Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Lorenzo Lamas Week: Lethal

Deadly Force is authorized!  Today's film is one of my other Christmas presents, alongside Abar: Black Superman and a third film that I will cover down the road.  Don't you just love pointless suspense?  Lorenzo Lamas is not a huge name in the world of movies.  Hell, he's not a big star in the world of Direct-to-DVD movies either.  However, he was in Renegade.  This film- Lethal- is one of his less-common roles: as a villain. He will be a villain a couple of times this week, but it's not his usual role.  I think it's easier to get him to appear if he's the villain, since he doesn't have to appear in it all that much.  Incidentally, this is one of many films that Lamas appeared in 2004.  I didn't plan it that way, but I guess he had a busy year then.  In this movie, Lamas is a Russian...okay, that's just going to not work well.  He's a small part of this film, with much more of it focusing on some blond martial-artist lady that I've never heard of.  To find out if Lamas Week starts off with a bang, read on...
Lamas is a Russian Gun-Runner.  If you think that he tries with the accent, you're sorely mistaken.  You also don't know Lamas too well.
Our heroine chats with her sister in her best Silk Stalkings underwear.  That's natural, right?
She ends up on a case with her dead dad's friend involving some missing D.O.D. information on a Hard Drive.  Lamas wants it and the Quantum Ranger from Power Rangers: Time Force has it...and now he's dead.
Our heroine works the case with this Agent, with whom she shares a pointless back-story.  Does it amount to anything?  Not in the slightest.
In a confusing bit, our heroine has to go to a Tech Company to download files from the Drive...and only there.  This scene is also rife with pointless, comedy filler involving a nerdy Security Guard.  This also amounts to nothing.

By the way, the plans are for an Anti-Stealth Radar Detector.  Wanna run that by me again?
Other than kidnapping the Sister as collateral, Lamas really just sends his guards- who he took from 'The Final Sacrifice'- out to kill our heroes.  This is how well they do...
With her mentor apparently dead and her friend wounded- more on that in the wrap-up- our heroine is a one-woman army.  By that, I mean she walks out in the open and just keeps shooting...and never gets hit once.  Nice Ghost Town, by the way.
The CIA Leader turns on our heroine- for the money- and they fight.  He falls for a really silly trick- watch the movie to find out- and gets shot in the head.
Lamas fights out heroine...for a couple of minutes anyways.  He gets distracted by the sister holding a lighter to the Disc and gets shot to death.  Russian Gun-Runner- we hardly saw you.  The End.
Trying to make sense of this film is really Lethal.  Seriously, this dumb action movie has plot holes that you could do a John Woo-style dive through.  What happens to the Mentor character?  He is shown being tortured and then Lamas has his gun.  Was his death not important enough to show?!?  Good grief.  Besides, this is the story about the search for an Anti-Stealth Radar Detector.  What is that?  Is it a Radar device that detects stealth vehicles?  Is it a Radar device that detects anti-stealth devices?  What is an anti-stealth device?  Fun fact: Radar is an acronym.  The 'D' in Radar stands for 'Detection'- I'm just saying!  Aside from that confusing aside, the movie is laughably-bad.  Continuity is confusing at times, mixing shots together that don't feel symbiotic.  The action is cheesy, highlighted by a scene where one hero and a terrorist drop their guns and just start doing kung-fu.  For a military film, they also don't understand that Shotguns are close-range weapons.  Oh yeah, Shotgun rounds also do no damage to car windows or walls!  Is this movie terrible?  Absolutely.  Do I love it?  Yes.  Am I glad that I own it?  Hell yeah!  Take us away, extremely-fake eye-scar...
Next up, another 2004 Lamas film.  This one features Lamas, an International Terrorist and, oh yeah, Dinosaurs.  Stay tuned...

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