Only now does it occur to me... MARKED FOR DEATH

Only now does it occur to me... that prior to Danny Trejo hunting Steven Seagal in MACHETE, Steven Seagal chased Danny Trejo:



 and all the way to a showdown at the Club 'Tecate!'


In a more general sense, MARKED FOR DEATH (from Dwight H. Little, the director of HALLOWEEN 4 and FREE WILLY 2) is not quite a classic in this gentle-voiced, ponytail'd lunatic's oeuvre (like OUT FOR JUSTICE), but it's pretty damned enjoyable, notably because of the terrific Keith David (THE THING, THEY LIVE) as Seagal's crazy-eyed sidekick.

Keith David:  having none of your bullshit.

The film has a strange sensibility to it that's worth mentioning, too–  despite the presence of Cannon Films-style, hastily-sketched Rastafarian voodoo-luvin', crack-dealin' villains, the action scenes play out with a peculiar, humorless detachment (I daresay realism) that is reminiscent of Michael Mann's meticulous, paramilitary setpieces (i.e., in THIEF and HEAT).

Like its star, the film takes itself a little too seriously, but MARKED FOR DEATH is well worth a view for the early 90s action fan– and for you camp-lovers, it even boasts a finale whereupon the villain is sliced, stabbed, eye-gouged, spine-shattered, flung down an elevator shaft, and then impaled upon a steel rod: Seagal is nothing if not thorough.

-Sean Gill

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Film Review: CON AIR (1997, Simon West)

Stars: 4.5 of 5.

Running Time: 123 minutes (director's cut).

Notable Cast or Crew:  Nicolas Cage (WILD AT HEART, VALLEY GIRL), John Malkovich (EMPIRE OF THE SUN, DANGEROUS LIAISONS), John Cusack (BETTER OFF DEAD, ONE CRAZY SUMMER), Steve Buscemi (KING OF NEW YORK, MILLER'S CROSSING), Ving Rhames (PATTY HEARST, JACOB'S LADDER), Dave Chapelle (BUDDIES, 200 CIGARETTES), Rachel Ticotin (TOTAL RECALL, FALLING DOWN), Danny Trejo (KINJITE: FORBIDDEN SUBJECTS, DEATH WISH IV: THE CRACKDOWN), M.C. Gainey (LOST, FATAL BEAUTY), Doug Hutchison (LOST, THE X-FILES), Fredric Lehne (LOST, DALLAS), Colm Meaney (UNDER SIEGE, DICK TRACY), Mykelti Williamson (HEAT, FREE WILLY, FORREST GUMP), and a possible vocal cameo by Powers Boothe (SOUTHERN COMFORT, TOMBSTONE).  Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer (THE ROCK, TOP GUN).

Tag-line: "Welcome to Con Air.  They were deadly on the ground.  Now they have wings."

Best one-liner:   "Cy..."  –"Onara!"  [man is burned alive]

Alright, ladies and germs.  We all know CON AIR already, and we all know that it's glorious.  Certain elements have been discussed to death, and I'm sure I could zero in on Cage's mullet, his distressingly bad Southern accent, or his doing origami for the love of a daughter he's never met:

or Steve Buscemi being zanily creepy and singing "He's Got the Whole World (In His Hands)":

 or the enormity of all the hare-raising-stuffed-bunny-related setpieces.

But in such cases where a film– notorious for its singular, over-the-top flavor– has been often discussed elsewhere (á la, say, a BLOODSPORT or a COMMANDO), it would likely behoove me to discuss the elements that you don't think about every day when you reach that point in the afternoon that you reserve for thinking about CON AIR.  Therefore, I am proud to present my ten newest and most absurd observations– nay, revelations– that materialized upon my latest viewing of CON AIR.

#1.  Danny Trejo's intention to fuck your whole family.

Playing the rapist "Johnny-23" ("one heart for each of my 23 bitches"), Trejo's had a lot of experience playing convicts– both in real life and in the movies THE HIDDEN, RUNAWAY TRAIN, PENITENTIARY III, LOCK UP, MANIAC COP 2, WEDLOCK, JAKE AND THE FATMAN, LAST LIGHT, AGAINST THE WALL, ANIMAL FACTORY, and a bunch of others.  In fact, after recently seeing him in Cannon Films' KINJITE: FORBIDDEN SUBJECTS, I now am actually afraid that Danny Trejo is going to fuck my whole family. 

