HOLLYWOOD HARD BASTARDS VOL. 7: FIRE WITH FIRE (2012)

Ah. We have been conned. Expert stunt co-ordinator-turned-director David Barrett (he did stunts on Jurassic Park III and Spider-Man) brings us today’s Hard Bastard action, which turns out to be one of those direct-to-video efforts that features a big star in a small supporting role, but canny marketers have realised they can shift more units if they pretend said actor is the main star of the movie.

  So here we have Fire With Fire, the story of fireman Jeremy Coleman (Transformers’ Josh Duhamel) who realises that the witness protection program cannot keep the people he loves safe from the vicious Aryan perpetrators of a murder he witnessed, so decides to track the villains down and eliminate them himself. Bruce Willis is Mike Cella, a cop who takes an interest in Jeremy’s case, as his own partner was murdered by Aryan ringleader Hagan (Vincent d’Onofrio) and has been looking to nail the son of a bitch for years. As Jeremy takes down Hagan’s gang one by one, utilising skills taught to him by U.S. Marshall girlfriend Talia (Rosario Dawson), herself targeted by Hagan’s goons, Cella helps to keep him one step ahead of the law and the bad guys so that justice can be served. It’s a small role for Bruce, proving that even the action greats are not above starring in DTV drivel to take a quick paycheck, but those sneaky marketing bastards have put Bruce’s face up front and centre on the DVD cover to make it look like he’s the star of the show, when in actual fact he spends most of the movie behind a bloody desk. So, anyone picking this one up expecting another Die Hard­style explode-a-thon could be in for a rough ride, though that’s not to say Bruce doesn’t get to have few creditable badass moments…

  Despite not having a whole lot to get his teeth into, Bruce makes the most of a small part, very believable as the frustrated cop who refuses to yield in his quest to bring a criminal to justice, while the rest of the world turns a blind eye. Hagan’s intimidation of witnesses has meant that he remains at large, and this time Cella is determined that the sucker will go down no matter what. He knows that by putting Jeremy on the stand will put the boy’s life in danger, but he needs him to testify, otherwise he knows this Nazi creep will continue spreading hatred and evil. He spends the whole of his limited screen time simmering away, waiting for his chance to explode with rage, assuring his fellow cops that ‘If they want him, they’re gonna have to go through me!’ It’s interesting to see Bruce play a more restrained role and during his talky good cop/bad cop scenes with his partner (played by Bonnie Somerville –Mona from Friends), you can just see it in his eyes that he can’t wait to get out there and bust some heads. Face to face with Hagan’s fast-talking sleazy lawyer, who insists his client is innocent, Cella erupts, ‘How can you say that shit with a straight face?!?, before being restrained. Bruce may be a little older, but the Die Hard man is most definitely still in there, waiting to burst out and blow shit up.

  Cella, for the most part, has to settle for living vicariously through Jeremy as he is the first to twig on to what the vengeful firefighter is up to. He has several chances to bring evidence to light that would seriously screw up Jeremy’s quest, but does his best to keep the young buck ahead of the game. At one point he almost puts out an A.P.B. on the kid after he offs Vinnie Jones’ Limey enforcer, but changes his mind, waiting to see where all this is going. When fingerprints are found, Cella insists that the results must come to him and only him, looking to keep Jeremy on the streets for as long as it suits him. He may not be kicking ass in the traditional sense, but in this one Bruce is most definitely the man pulling the strings. At one point he explains his position to Jeremy, saying, ‘I want ‘em dead and buried just as much as you do. But, I’m a cop…’ You can tell he’s getting a kick out of Jeremy’s vigilantism, because under different circumstances it could quite easily be him out there, and he knows it.

  Despite being kept down by bureaucratic bullshit, Cella still gets his chance to shine, when he’s called to a meeting with Hagan who tries to intimidate him too. Taunted and threatened by the bigot and his armed cronies, the tough guy detective doesn’t back down. He just fires that cheeky smirk at them that we know so well, a look that says he doesn’t give rat’s ass what these guys are saying: it’s time to put up or shut up! Refusing to compromise, Cella swaggers away from the meeting, and when one of Hagan’s thugs tries to stop him, he effortless beats the guy down in seconds, a sign that he’s still got a deadly tiger in the tank. Later, just when it looks like he’s about to bring Jeremy in, he reveals his hand, telling him, ‘You can’t do this on your own,’ before letting him go free to face Hagan in a final, deadly encounter.

  Fire With Fire is a serviceable enough little action thriller, with some brutal action sequences and some real edge-of-the-seat moments, though it’s a real shame that Bruce doesn’t get involved more often. He definitely does wonders with a small part and his mere presence helps to lift the film to a whole other level, though straight-to-DVD is almost certainly where this one belongs. If anything, Bruce’s scowling, pissed off, Hard Bastard kicking out against the system act definitely whets the appetite for another Die Hard instalment which will thankfully be making its way to theatres very soon! Yippie-ki-yay!!!

BRUCE’S RATING:

INDESTRUCTIBILITY: 4/10 – Doesn’t really see a whole lot of action, though you get the impression he could definitely handle it.

COMBAT SKILLS: 3/10 – Only punches one dude, but does it with such style that you ust know there’s plenty more where that came from.

ATTITUDE: 7/10 – Fights the good fight from behind a desk, so the youn g upstart can wage his war on the streets.

OUTRAGEOUSNESS: 3/10 – Bends the rules to breaking point to bring a baddie to justice, but doesn’t jump through any windows or crash any cars. Disappointing.

