Customer Reviews

No Contest [VHS]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is one of my favorite action movies of all time! The gorgeous and sexy Shannon Tweed stars as Sharon Bell, a former Miss Galaxy winner and host of this years show. Too bad a group of bad dudes led by Andrew Dice Clay takes over the show and holds all the ladies hostage until their demands are meet. Little did they know that Sharon Bell is a expert kick boxer and has some help from the outside by the way of retired cop turned security expert only known as Crane. Yes, it's a total rip of "Die Hard". Big deal. Not the first and it won't be the last one to do that. "Under Siege" anyone? This movie has some great acting performances led by Robert Davi. Shannon Tweed is great in her part. Glad she didn't have to get naked, for once. Not that I mind one little bit. Just glad she could do a movie with her clothes one for once. She really does a fine job. Supporting performances are highlighted by Roddy Piper as one of The Dice Man's goons. I wish his part was bigger seeing as I've been a huge fan of his since my childhood. But, you can't win 'em all. This is an awesome action movie that needs more attention. See this as soon as you can!

This movie is about a beauty contest that runs amuck when some terrorists kidnapps the host (Shannon Tweed) and the beautyqueens and puts them in the top of a hotel (I think) with bombs all over the place...

A beauty contest runs amuck with terrorists who want diamonds from a rich (corrupt) senator. Aside from the high body count, the shootings and so forth are quite graphic. The good guys do win but their numbers are seriously depleted. Strangely, despite the R rating the language and sex are quite restrained.

I watched this movie late one night on HBO,and it wasn't really too bad! It has ANDREW DICE CLAY & RODDY PIPER in it,it's very enjoyable to watch!

I've seen many of shannon tweeds movies and this one in my opionion is the best. It has a good cast as well as action. Robert Davi and Andrew Dice Clay play their roles well. Clay as a disgruntled ex-mercenary betrayed, by a crooked drug running senator, decides to take hostage a miss galaxy pageant in which the senator's daughter is a contestant. Shannon tweed plays Sharon Bell a former winner and now action star who use's her beauty and karate talents to dispatch the bad guy's. While most of her action scenes are clearly done by a stunt double, the acting is for the most good, and the movie doesn't come off as exploitive which is unusual for a B movie. Overall a good production that keeps the action going at a steady pace. If you are a Shannon Tweeds fan this movie is a must!!

The description of this movie made it sound like it was in the Die Hard mold. But it not only falls far short of those intelligent, elaborate movies. It does not even measure up to copies like Sudden Death, with Van Damme. Even a 1994 film called Crackerjack -- with Thomas Ian Griffith as a cop and Christopher Plummer as a neo-Nazi, clashing at a mountain resort over a complicated plan to steal millions in mob diamonds and to cover it up -- which is also hampered by lame writing and acting, manages to be a better low-budget knockoff than No Contest.

No Contest is about a big-shot bad guy taking over by force of arms the penthouse of a hotel that hosts a beauty pageant in which a Senator's daughter is a contestant, setting bombs all over the entrances, and then demanding millions in diamonds. The villain is "Bryce," Andrew Dice Clay. He talks tough and piles up bodies as the man who had been in charge of the corrupt Senator's Florida transport company. That operation had been in bed with Colombian drug-lords and was sold out to the DEA, after which Bryce supposedly died in a firefight.

The heroine is Shannon Tweed, talking tough and packing Uzis as the former pageant winner who went on to star in martial arts films (it is interesting to see Tweed in more of a straight role than her usual soft-porn fare). She spouts limp lines like "I'll eat a tub of Ben & Jerry's Jerry Garcia ice cream" and, after beating in the head of wrestler Roddy Piper (as bad-guy "Ice") with a satchel of ice cubes, "I iced Ice." On the outskirts is a hapless Robert Davi as a gimp-legged former State Department embassy security specialist who was hired and fired by the Senator after his daughter was taken hostage and who, naturally, in addition to talking big throughout the movie, manages to hang underneath a scenic elevator, horn in on the rooftop action, and get wounded near the end. John Colicos plays the cliché, all-bad Senator. Computer and bomb wizardry is thrown in as well, of course.

The large-scale, high-stakes plot, some cheesy elements, and some recognizable actors create some interest and barely nudge the movie above one star. But none of this is an excuse for the glib, sloppy "reviews" that give the movie an easy pass, saying, "come on, guys, this is supposed to be bad." That kind of shallow assessment, and the lazy, unintelligent flicking of the "not helpful" button on any review that refuses to settle for it, does nothing but contribute to the impression that moviegoers are suckers. The many other reviews have it right that the writing and acting in this movie are half-baked and half-hearted. As a result, the movie does not even manage to be bad in a fun-to-watch way. Instead, it ends up feeling like a thin, overblown, incompetent disappointment.