Anyway, my point is that I guess it isn't really an action movie unless Danny Trejo is in it, portraying some kind of imprisoned ne'er-do-well. 

#2.  It's not technically an action movie till you blow up a gas station.

I've held this theory for a while, but I'm just impressed that CON AIR, a movie whose logline would lead you to believe that it must take place entirely in a prison and on an airplane, manages to do so by about the halfway point.

#3.  It's not an action movie till there's a vanity license plate.  

One day I'm going to do a feature on vanity license plates in horror and action movies of the 80s and 90s, but until that day, we'll just have to take 'em one at a time.  It's no AWESOM50 from COBRA, but AZZ KIKR firmly receives the Junta Juleil seal of approval.  Here, it doesn't actually belong to John Cusack, it belongs to his hateful boss Colm Meaney, who's playing an aggregate of every bureaucratic authority figure from all of the DIE HARD films combined.

#4.  John Cusack's bizarre cultural references.

Speaking of DIE HARD, Cusack's function here is basically to be the Reginald VelJohnson (Carl Winslow) role from DIE HARD– a.k.a. the only man on the ground who fights the FBI/DEA bureaucracy and believes in his anonymous action-buddy helper who's trapped in the building/airplane fighting thieves/hijackers, and then, ultimately, proves himself as he saves Willis/Cage from that pesky Godunov/Malkovich who you thought might be dead already but then of course he wasn't.  Whew.  Anyway, I guess my original point was to say that it's an odd choice to have the Cusack character quoting Dostoyevsky and enthusing about the PLANET OF THE APES Pentology, but it's a choice that I appreciate.

#5.  Q:  Are Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman CON AIR fans?

A:  Difficult to say, but all of the main characters from Kaufman's first two screenplays to be directed by Spike Jonze (Cusack & Malkovich and Cage & Cage in BEING JOHN MALKOVICH and ADAPTATION, respectively) come from the top billing of CON AIR.  Makes ya wonder.

#6.  I never thought in a million years that I would ever see Dave Chappelle's corpse plummet to Earth

 

and land atop the hood of Don S. Davis' car in a bit intended to be comic relief. 

Also, it's never explicity made clear whether or not Don S. Davis is still portraying his character from TWIN PEAKS, Major Briggs, so for the sake of argument, I'm just going to assume that he is.

#7.  There's an extremely bizarre connection to TV's LOST.  Okay, they're not just both about airplanes that happen to crash.  It goes deeper.  In CON AIR, only two characters actually fly the eponymous airplane: the original, pre-hijacking pilot; and the prisoner who takes the controls post-hijacking.  The original pilot is none other than Fredric Lehne, who on LOST plays the Marshal Edward Mars, the only true authority figure on the plane.
 
After the convicts– or CON AIR's 'Others,' if you will– take over, M.C. Gainey mans the controls.

Fans of LOST will recall him as the memorable, mysterious character Mr. Friendly who is the initial face of the "Others" and one of the primary antagonists throughout several episodes.  Pret-ty strange, I say.  [Also, Doug Hutchison ("Horace Goodspeed" on LOST) has a bit part here, too. ]

#8.  The look in Nic Cage's eyes after he reveals his intention to prove that God exists.  You see, at one point, it doesn't look like Cage's prison buddy (Mykelti Williamson– Bubba from FORREST GUMP) is gonna make it.  He's been shot, maimed, and needs insulin. 

And all he can think about is, like, there ain't no God.

Cage says, "I'm gonna show you God does exist," and then commences to kick some ass and cause a crash landing and a number of slow motion explosions.  But before he commences with the requisite Bruckheimerian antics, he does this with his face:

Maybe Cage attempting to will God into existence, or it's Bruckheimer's kind of deus ex machina, with Nic Cage as literally a god in the machine.  Or maybe it's something else entirely.  Who can say?  Regardless, I applaud it with the same slow-clap used by faux-Gorbachev in ROCKY IV.

#9.  Strange surface similarities to David Lynch's WILD AT HEART.  For those, not in the know, that's another movie with frequent slow motion flames where Nicolas Cage has an ambiguously terrible Southern accent and serves a prison sentence while a blonde waits patiently for him and upon his release introduces him to his own beloved child that he's never met in the flesh before.   