BODY COUNT: Possibly one in 97 minutes – rubbish. 1/10

BRUCE’S SCORE: 18/50

  So, it has only been a week of this action movie business, but I have to confess I am being sucked right into this world of violent, explosive manliness. By going into the viewing experience with a healthy respect for the rules and clichés of the genre, I have been able to get a kick out of critically-neglected DTV efforts like Fire With Fire. Movies that have garnered quite pitiful ratings on sites like IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes are proving to be thoroughly entertaining, once I accept what the filmmakers and the Hard Bastard involved have been trying to achieve. It has been an entertaining ride so far, and I am curious as to how I will feel about all this a little further down the line. Cheers!

HOLLYWOOD HARD BASTARDS VOL. 6: THE GLIMMER MAN (1996)

  The Hard Bastard Gods have decreed that today shall be the turn of the Master of Aikido, Lord Steven Seagal, to show off his indomitable macho action man chops. I have never been the biggest fan of Seagal’s zen-but- mouthy, take-no-crap, dress like a hippy, sting like a bee schtick, but after this one I have definitely reassessed my feelings towards the man. Released during Seagal’s mid-nineties heyday, when the pony-tailed one was at the peak of his box office powers, Director John Gray’s the Glimmer Man teams The Great One up with jive-talkin’ Keenen Ivory Wayans, to incendiary, thrilling effect. Wayans’ wisecracking, Humphrey Bogart-loving L.A. Detective Jim Campbell is forced to partner-up with Seagal’s mysterious, mystic, bead-wearing New York cop, Lt. John Cole, when they are assigned to track down a serial killer dubbed ‘The Family Man,’ due to his habit of murdering entire families in atrocious, ritualistic fashion. Campbell quickly discovers that Cole, steeped in Buddhism and used to working alone, has a shady past that could actually hold the key to solving the case and unlocking a much larger conspiracy. Happily, this involves copious violence, sweet car chases and a whole load of stuff that blows up grandly.

  Seagal is a commanding presence here, and though he often looks ridiculous in his bizarre, multicoloured tunics and beads, he glides through the narrative with such poise and confidence that he owns any room he walks into. Cole oozes self-belief and tackles some pretty hairy situations with a serenity that makes him look totally badass. No sooner than he’s been assigned to this homicide case, he’s strolling into a hostage situation in a school, purely because he thinks it’s the right thing to do. As his partner points out, it’s not even in their department jurisdiction, but before anyone even knows what’s going on, Cole has sorted the situation out by hurling himself and the teen gunman through a plate glass window. His methods are extreme, but dammit, he gets results. As it turns out, the kid’s dad is someone very important: shady crook Frank Deverell (Bob Gunton), who just happens to be a central figure in the whole conspiracy, and Cole becomes a marked man for refusing to testify that the boy was temporarily insane. Quite bodaciously, when Deverell presents him with a thinly-veiled threat, Cole explodes: ‘You tell your asshole boss that nobody threatens me…now take your ugly ass outta here!’ Seagal is supremely skilled at spitting such venomous censures and in this movie he gets plenty opportunities to vent his spleen. Cole is also quick to point out that he deplores violence, but will remorsefully resort to it when the baddies give him no other option. Thankfully, this happens quite regularly, resulting in some impeccable, squelchy bloodshed.

  Though Cole is prone to sprouting weird, floaty spiritual nonsense like, ‘she is merely a broken vessel,’ and ‘crying cleanses the soul,’ he also exhibits some quite outrageous, sage, otherworldly skills, such as being able to work out where a murder victim came from purely by her ‘bone structure’, and is knowledgeable about mystical Eastern medicine. He even sneakily gets Campbell to ingest some ‘powdered deer penis,’ to cure his allergies, which becomes a whimsical, but tired running joke.

  Constantly laughing, joking and ribbing each other, Cole and Campbell become an affable double act, with Campbell reliably bringing the blithe, street smart attitude, and Cole bringing the wisdom and the ultraviolent pain. Cornered by some baddies when they stumble across some hoods breaking into a car, Seagal warns them: ‘My friend, he’s a little bit country, I’m a little bit rock n’ roll!’, nicely summing up their relationship, before it all kicks off. With the bad guys attempting to rob them, thinking them unarmed, Cole quips, ‘do you take plastic?’ before whipping out a credit card containing a sneaky hidden blade, slashing up his assailants quick style, before kung fu-ing the shit out of them. It makes you wonder: what kind of guy would carry such a thing? He’s resourceful and tough, and throughout  the movie he does it all with no small measure of style and finesse.  As Campbell points out, ‘He speaks Chinese, dresses like a monk and he’s like Bruce Lee in battle!’ Amen to that.

  When his ex-wife is found butchered and he’s stitched up for the Family Man murders, Cole shows what he’s made of and comes out fighting, looking to track down and punish the powerful figures from his past who he figures must be behind it all. When the chief informs him that he’s suspended pending an investigation, following a heated exchange in the P.D. men’s room Cole enquires which urinal the boss has just pissed in, before tossing his gun and badge straight into the manky piss-pot. Nice.

  Cole then tracks down his old army buddy-turned Senator Smith (Brian Cox), who he suspects might have something to do with it all and becomes caught up in an electrifying restaurant smackdown. Before he’s even entered the eatery, Cole sparks out a mouthy maître d’, and when Smith’s bodyguard suggest he leave quietly, the Buddhist ballbuster retorts ‘I have something in my pocket that will completely clear up that bruise on your forehead.’ Before the confused enforcer can finishing asking ‘what bruise?’, Cole has knocked him into next week and is soon taking on five very angry, highly trained bad guys. Effortlessly messing them up, tossing them through windows and taking a chance to show off his brilliant close-quarters combat style, Cole swaggers off, point made, and coolly enquires, ‘Do you validate parking?’ This one really is a masterclass in ridiculous action movie quipping, with the wisecracks coming thick and fast, making for a bloody good, riotous laugh.

