Customer Reviews

Prey of the Jaguar

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One could be too rich on imagination to see nudity in this movie mixing Batman-style heroism with the South-Bronx-flick-style street-fighting. However, camera perpetually catches groins' profiles of practically all characters involved.

This film is an adult-oriented kid-story-tale of a builder - police associate taking revenge over by him dismantled mafia having killed his family in vendetta.

"Prey of the Jaguar" is a revenge/vigilante movie. Cop Derek Leigh's wife and kid are murdered by a drug lord who escaped from prison. He seeks out his old friend, a martial arts teacher, and trains to become "The Jaguar", to avenge their deaths.

The movie suffers from a low budget. But the low production values are redeemed by an entertaining script. The movie never gets boring (although they could have shortened the flashback sequences) and it has some good, fun action. Recommended to fans of low budget action movies and vigilante movies.

I saw this on ION TV tonight, Typical "Guy gets revenge on Mobster for killing his family" flick. Cool twist though, he becomes a Superhero from his dead son's drawings "The Jaguar" to exact that revenge. He uses Dart guns & such made for him by a toy maker. Fun movie.

I like B movies, superhero movies and revenge movies, so when I find a B movie superhero revenge flick, well that's some of the sweetest cream of all.

Unfortunately though, this cinematic cream is close to turning bad. It's not curdled yet, but it's starting to chunkify. It's more like cinematic Half and Half, half good movie and half not so good. It breaks down like this;

Derek Leigh is an undercover agent for the SOC, an agency so Top Secret that we never clearly learn what the acronym SOC means. He puts away the son of a huge drug lord, Bandera, and then drops into the Witness Relocation Program so that the drug lord can't get revenge on him.

The movie starts 8 years later. Bandera is locked up in a Federal pen, which is remarkably short of both federal employees and prisoners. I knew something was up with this movie when Bandera steps out of his cot wearing leopard skin print underwear. I know there is a prison in the Southwest where the warden makes the prisoners wear bright pink skivvies in order to make their stay less pleasant and them, therefore, less likely to return. But I don't know what kind of prison issues leopard skin underwear and I'm not sure I want to know.

Anyhow, Bandera's cartel breaks him out while the prison is transferring him to another facility. The cartel is well funded and organized and they manage to pull off the break out easily, although not without employing some inept martial arts. It was the same style martial art practiced by Gil Gerard and William Shatner and other middle-aged action heroes, a style with a name like Creaky Mantis or Winded Monkey. Luckily they were so inept they were funny.

Of course Bandera ices our hero's family and although that bit of violence happens off camera, we are there when he discovers their bodies and let me tell you he emits a "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" that would put Darth Vader to shame. Bandera tries to ice Derek at his job site (He's a roofer! Thanks alot Witness Protection Program!!!) But the metal wine flask he carries in his pocket saves Derek. "Whatever the vintage" says the cop who finds his unconscious body, this wine saved his life".

That cop is played by none other than Linda Blair. I have to warn you though that this is not the sultry, pouty, "I don't care if she's possessed because I would pork the devil out of her" Linda Blair from the woman in prison movies. This is the late 90's Edie McClurg in training Linda Blair.

She and her partner, a detective who looks like a statue of Dennis Franz sculpted from cottage cheese, end up trying to track Derek down once he becomes Jaguar.

Now this is an interesting little angle. Derek's kid loved superheroes and he created his own little comic books. His favorite creation was Jaguar, a man who made his body and mind strong so he could fight crime. Derek patterns his crime fighting costume very closely after the costume his kid had designed, in order to honor his son. Wow, that's different, and probably the most interesting angle in the entire movie. Unfortunately the design of the costume doesn't work very well on film as Jaguar looks like one of the Village People of the Future come back through a wormhole in time.

I won't spoil the rest of the movie for you except to say Jaguar's revenge involves the liberal use of explosive tipped crossbow bolts.

This movie wanted to be Batman meets Out for Justice but didn't achieve that awesome synthesis because, in a word, it was half-ased. The writing, directing, acting and design were all done to a half measure. That's too bad because it had the potential to become a nice little low budget gem. Instead it's more of a zirconium. It's one of those movies that truly deserve a good remake.

This movie is really nothing more than Saturday morning kids' fare, except it is rated R by the MPAA. Therein lies the irony. The sophistication level of the movie is pretty low, stuff kids would believe in. Yet some of the scenes are violent and a bit too gruesome for children to watch. That doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy some aspects of this movie. The scene where our hero practices katas with his martial arts master in the dojo are moments of poetry in motion. And the opening scenes of our hero with his wife and son are nicely portrayed. But with such mixed temperaments this movie is left wanting for a real audience. As one other reviewer stated, Prey Of The Jaguar begs for a remake.

I purchased this movie because it is directed by David DeCoteau, who is mostly known for his "C" grade horror movies. I was surprised at how much better this movie is directed compared with his Full Moon Production films. It's probably because someone else was writing and producing.