#10.  The idea that this film was born as the filmmakers absentmindedly daydreamed while watching THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and decided that wouldn't this be a lot better as an action movie?  Think about it.  Combine Steve Buscemi's gnawin' mask and Malkovich's intellectual psychopath and you've basically got an American Hannibal Lecter.  "Hannibal the Cannibal."

  That's perfect!  Wait-  they couldn't call him that, though– copyright issues!  Damn!  How 'bout "Cyrus the Virus?"

Then– they co-star Colm Meaney as the "annoying, undermining-the-whole-operation-through-his-own-dickery bureaucrat" character.

He functions and looks like the Irish version of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS' American counterpart, Anthony Heald!

However, all of this simply proves that I have too much time/character actor knowledge on my hands.  Ah, well.

Four and a half stars.

-Sean Gill

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Film Review: KINJITE– FORBIDDEN SUBJECTS (1989, J. Lee Thompson)

Stars: 4.5 of 5.

Running Time: 97 minutes.

Notable Cast or Crew:  Charles Bronson.  Perry Lopez (CHINATOWN, KELLY'S HEROES), Peggy Lipton (TWIN PEAKS, THE MOD SQUAD), Juan Fernández (BULLETPROOF, SALVADOR, CROCODILE DUNDEE II), Sy Richardson (REPO MAN, THEY LIVE, SID & NANCY), James Pax ("Lightning" in BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA), Nicole Eggert (BAYWATCH, CHARLES IN CHARGE), Bill McKinney (DELIVERANCE, FIRST BLOOD), and Danny Trejo (DESPERADO, MACHETE).  Executive Produced by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus.   Music by Greg De Belles (LAMBADA, LONGTIME COMPANION).  Cinematography by Gideon Porath (DEATH WISH 4, AMERICAN NINJA 2). 

Tag-line: "A cop full of hatred can't work by the book."

Best one-liner:  "I'd like to shove this up your ass, but I don't want to dirty my hands!"


Hey–
 
What the–

Is that a–


Eat your heart out 50 SHADES OF GREY.  This is 50 SHADES OF BRONSON!!!

The ninth out of nine collaborations between Charles Bronson and director J. Lee Thompson, KINJITE: FORBIDDEN SUBJECTS is looked upon by the consensus as ending this colossal cinematic team's output (DEATH WISH 4, MESSENGER OF DEATH, MURPHY'S LAW, THE WHITE BUFFALO, THE EVIL THAT MEN DO, ST. IVES) with a whimper.  I'm here to tell you that, happily, that's not the case.  (And as a side note, I'm kind of impressed that I've now reviewed 7 of the 9– all except CABO BLANCO and 10 TO MIDNIGHT.)

Listen: whaddya want?  Just tell me what you want, and I'll see if we have it.  Try me.  Come on.  You want–


CHEEZ FRIES IN DA FACE?

...You're next!

You want high-kickin' senior citizens?


You want Bronson complaining about "sucking hind tit?"


You want Bronson and Perry Lopez (Nicholson's friendly nemesis on the police force in CHINATOWN!) actin' like cop buddies and walking past a poster of Cannon's... SALSA?


You want sleazy Sy Richardson with a deadened gaze and a jangly woman's earring?


You want Bronson going to sporting events with his daughter and

being spied on by child-kidnapping kiddie-peddlin' pimps
 
as Bronson simultaneously becomes becomes the new 'crush of the moment' for his daughter's best friend?


He is extreme.  What can I say?  Bronson makes quite an impression.
Anyway, we got all this and more forbidden subjects in KINJITE.  But first let's pin this sucker down.  Is it a Public Service Announcement?  A skin flick?  An after-school special?  A gritty revenge movie?  A sitcom pilot?  A Cannon shoot-'em-up?  Is it about race?  Sex?  Culture clash?
The answer to all of these questions of course is... "Yes."

KINJITE: FORBIDDEN SUBJECTS follows a few disparate plot lines which, for the most part, intersect in the most Cannon Film-ish ways possible.  One is the tale of a visiting Japanese businessman played by BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA's "Lightning," James Pax.
 
 He has two daughters who comment on psycho-sexual cultural divides between Japan and America.

And because he saw somebody get away with it on the subway back in Japan, he decides to try some L.A. bus groping on a gal singing the campfire classic, "P is for Party."