  We soon find out where Cole got his particular set of skills from when, plotting to take him down, co-conspirators Deverell and Smith reveal that he is ex-Special Ops, the best-of-the-best, a Vietnam vet nicknamed ‘the Glimmer Man’, who has seen some serious shit.  Of Cole’s past form, Smith explains, ‘there’d be nothing but jungle…then a glimmer…then you’d be DEAD.’ Cole was apparently so tough that he went rogue and started making up his own assignments, before disappearing to Thailand where he found spirituality and peace, eventually dedicating his life to law and justice.  Unfortunately for the villains, setting Cole up seems to have only succeeded in flicking a switch in his head that makes the violent acts of justice we’ve seen so far look like a goddamn picnic. When two hoods posing as cops try to kidnap him, from the backseat of a speeding car the steamed-up Spartan beats one of them to death with his own gun. He then fearlessly smashes the vehicle right into a massive gasoline truck, spectacularly rolling out the back window just before the inevitable fiery mushroom cloud signals that this most definitely means WAR.

  Next time the partners encounter Smith, proper procedure goes out the window, as Cole shoots  him in the foot to get him to squeal, then promptly blasts him in the hand just to prove he ain’t messing about. After he’s spilled the beans, (some convoluted nonsense concerning a cover-up, Deverell, chemical weapons and Russian mobsters)Smith confesses, ‘I miss you Jack…our men these days, they just won’t go that extra mile.’ This is the level of Hard Bastard we’re dealing with – he’s so nails, he’s getting compliments from the guy he’s just shot! Then, as Smith begs them for leniency and to at least call him an ambulance, Cole spits, ‘I only shot you in one foot – hobble to the hospital!’

  With the info he needs, Cole shows off his smarts, playing the bad guys off against each other and leading them into a ferocious, riveting gun battle. When, during the assault, Campbell is blasted right out of a window and left hanging precariously from a ledge, Cole shows how selflessly courageous he is by abseiling down the side of the building to rescue him. This is very cool indeed.

  Finally getting to go mano-a-mano with the real Family Man killer - Deverell’s nefarious right hand man Cunningham (John M. Jackson) - Cole pulls out all the stops in a brutal, bloody final fight that shows just how unstoppable The Glimmer Man really is. Urging his foe to ‘take your best shot,’ Cole seems unsatisfied, despite the crunching blow to the face he receives for his troubles. ‘No! Your best shot,’ he roars, inciting the guy to wallop him even harder. ‘Boring!’ he cries, quite splendidly, before composing himself and calmly quipping, ‘That’s the best you got, I’m gonna have to kill you.’ Then he unleashes hell in the type of classic, furious fight that sees scenery demolished marvellously, and blood and teeth fly through the air like gristly bullets. The duel reaches fever pitch with both men trying to strangle each other to death, before Cunningham receives his comeuppance by being sent hurtling through a window to be impaled on spikes below, just as the church bell tolls. It is a suitably stylish end to a thrilling physical encounter.

  With Cole’s name cleared and the war finally over, injured Campbell is led off on a stretcher, stopping to tell Cole that ever since he’s met him he’s been nothing but trouble. Smirking, Cole says he’ll keep that in mind, shooting his comrade a look that implies he ain’t seen nothin’ yet, before swaggering off into the crowd: ready to right some more wrongs and kick a whole lot more ass. He’s The Glimmer Man. That’s just how he rolls.

THE RATINGS:

INDESTRUCTIBILITY: 9/10 – Cunningham kinda gives him a run for his money, but to be honest, Seagal barely breaks sweat.

COMBAT SKILLS: 7/10 Great with his hands, a piece or even a credit card. Not bad.

ATTITUDE: 8/10 Strives to do what’s right, takes cases that are outside his department, and tells bribing baddies to kiss his ass. However, possibly did some questionable stuff in Nam…

OUTRAGEOUSNESS: 7/10 Leaping from moving cars, abseiling down buildings during a firefight, maiming baddies with credit cards, he’s pretty damn crazy!

BODY COUNT: 14 kills in 91 minutes – A lot of room for improvement! 2/10

SEAGAL’S SCORE: 33/50

HOLLYWOOD HARD BASTARDS VOL. 5: LAST MAN STANDING (1996)

  Today’s installment of badass Hard Bastardry comes in the shape of Walter Hill’s Prohibition-era hard-boiled gangster-noir thriller Last Man Standing. An officially sanctioned remake of Akira Kurosawa’s influential 1961 actioner Yojimbo, this one stars Bruce Willis in full-on scowling, cocky, tough son-of-a-bitch mode, as mysterious, travelling gun-for-hire John Smith. Stopping off in the small, West Texas town of Jericho, Smith quickly realises the burg is practically deserted, save for two warring bootleg gangs who have driven almost everyone else away with their nefarious misdeeds.

   In town for about five minutes, Smith is soon neck-deep in trouble for staring a little too hard at the gorgeous girlfriend of Irish gangster Doyle(David Patrick Kelly). Despite being heftily outnumbered by eight hard-as-nails Irish hoodlums, the cocksure, wisecracking scoundrel mouths off, ‘A guy once told me it’s a free country!’ before the boys teach him a lesson by trashing his car. Smith duly gets the whole town’s attention and establishes quite the reputation by downing a scotch before outdrawing and blowing away Doyle’s top shooter. No sweat. Smith then promptly hires himself out to Italian mobster Strozzi (Ned Eisenberg)’s outfit, smelling an opportunity to make a fistful of dollars by playing the two rival factions off against each other in the war to control the contraband coming in from Mexico. The stage is set for some gloriously violent, double-crossing, explosive gangster mayhem.

