Monday, March 14, 2011

Chain Of Command...

They don't make action stars like Michael Dudikoff anymore.  The man starred in many 80's and 90's action movies, many involving ninjas or the martial arts.  Yes, most of them were low budget but it is almost a non point.  Many of them were just as good, if not better, than the big screen offerings of the day.

Chain Of Command is about an "advisor" for an oil conglomerate.  The oil refinery that he works on is taken over by terrorists and almost everyone is killed.  He investigates a little bit and end up joining forces with bad guys who are against the terrorists.  Except the terrorists are really terrorists and the bad guys aren't even bad guys.  It's not as confusing as it sounds, I promise!

The movie offers a lot of shoot outs and minimal martial arts action.  There is a wild shoot out in a desert command center, which IMO, was the highlight of the movie.  There is some brief nipple but it's a body double and the scene it is involved in is pretty creepy.

Michael Dudikoff swears a lot in this one too.  I don't recall him ever swearing this much is any of his other movies.  When Michael Dudikoff says, "Get the fuck out of my way!", you get the fuck out of his way!

The one glaring error I noticed about this movie was the casting decision for the main bad guy.  He overacts throughout.  Sometimes he is calm and a suave killer and other times he is a sweaty, leering weirdo, which is normally a great thing, but it doesn't work here.  The showdown at the end between the two leads is well done, especially the part with the axe, but his overacting takes away form the movie as a whole.  You know, he reminds me of a poorly done version of Hans Gruber from Die Hard.

Despite the low budget and the hammy acting from the lead bad guy, the movie is still worth a watch or two and is one of the last solid efforts from the amazing Cannon.  Check it out!

2 comments:

  1. I had trouble with this one, because Dudikoff was running away so much. It had its moments, no doubt, but I prefer my action lead to kick ass, not constantly get captured or run away.

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  2. I didn't think he ran away too much, especially when they raid the buildings where the hostages are.

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