everybody seems to have a job doing something else (well, not everybody, but you get the idea); if they're not beekeepers, they’re bricklayers.   Incidentally, The Bricklayer was certainly made with...

King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

King Kong vs. Godzilla (hereinafter KKvG) is a silly little satirical sci-fi B film. It's also 16 minutes shorter and about a million times better looking and less fucking stupid than Godzilla vs. Kong. Practical special effects will always trump computer-generated imagery, and seldom does that superiority become more apparent than when you put these...

Road House (2024)

No one ever called the original Road House a thinking man’s action flick, but they might now thanks to this dumbed-down remake. Think about that for a second. Think about what it entails to dumb down fucking Road House — and somehow they did it; a lot of people get socked in the face in...

The Thundermans Return (2024)

The only reason to watch The Thundermans Return is strapping young glamazon Kira Kosarin. She hasn’t changed a thing since the end of the original TV show, which means she still has that sexiest of all combinations: the sweet, innocent face of an angel on top of a pornstar body.   Kira always had a...

Argylle (2024)

Argylle opens with an action sequence set in “Greece.” I think that country is much bigger and a lot less computer-generated, but it doesn’t matter; what we’re looking at is not real but an excerpt from Elly Conway’s (Bryce Dallas Howard) latest spy novel, which she’s reading at a book launch.  Actually, it does matter....

Lights Out (2024)

Lights Out is proof that the rules of Fight Club have become the unthinking man’s Three Laws of Robotics. This action flick, however, reaches deeper than David Fincher’s fascist opus, going all the way back to early-90s Van Damme — more specifically, Lionheart and Nowhere to Run (territory previously retreaded by Blood and Bone 15...

211 (2018)

211 is one of those action thrillers that has no idea, or just doesn’t care, how Interpol works; then again, why expect differently from a movie titled after a section in the California Penal Code but set in Massachusetts?  The film actually opens in Afghanistan (well, Bulgaria, but you get the idea), where four mercenaries...