  Bruce is pretty damn cool in this one, slightly toning down his wise-guy, mouthy John McClane schtick to create a likeable, but ambiguous character whose moral code has many shades of grey, and whose motives are not always entirely clear. Smith doesn’t think twice about killing, but he’s also a gent, tipping his hat to the ladies and always ready to defend the honour of the weak and innocent. He gets mixed up with Strozzi’s downtrodden mistress, Lucy (Alexandra Powers), hinting that the ladies may be his one and only weak point. Despite masterfully deceiving and backstabbing practically everyone in town for his own benefit, when Lucy is brutalised after their affair comes to light, Smith shows he still has a heart by making sure she gets safely out of town.

  Though he may have a soft centre, Smith, thankfully, is still reliably tough as hell. Ambushed by thugs while getting his rocks off with a hooker (a young Leslie Mann), he proves that a real Hard Bastard always keeps his guns handy as he athletically leaps out of bed, retrieving his six-shooters from under his pillow and blasting his attackers to hell. In the nude. It is a very, very cool manoeuvre and an absolutely classic action moment, only slightly ruined by the fact that he doesn’t get back under the sheets to finish the job.

  Throughout the movie he displays massive cojones by repeatedly mouthing off, making enemies and getting into fistfights, knowing full well that the bad guys could pull a piece at any moment. The man just doesn’t give a rat’s ass. At one point, knowing that both sides want him six feet under, Smith nonchalantly sits in his chair in the mid-afternoon sun, in full view of the whole town, and quietly, smugly peels an apple, almost daring his enemies to make a move. That’s what I call tough!

  Even when Doyle’s right hand man, fearsome enforcer Hickey(a terrifically menacing Christopher Walken) arrives in town, unflappable Smith still doesn’t back down. As the eerie, gangly, gravel-voiced Hickey does his best to intimidate him, the hotshot mercenary just smirks and waits for his moment: he’s the man with the plan, and he’s playing all the angles. Even when he’s ambushed in the bath, Smith keeps his cool, just leaning back and listening to what hickey has to say. When asked if he’s scared, he even has the gall to say ‘Yeah…the water’s getting’ cold!’ As his men beat the crap out of him and Hickey remarks, ‘He’s nothing without a gun,’ we just know that Smith still holds all the aces and he’s gonna finish this with gutsy aplomb. Smith is definitely the kind of guy you should really kill while you’ve got the chance. He’s even mental enough to think that he can take on an army of armed hoodlums while busted up, armed only with a small knife. ‘I can get a gun with it, ‘ boasts the crazy bastard.

  After showing early promise, Hill’s picture starts to sag a little in its mid-section, proving perhaps a little too talky for those expecting non-stop, tommy-gun-blasting action. It’s fun to watch Smith swindling not just the hoods, but Bruce Dern’s crooked Sheriff as well, into thinking they’ve got the upper hand, but after a while you just want to see Bruce do what he does best: namely, making things go KABOOM!

  Thankfully, the film builds up to a gorgeously bloody climax that sees Smith showcase his terrifying gunplay by taking on a room full of armed hoodlums in quite spectacular fashion. Not one of them manages to get close to the smooth, fedora-clad, shit-hot marksman, who is fast, assured, confident and impossibly cool. When one hood holds a gun to a girl’s head, Smith doesn’t even hesitate before blowing the guy away. We know so little about the guy, yet his body language, his reflexes and his confidence suggest that the havoc he wreaks on Jericho is only the tip of one icy cool iceberg. He annihilates goon after goon, all with that crazy, world-weary Die Hard look in his eyes, firing off a shitload of bullets and making the corpses bounce about all over the place like in a goddamn ultra-violent videogame, just to make sure they’re dead. He fights on, even though he’s severely wounded from his earlier pasting, even stopping for a big ol’ drink of whisky, because, hey, you might as well.

  With business sorted out and just about everyone in town now dead or dying, Smith shows no joy, no celebration. ‘They were all better off dead,’ he spits, then gets back in his car and drives off, back out into the unforgiving desert. This was just another job. Now, on to the next one.

  What a Hard Bastard.

THE RATINGS:

INDESTRUCTIBILITY: 7/10 – Smith does take a hell of a beating, but it barely slows him down.

COMBAT SKILLS: 8/10 – No-one is faster with a gun, though we never find out if he could have done it all with that knife…

ATTITUDE: 6/10 – Does it all for the money, but he’s a gent with the ladies.

OUTRAGEOUSNESS: 7/10 Blasts baddies in the nude and is rude to everyone in a town full of killers.

BODY COUNT: 31 kills in 101 minutes – respectable, but could have achieved so much more if he’d cut the chat and got on with wasting folk. 3/10

BRUCE’S SCORE: 31/50

HOLLYWOOD HARD BASTARDS VOL.4: CYBORG (1989)

  In a plague-infested, Mad Max-meets-Masters of the Universe style urban wasteland future, everyone is into martial arts, nobody can act, and the bad guys all have really ridiculous haircuts. Chaos reigns, as a band of cyberpunk ‘pirates’ led by the magically monikered villainous colossus Fender Tremolo (Vincent Klyn) kidnap a female cyborg who may just hold the key to saving the world. Enter Jean Claude Van Damme’s equally brilliantly named Gibson Rickenbacker, a directionless drifter with a tortured past and unfinished business with Fender, who will have to summon all his strength and high-kicking kung fu courage to become the hero a dying world needs him to be.

  This another one of those Cannon films from the 80s, where production values were usually secondary to having a big name action star wasting a whole bunch of baddies in ever more bloody and explosive ways. The whole picture basically looks like it was filmed in rubbish dumps and abandoned warehouses, with piss-poor makeup and effects, and even worse acting ensuring that this one will hardly be remembered as a classic of the action sci-fi genre. For a film with two main characters named after respected makes of guitars, there is also a whiff of irony about the fact that the flick’s twiddly 80s synth soundtrack is more offensive than its multi-coloured, child-murdering villains. This is one of the earlier entries on JCVD’s CV and it shows, as though he proves dangerous in a scrap, his lines are minimal, probably due to his still developing acting skills. We all have to start somewhere.