Absolutely Fantastic. This is a must buy if your sat at home on a Friday night and you need a good laugh. Anyone who can defuse a bomb by muttering the words 'boom boom boom' is a god in his own right. There are also some handy tips if your mobile phone ariel breaks and how to pretend your a hostage. Shame there not making a third... bummer.

...lets recap this movie: beauty contest, terrorist, barbie turns in to rambo, some people die, bad dialog, and the one thing that could have saved this movie, didnt happen...

this is a Shannon Tweed movie, about a bueaty contest, and there is never any sence at all with anyone wearing less than a bathing suit

at least that would have made this ok to watch "late-night"

I cannot imagine why anybody would enjoy this "film". This is easily the worst movie I have ever seen. It is even worse than Godzilla and that takes a lot to beat. If you decide to see this movie please take both earplugs and a shotgun. You need the earplugs to ignore the dialouge and plot, and the shotgun comes in quite handy at the end of the movie when you have the choice either to blow off your own head, or admit to any living person that you spent money to see it.

Originally a HBO movie, it's amazing a lot of work went to put together what would obviously be a "shoot-em up" movie, slated only for the late hours of the night. Trying to be a woman's "Die Hard," this picture tries to bring life with granted, an interesting selection of villains, and to have a woman be in the "Die Hard" role. However, by the time this movie was made the "Die Hard" had been done so many times it was cliche, and this movie tries to aim for a lot of plot twists and a lot of violence to try to breathe life. It's only life may really be due to B-rated humor. No, it's not because of the premise of Shannon Tweed saving the day as former Beauty Queen now action star, Sharon Bell, doing Karate kicks. It would've probably worked well with a different actress (and no, she does not have to be "butch"). But the bad, obvious scenes of her "stunt Double," do make this movie worth the commentary of Mystery Science Theatre.

The story in short-- a Miss Universe (or Galaxy as they called it) pageant is taken over by "terrorists" and the leader, Andrew "Dice" Clay (yes, that's right, Andrew Clay) is asking for 5 million dollars in diamonds or all of the hostages will die. Shannon Tweed, the hostess of the pageant, escapes and takes the Bruce Willis role as she sneaks around and sweats and offs baddies. Your typical "Die Hard" plot. Like in "Die Hard," the hotel is taken over ridiculously easy, even by pre-9/11 standards. In fact, when within fifteen minutes after the takeover one of them says "the hotel is completely empty" (by two or three of the five terrorist), it's completely laughable, new hotel or not, inept hotel manager or not (the hotel manager character badly acted).

The only interesting aspect of this movie is it actually tries to appeal the woman audience watcher (this was the time when action movies were often praised for being for both "The girl" and "the guy"). Yes, it tries to do this with Andrew "Dice" Clay. Women do take aggressive roles in the movie (including a police woman) and the women hostages, themselves, do at times manage to overtake the male chauvenist "terrorists." In fact, one of the reasons why the villains seem so villainous is their blatant, negative attitude towards women (except maybe for the computer geek).

But the main reason why we see the villains are evil is that we get to see them kill eleven characters in the beginning of the movie with blood and gore highlighted. Of the blockbusters of this type, I don't recall either "Die Hard" or "Speed" going for the jugular so soon. Once the mostly "Silencer" deaths are dealt with, we later get to see violence against women, villains killing cops as if they are playing a video game, a character being blown up, a character's eyebrow taken off, someone attacked repeatedly by a bag of ice, and a machine gun death that's trying to outdo a scene from "The Godfather." Then there's the gratuitous line from Andrew Clay, "The tiger doesn't do it for the meat. It does it for the blood. Now, that's not sick. That's purpose." The sad thing is, a lot of it seems unnecessary and minimizes the terror. The only interesting aspect of the terrorists, was the whole "fail safe" plot, which may be a difficult to buy, but deals with a bunch of bombs placed against the foundation of a building and the only thing keeping it off is a villain's living pulse within range. Oh, that and they kill the winner of "Miss Galaxy" and make the runner-up the new winner to show a TV audience they mean business.

As for the plot-- why the villains would do what they do, considering the international coverage of an international beauty contest only reveals how dumb the villains are and one wonders why they hadn't died a long time ago from their other acts of third-world terrorism (which they refer to). Because the reason for their terrorism is so ridiculously trivial and unlike "Die Hard" really had no reason for them to take over a hotel, this movie end up truly becoming one of those turkey "B" movies. If it wasn't for the humor (some of it unintentional) this movie would only then be rated V for violence, a lot of which is gratuitous.

Rated Two stars only because it did have its "moments"