Customer Reviews

Striking Range

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'd been reading about this project for about a year or so now in "Indie Slate" magazine. The articles didn't give a lot of information about the plot, but it still piqued my interest. I knew anything with Lou Diamond Phillips, Yancy Butler, and Glenn Morshower, and Jeff Speakman couldn't be that bad.

Well, it's not really that bad.

The plot is as follows: Glenn Morshower is a tycoon-scientist, and has developed a new super particle beam weapon, able to blast through 4.5 inches of heavy steel with just a flash. (That was 3 inches more tnan expected, you see.) "Point of order!" I must call about though, real scientists would be using the metric system. Anyway, some baddies want this new toy, and ol' Glenn isn't ready to give it yet. So he has Yancy Butler call in her ex-boyfriend, Lou Diamond Phillips. Uh oh, tension ...

A lot of gunshots and explosions soon follow, as well as a guy getting fried by a metal stick in a circuit breaker and a leather clad ninja?

Dialogue is the weakest point. Often it's clunky and bland, obviously thrown in just for filler. Script direction is OK, except for the strange beginning sequence "discussing video game addiction during a hostage crisis? Especially when said addict is only on screen for 10 seconds? Acting isn't perfect, but competent. Action sequences are really pretty good.

So yeah, it's low budget, but worth watching. Don't expect much, and you won't be disappointed.

Lou Fiamond Philips (The Wings Houser of the 21st Century) stars in this tribute to gunfire. He plays a mercenary hired to protect an obnoxious CEO from well armed bad guys who want to steal his company's latest invention. Action fans, who like to keep things simple, will love this film.

Bullets start flying after the first few minutes and don't stop until the last 5 minutes of this shoot-em-up. Stuff blows up real good too. Money was spent on guns, knives and explosives, but little was spent on sets and dialog. All in all, this Striking Range isn't a total waste of time. Just don't expect much.

I'm a fan of both action movies and Lou Diamond Phillips ever since his Stand & Deliver days. But Striking Range, even taking into account its straight to video pedigree, is pretty awful even by my low standards when it comes to movies like this.

For the first hour I kept thinking, "is this actually the real movie, or is this all some elaborate fake-out intro that looks like it was made for high school drama students?" Unfortunately, it was the real movie, even the first 15-minute intro "set piece" that I swore had to be a fake training exercise, it was so bad, but no - the Arab / Latino / dark skinned terrorists were actually "real". This feeling of delirious unreality is heightened by the fact that there are some pretty decent actors in this movie who previously have been in real movies or TV shows. And yet, either due to the bad script or their new status as C-grade straight to video actors, they exhibit the range and skill of high school students. It needs to be seen to be believed.

Which, in the end, is why Striking Range gets 2 stars instead of 1 (or zero). It's actually strangely entertaining, not because of any real "action," but because of how bad it is (the action never rises above the level of "bad video game cutscene," but at least the guns look nice). The limping, Frankenstein-esque "ninja" (I am not making this up) takes the cake.

In short, this is the "Plan 9 From Outer Space" of action movies. Congrats.

Lou Diamond - you need to call Edward Olmos and have him hook you up for a part in Battlestar Galactica. No more straight to video!

Boring movie that looks as though it was made with a home video camera. Pass on this one.

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