Thankfully, Van Damme’s undeniable martial arts skills make this one almost watchable, strutting his stuff in overblown fight scenes packed with neat weaponry, like bola whips, spears and deadly boots containing concealed blades that mean Gibson can kick and stab baddies at the same time. He routinely takes on up to eight bizarrely dressed, gas-mask wearing goons at once, his acrobatics providing the perfect distraction from the film’s terrible, muddled plot. The drifter also shows off his stealthy sneakiness by regularly sneaking up on the baddies, picking them off one-by-one with his bare hands.

 At first, Van Damme’s weary traveller comes across as a bit of an asshole, claiming he doesn’t give a damn about curing the plague and that he’s only in this for revenge. However, along the way, as he takes beautiful, young, fellow drifter Nady (Deborah Richter) under his wing, his past is slowly teased out and we learn just how heroic he really is. After checking out his radical battle scars, his blonde, buxom travel companion attempts to seduce him, but Gibson’s having none of it. Cue corny flashbacks that reveal a horrifically pony-tailed Gibson taking money to lead a young mother and her kids out of the war-torn city, only to fall in love with her. We discover that the bad guys eventually caught up with his new ‘family’ and killed them all, leaving Gibson for dead. This is what made him so hard and dispassionate, afraid of forming attachments ever again. When it transpires that the ‘daughter’ he once thought dead is actually now all grown up, raised by Fender as one of his despicable lackeys, our hero is ever so slightly pissed. In this harsh future, you can’t afford to be soft, and Gibson proves harder than most.

  Still, he is revealed to be slightly more fallible than your usual action hero, whining as he takes a fair few lickings from his foes and routinely having to run away from danger throughout the movie. There are a number of tedious scenes of Gibson and Nady running, though one escape scene involving the Muscles From Brussels swinging out of harm’s way on a bloody great big metal pipe, ploughing through baddies as he goes, is highly entertaining. Our hero has to rely on luck on more than one occasion, but shows immense bravery against impossible odds, never giving up, despite getting his ass handed to him regularly. He risks life and limb to save Nady when he could quite easily be escaping – the sign of a real virtuous champ. The dude even gets completely brutalised, then physically crucified by his cackling adversaries, before bouncing back from near death to save the day. In fact, it seems to be the point of the whole movie that Gibson must be completely broken down, must hit rock bottom, in order to be reborn as mankind’s true saviour, just like that other great hero from history: Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man. We can rebuild him…

  In an outrageously cool scene, hung from a cross, Gibson draws on his rage, his memories of all the injustices that Fender and his crew have wreaked on him throughout his life, in order to summon the strength to tear himself free and stride into battle against his nemesis. Appearing like a glistening, bare-chested, vengeful bat out of hell, stood in the pouring rain, armed with a bow and arrow, Gibson calls his enemies out, ready to finally become the hero we suspected he could be. The pulse-pounding battle in the middle of a thunderstorm is incredibly stylish, with Gibson tackling a man on fire before going toe-to-toe with Fender, both combatants stripped to the waist, shivering, but ready for all-out WAR. It is an exceptionally cool moment in a really rather lacklustre movie, but it’s worth waiting for. Fender, resembling a testosterone-fuelled WWF wrestler is an absolute man-mountain and the fight is bone-crunchingly brutal, with heads being slammed in car doors and both men roaring like bears as each thudding roundhouse kick hits home. Unlike their previous duels, this time Gibson does not back down, faces up to his destiny and is rewarded when he boots the wretched blackguard so hard that he flies across the room and is impaled on a gigantic meat hook. Awesome.

  Van Damme emerges from this one a hero, but he takes an awful long time getting there. The film is certainly packed with violence, but so much of it is shown in jarring, super slow-motion that the full effect of JCVD’s radiant martial arts prowess do not fully get the chance to shine through. The Belgian would have to wait for a better director to truly harness the skills that would solidify his place as a true legendary Hard Bastard. And would it have killed them to have chucked in a few jokes?

THE RATINGS:

INVINCIBILITY: 4/10 – The guy gets battered far too easily, far too often.

COMBAT SKILLS: 6/10 - Utilises an impeccable arsenal of weapons and shows off his martial arts, but the slow-mo kind of ruins it.

ATTITUDE:  7/10 – Acts like a bit of an asshole, but he’s been through a lot. Comes good in the end.

OUTRAGEOUSNESS: 8/10 – Pulls himself down off the cross after being crucified!!!

BODY COUNT: 25 kills in 84 minutes – not bad. Room for improvement. 4/10

JCVD’s SCORE:  29/50

HOLLYWOOD HARD BASTARDS VOL. 3: BRAVEHEART (1995)

  As fate would have it, for the third instalment of my one-movie-a-day-for-a-year quest into the realm of Hard Bastard-dom, the Tub of Death follows up Mel Gibson’s directorial debut with his next effort, the historically questionable, but gloriously thrill-packed Braveheart. Once again Mel stars, this time as real-life Scottish hero William Wallace, a commoner who revolts against English invaders in the late thirteenth century, eventually becoming a great leader and iconic figure in the War of Independence. Though Gibson took some stick for applying a heavy dose of artistic license to the unfolding of historic events (did Wallace really hump the French princess?!!?), there can certainly be no denying that this near three hour epic is still a stirring, emotionally-involving and action-packed corker of a film that quite deservingly won a host of Oscars, including Best Picture. As a cheeky bonus, it’s also violent as hell, with Gibson’s Wallace proving to be an iconic, sword-swinging action hero for the ages. Not bad for a dude in a skirt.