Of course, she turns out to be Bronson's daughter:


Now, before you cry "laughable Japan-sploitation" (which you certainly ought to, at some points), I'd like to submit the idea that Pax delivers the most nuanced, ever-'present' performance in the film.  He is fantastic, at points exuding genuine pathos and vulnerability.  He's kind of too good for this movie, if you catch my meaning.

The next plotline is about those kiddie-peddlin' pimps I alluded to earlier.  They're played by Juan "BULLETPROOF" Fernández and Alex Cox-fixture and cult movie legend, Sy Richardson.  Mostly, they drive around by the bus station, trying to pick up wet-behind-the-ears youngsters

for their booming prostitution ring.  Leave it to Cannon films to tackle teenage hustling and the sex trade with the sheer poetry of "rich asshole bandits."  Also: note denim backpack.

Anyway, these two lowlifes eventually kidnap one of Pax's visiting daughters in a scene which veers wildly back and forth between "genuinely disturbing" and "unintentionally hilarious after-school special" but eventually dips into "coke-and-asscrack-fueled softcore music video" territory.  I'd also like to give special nod to Fernández as "Duke", whose ludicrously hateable pimp-napper reaches fey and comic heights, even for a Cannon film.


This leads us to our main plotline:  BRONSON.  Bronson is a multi-dimensional character.  On the one hand, he's racist toward Asian peoples

even as far west as India (!):

but on the other hand, he's just a beleaguered dad

trying to raise a daughter (along with TWIN PEAKS' Peggy Lipton!) in an increasingly complicated world:

the poor guy even has to contend with studs hangin' out in his basement:

on the other other hand, however, Bronson hates something even more than bus-gropin' Asians and daughter-romancin' studs:  PIMPS!


See, we've come full circle.


...BABIES!

It becomes about justice.  It's the only thing Bronson cares about.  I guess that's the only thing that he usually cares about, but here, in his last Cannon hurrah he's prepared to go to extreme lengths to puncture the truth and to penetrate justice.  As to what I'm alluding to, I can show you better than tell you:

For those of you too scared (or scarred!) to finish the clip and for those whose jaws need to be scraped up from the floor with a spatula, that was indeed footage of Bronson seeking revenge against a teen prostitute's john while wielding a dildo and menacingly approaching said john's posterior.

But I think the icing on the cake is truly the fade from the john's screams to Bronson arriving home to the missus and casually announcing, "I don't think I'm going to be able to eat tonight."



And by no means is this the only time that justice involves the jamming of sharp objects into unwilling orifices:

Yes, when Bronson catches up with Fernández's pimp for the first time, he takes the man's expensive wristwatch and, er, well, just see for yourself, in a clip that I have aptly named "Charles Bronson feeds a man a wristwatch faster than he can eat it."

And note that he doesn't "want to dirty my hands," implying that he learned a harsh n' grimy lesson the last time around.

Later, the pursuit of justice involves intimidating a doorman– BY FLINGING A STATUE THROUGH HIS GLASS BOOTH:

and by accidentally (!) flinging Sy Richardson to his death (well, he did kinda deserve it)

which combines Bronson's take-no-prisoners brand of justice with the classic Bronson trope of dummies being flung from great heights.

Regardless, this is all simply a prelude to the veritable orgy of ass-blasting retribution accomplished by Bronson at the hind-end of the film.

Having captured Fernández's pimp for a second time, he dumps him in a federal prison, whereupon he is paraded by gleeful prison guards and run along a gauntlet of possibly the most one-dimensional, hilariously over-the-top prison rapists ever committed to celluloid in a Cannon film or otherwise (including Danny Trejo

who incidentally has "something big and long for you, sweet thing") as Bronson watches with wide-eyed, innocent, old man pleasure, wearing an expression that would certainly befit a grandpa at a pee-wee football game:

You can watch the whole gritty exchange right here and give it the standing ovation that it deserves in the privacy of your own home.

As to those who consider this one of Bronson's worst?  I don't know what to say to you.  I feel as if you don't truly appreciate Bronson's art.   Bronson's sincerity.  Or maybe your buttocks were so tightly and fearfully clenched throughout  that you simply didn't appreciate all the wonderful, spit-take inducing moments and subtle cheez-whiz majesties that awaited you.  A truly astonishing, anally-fixated trashterpiece.  Four-and-a-half-stars.  Just stick 'em wherever.


-Sean Gill

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