  In the struggle to vanquish the English intruders, Wallace proves himself to be that rare breed of hero who has equal amounts brains to complement his considerable brawn. Having moved abroad at a young age to be educated by his uncle (the legendary Brian Cox), following the murder of his father at English hands, he returns home a man, ready to lead a rebellion. His first act upon arrival is to prove how hard he is by engaging in a ‘test of manhood’ with his old best pal Hamish (Brendan Gleeson), which basically involves grown men chucking massive rocks as hard and as far as they can. Though Hamish bests him, Wallace points out that the real test of a soldier is ‘not in his arm,’ but in his brain, before proceeding to prove how doubly hard he is by refusing to flinch as his pal lobs a bloody great big boulder that narrowly misses his head. Then, for good measure, he knocks the guy unconscious with a pebble, just to prove his point. Nice.

  It doesn’t take the guy long to woo the ladies either, picking up where he left off with childhood sweetheart Murron (Catherine McCormack). The cheeky charmer proves to be pretty smooth for a savage, chatting her up in French and before you can say ‘voulez-vous coucher avec moi…’ they’re married. Quick work!

  Things turn ugly when the arrogant English invaders, ‘exercising their noble right,’ try to have their way with her, provoking Wallace into a scrap where he solidifies his badass credentials by taking on a whole battalion of armed swordsmen, initially with nothing more than rocks and his mighty fists. During the battle, Wallace proves himself to be quite deadly with all manner of weaponry, from swords and spears to bloody great big hammers, showing no mercy and inspiring his people to take up arms and fight with him. When his missus is captured and killed, the woad really hits the fan, with the furious Wallace galvanising his people and leading them into massive, chaotic battles where the English quickly discover that vengeance wears a kilt…

  Gibson’s Wallace is an almost unfeasibly cool customer, swaggering across battlefields and into the territory of an enemy that far outnumbers his army and coolly telling them that Scotland is free, end of story, and that if the English know what’s good for them they should bugger off. Putting those ‘Mad Mel’ eyes to good use, as part of his terms, he even dementedly demands that a rival commander cross the battlefield, where he will be invited to pucker up and kiss his own arse. Of course they do no such thing, but Wallace proves a master tactician, taking advantage of his opponents’ arrogance to set up cool little traps and diversions that catch them completely off guard to win battles against impossible odds. In one tremendous set-piece, massive rows of English horsemen foolishly charge at Wallace’s men, thinking them easy pickings, only to discover that the Scots have lured them into a trap and they’re all tooled up with huge spears, becoming a massive human hedgehog. It is a breathtaking, savage, wonderfully conceived cinematic moment, with Wallace at the heart of it all, relishing the carnage and vengefully lopping off heads amidst one of the most bloodthirsty battle scenes aver filmed.

  The Scot quickly builds up a reputation as an ultimate, mighty warrior, so much so that newcomers to the resistance refuse to believe he is who he says he is and are a bit sceptical about following him. At this, Wallace proudly booms, ‘Aye, I hear he’s seven foot tall, kills men by the hundred and fights the English with fire from his eyes and lightning bolts from his arse!” His humour wins the men over, Gibson showing off his laudable Scots accent while delivering one of cinema’s most rousing, electrifying speeches. You know the one: it ends with him shouting ‘…FRREEEEEDDDOOOOMMM!!!!’ and his entire army lifting up their kilts to bare their bums at rather-frightened English archers.

  Throughout the picture, Gibson pulls out all the stops to ensure that Wallace will be remembered as one helluva Hard Bastard. His gallantry in battle and daring tactics earn him a knighthood, but he doesn’t stop there. He shows his enemies how mental he really is by sending them severed heads in the post, and rides into the house of a traitor to bash his head in with a gargantuan ball-and-chain while he sleeps. It says a lot that the conspirator was already haing a nightmare about Wallace just before the attack. He is a seriously tough cookie.

  He furthers his almighty badass credentials by refusing to compromise in the face of oppression. When the English offer him land and a title in exchange for a truce, he swiftly tells them where to stick it. When he loses a battle and discovers he has been betrayed by men he loved and trusted, the dude still gets back on his horse and fights on, furthering his legend and inspiring his people further.

  Hell, Wallace proves so dashing and daring that the French Princess of Wales decides to betray King Edward, purely because she fancies him. Going against the history books, Gibson would even have us believe that Wallace seduces her and gets her pregnant, meaning that second in line to the English throne is actually his bloody kid. Now that’s a hero, right there!

  Even when he is captured and facing death, the grizzled Scot is triumphantly gallus. Knowing his life will be spared if he pledges allegiance to his captor, Wallace flat out refuses, understanding that his absolute defiance stands as a beacon of hope: something for his downtrodden people to believe in and fight for. Solemnly, he declares, ‘Every man dies…not every man really lives,’ gallantly accepting his fate as a martyr for his countrymen, so that freedom might eventually return to the land he loves. It is proper legendary heroic behaviour, and as the Princess begs with him to drink an elxir that will numb the pain during his impending torture, the warrior quite brilliantly exclaims, ‘No…it will numb my wits, and I must have them. If I am senseless and I wail, then they will have broken me.’ He is one seriously tough cookie.

  His death is suitably gnarly and grisly, ‘the awful price of treason,’ as his assailants put it. Publicly tortured, his body is wrecked as he is hung by the neck, pulled apart by horses, then finally, horribly mutilated, all while his persecutors implore him to beg for mercy. Yet the courageous freedom fighter never yields, clinging to his hopes, beliefs and integrity until the bitter end. During the film’s inspirational, awe-inspiring, reach-for-the –hankies crescendo, with his last breath Wallace roars his final word, a powerful call-to-arms and a sign to his enemies that he and his people will never be broken: FREEDOM. What a dude.

THE RATING:

INDESTRUCTIBILITY: 8/10 - Wallace takes a hell of a beating and never gives up, though he does die in the end.

COMBAT SKILLS: 8/10 – Busts his enemies up with anything he can get his hands on, and with some style too.

ATTITUDE: 10/10 – Even in death, he sticks to his guns. A total hero.

OUTRAGEOUSNESS: 8/10 Flashes his bum at his enemies and order them to kiss their own arses. Mental.

BODY COUNT: 33 in 175 minutes – impressive, but somehow you really do feel like it should have been more – 3/10

MEL’S SCORE: 37/50 – Not bad!

MEL’S AVERAGE: 25/50

HOLLYWOOD HARD BASTARDS VOL. 2: THE MAN WITHOUT A FACE (1993)

It’s an interesting, leftfield surprise for day two of the challenge. Despite being a perfectly respectable directorial debut for Mel Gibson, who also serves up a powerful, brooding performance as the film’s star, 1993’s The Man Without A Face is nevertheless a bit of a letdown in the Hard Bastard stakes. In the adaptation of Isabelle Holland’s 1972 novel of the same name, Mel is Justin McLeod, a painter who has been living a reclusive existence in a small 1962 Maine town, due to a mysterious accident that has left his face and torso hideously disfigured. The locals fear him, as he “never comes out of his dungeon,” but disappointingly he is not an isolated, retired special-ops assassin just waiting to be called out of retirement for once last all-action assignment.

 A former teacher, McLeod crosses paths with Chuck Norstadt (impressive child star Nick Stahl), a troubled young boy who desperately wants to pass a military academy’s entrance exam, and who sees the damaged scholar as his best hope for success. Over an enlightening, soul-searching summer, the two form a unique friendship and learn some important life lessons about loyalty and not judging people by appearances, when some alarming revelations are made about McLeod’s past.

  The lead pair share remarkable chemistry and the picture is full of moving, memorable moments, but there is a distinct lack of breathtaking, high-octane action. It is a ‘talky’ film and very little blows up or is threatened by terrorists. In fact, nobody gets shot or maimed at all, and those expecting an exciting, explosive explanation for McLeod’s disfigurement will probably be disappointed.

  Gibson certainly delivers a towering, commanding performance from under some convincing prosthesis, proving that he is much more than a simple action man. Happily, his character is still a bit of a  hardass, the kind of guy who helps the kid learn by making him dig massive holes out back and subjects him to other messy, physically exhausting tasks that help him learn in a fun, roundabout way, kind of like Mr Miyagi. He may not shoot anyone, but Mel is on heroic form here, taking a big chance on a poor kid whose ditzy  mother has had three kids by three different guys and who says things like “I’m not cut out for this mothering racket!” McLeod guides him through a turbulent time by helping him get over his daddy issues and achieve his dreams, and while the pizza-faced tutor may regularly paint and recite Shakepseare, it is to Gibson’s credit that the prof always remains rugged, masculine and dangerous, threatening to explode into a frightening fit of rage at any moment. He maintains a tough, steely exterior, wary of letting anyone in and quietly simmers away, keeping us guessing as to what his secret is.

  When McLeod’s secret is revealed, despite not involving helicopters or ninjas, it is still a doozy. Creepy ‘did-he-or-didn’t he?’ revelations about his past and how he came to be in his current predicament flip his relationship with young Norstadt on its head, forcing us to question our feelings about their friendship and his intentions. Brilliantly, Gibson decides to keep things delightfully ambiguous which makes the film stand out as a daring, provocative debut. For Lethal Weapon fans who have rented this one by mistake, he even chucks in a bonus glimpse of the wild-eyed Mad Mel we know and love in a thrilling scene where haunted, exacerbated McLeod contemplates suicide and plays chicken with an oncoming articulated lorry. Sadly, the scene does not end in incendiary vehicular carnage, but it is nice to see Mel throwing the action junkies a bone.

  Any battles in this one are either metaphorical or fought in a courtroom with words and truth, rather than swords and grenades, but the film is still worth a watch, even if it doesn’t exactly do much to solidify Mel’s badass Hard Bastard credentials. The Man Without a Face was Mel discovering his groove in the director’s chair, playing it safe before going all-out with the gargantuan, arsecheek-baring, savage battles of Braveheart and is a small, wonderfully observed examination of a tender, unlikely friendship. If you like that sort of thing.

THE RATINGS;

INDESTRUCTIBILTY: 2/10 Just one look at him tells you he is only too human, though he gets points for standing up to persecution.

COMBAT SKILLS: 1/10 He fights his fights with words and thoughts. That’s rubbish.

ATTITUDE: 6/10 He heroically takes the kid under his wing when everyone else has given up. But what about those allegations…?

OUTRAGEOUSNESS: 4/10 Plays chicken with a big truck! But that’s it, really. Even the accident that disfigured him sounds kinda crap.

BODY COUNT: 0 in 115 minutes. Rubbish. 0/10

MEL’S SCORE: A generous 13/50

HOLLYWOOD HARD BASTARDS VOL. 1: INVASION U.S.A (1985)

  

And so it begins…

  It’s New Year’s Day 2013 and I am tired, grumpy and up far too early. But I’m excited, as today is the day my descent into action movie Hard Bastard insanity begins. Pleasingly, the first film out of the Tub of Death is a belter: Missing In Action director Joseph Zito’s insane 1985 actioner Invasion U.S.A. Co-written by main star Chuck Norris, this barmy tale about a one-man-army’s attempts to rescue America from a full-on terrorist invasion is enjoyable, easy viewing and a perfect start to my Hard Bastards experiment.

  Norris is Matt Hunter, an unfeasibly indomitable semi-retired Special Forces agent-cum-alligator wrangler, enjoying his solitude in the Florida swamps. However, when the villainous Rostov - a spy whose life hunter once spared, under orders from his CIA bosses – plans to unleash a reign of terror on US soil, Hunter must leave the quiet life behind and return to doing what he does best: Kicking  terrorist butt! These are terrorists of the worst kind, dispassionately bombing shopping malls, shooting helpless refugees and vaporizing a suburban neighbourhood…at Christmas!!! While their motives are never really explained, these are baddies that you desperately want to see punished and Chuck is only too happy to oblige. This is one of those outrageous Cannon films from the 80s, when action films were really over-the-top, violent and bloodthirsty – put simply, it’s a berserk, trigger-happy, forgotten classic.

  Hunter is an action man with a reputation so great that the villains feel they have to murder him before they even begin their mission, almost as if they know he’s the only man alive who could stop them. In fact, Hunter is so damn tough, Rostov – a child-killing, woman-hating psychopathic sonofabitch – actually has nightmares about him. Nightmares where instead of shooting him when he has the chance, Hunter just boots him in the face for fun. He really is quite hard. His cronies think he’s crazy, but Rostov insists “as long as he’s breathing, he’s a threat!” Nice.

  Ironically, when approached with intel about the impending situation, the veteran had told his bosses where to stick the assignment, but when the baddies decide to bazooka his house with his best pal inside, all bets are off. Hunter is so tough he survives the assault that completely decimates his house by jumping through a plate glass window and rises from the ashes to seek REVENGE. It is a truly awesome cinematic moment, as the stoic tough guy carries his deceased gator-wrangling buddy through the remains of the burning house, with the most affecting stern expression on his face. It’s this look that says all we need to know about his character: emanating a grizzled, world-weariness from his tired eyes, he’s not sad, just disappointed, like he knew this day would come. The past has caught up with him and it is time to put things right. There is no time for tears, as Hunter walks straight from the wreckage to his awesome swamp-cruising airboat and heads off on a collision course with destiny. It is simultaneously ridiculous and astonishing: a classic action movie moment.

  It takes an age for Chuck to actually kill anyone in this one, but the way things slowly build up and the more we learn about his character, we just know that when he is called into action it’s going to be BOOM time. Meeting in a gloriously grimy dive bar, supercool Hunter finally accepts the assignment, leaving the suits to pick up his tab. Then, completely fearless, the unflappable warrior drives his jeep straight through quite possibly the most blood-curdling, dodgiest neighbourhoods on earth, populated with fearsome pimps, hos, punks, gangbangers and numerous unsavoury types who attack his car, while barely batting an eyelid. He is totally focussed - there is only the mission.

 When he does finally take on the baddies, the action is suitably riotous. As one guy is stabbed through the hand for the purpose of extracting information, steely-eyed Hunter dares his muscle-bound lackeys to intervene, brilliantly goading, “If you come back in here, I’m gonna hit you with so many rights, you’re gonna beg me for a left!” Their fear is palpable as after busting a few heads, Hunter signs with his catchphrase: “Tell Rostov…it’s time to die.”

  From here on in, it’s non-stop bonkers action mayhem, with Hunter proving himself to be a seemingly unstoppable juggernaut of justice. So many bullets are fired at this man, it’s a wonder he doesn’t get lead poisoning, but time and time again he emerges unscathed. In fact, I don’t think anyone even gets close to touching him, never mind hurting him. Whether leaping onto the sides of speeding cars, single-handedly taking on a helicopter, or removing a bomb from a school bus, just to chuck it straight back at the bastards who put it there, Hunter emerges as the quintessential valiant all-American action hero. Constantly putting himself in the line of fire to rescue those weaker than himself, he is never anything less than heroic: a determined, swaggering one-man rocket-launching freedom force, here to clean up the streets. Even in the midst of a thrilling car chase, where the despicable terrorists hang an innocent girl from the window as a human shield, Hunter never, ever looks worried or phased – he’s on the side of the angels and he knows it. It’s no wonder Melissa Prophet’s gutsy journalist repeatedly refers to him as ‘The Cowboy.’

  This mask of utter coolness never slips, Hunter stalking slowly but confidently from each danger zone to the next. There is next to zero characterisation in this film, but that barely matters when you have a hero so tough, so Shaft-supercool that he tells the goddamn CIA what to do. His greatest moment, though, may just be when, arrested for vigilantism, he is interviewed on live TV and stares right into the lens to address his nemesis, proclaiming, almost prophetically, “One night, you’ll close your eyes…and when you open them…I’ll be there…And then it’ll be time to die.”

  The carnage is consistently aesthetically pleasing, with plenty of tanks, choppers, cars and buildings exploding spectacularly as civil war rages across the country. Norris gets the chance to wield all sorts of impressive ordnance, including one exceptionally Big Fucking Gun (B.F.G.), but pleasingly doesn’t forget to showcase the martial arts skills that made him famous. Running around with two machine guns, Hunter occasionally throws a few expertly timed kicks in there too, just because it looks cool.

  Though the furious final showdown with Rostov takes place in the exceptionally dull surroundings of an abandoned office building, the battle is nevertheless a cracker, the arch enemies audaciously squaring off in a ludicrous Mexican standoff with bazookas. As Hunter whispers “It’s time…” it is a suitably mental crescendo to a wonderfully mental film that shows that Chuck Norris is one Hard Bastard who it’s going to be difficult to beat. Happy New Year!

THE RATINGS:

INDESTRUCTIBILITY:  10/10 – This guy is bulletproof

COMBAT SKILLS: 7/10 – He kicks major ass, but maybe depends on his guns too much.

ATTITUDE: 10/10 Unflappable, gallant, hard-as-nails: an All-American Hero.

OUTRAGEOUSNESS: 8/10 Bazooka fight, anyone?

BODY COUNT: 30 kills in 107 minutes? Solid but unremarkable. 3/10

CHUCK’S SCORE: 38/50