No, this is not the 1967 Lee Marvin film of the same name. This is a Mickey Rourke B-level action movie (since when is Mick an action star?) and it has all the ingredients of a true cult classic. The story borrows liberally from DIE HARD and CON AIR (minus the megabuck budget, of course), with a steroid-abused Mickey playing the no-nonsense tough guy (imagine his Harley Davidson character from HARLEY DAVIDSON AND THE MARLBORO MAN taken to the extreme). In this flick, ex-cons take over a shopping mall, abuse hostages, and come under siege from the authorities. Call your beer drinking buddies over for this one, so everybody can witness this future cult classic, complete with the following violence and unintentional laughter:

·   A bad guy gets shot in the  mouth, which spews a huge geyser of blood.

·   Rapid editing and angled camera shots that unsuccessfully make it look like Mickey Rourke knows martial arts.

·   Actor Danny Trejo does his best Al Pacino imitation and stuffs his face into a pile of cocaine.

·   Then a female hostage asks to do blow, and she gets so high, she removes all her clothes (except for panties) and starts doing a strip tease routine.

·   Rourke throws a grenade at a bad guy, we hear an explosion and see the guy flying thru the air, but no flame, smoke, or flash of light is ever seen.

·   A female hostage is forced to perform fellatio on a revolver’s silencer.

·   Mickey Rourke does back flips down a corridor to avoid getting hit by the villains bullets.

·   In a corny, slow motion drawn-out scene, a bad guy tearfully decides to commit suicide by facing the cops.

There you have it, now you have an idea of what the film is like, and it’s definitely not boring. To make it even more hilarious the filmmakers go for some moments of pathos when you least expect it. Director Matt Beesly was an assistant director for such megabuck studio films such as BRAVEHEART, and even though this is his first directing job, he gives the film a slick, big budget look during the action scenes.

Jim Bannon’s screenplay is cliché but delivers the aforementioned goods. Mickey Rourke is miscast, but manages to keep your attention. Mick, complete with bulging biceps, pock-marked face, Indian tan, and 11 o’clock shadow, tries hard to project Charles Bronson qualities into his character Ruby Ray. Danny Trejo (of CON AIR fame) makes for an intense, crazed, (and campy) adversary.

The film takes place in Texas. During a routine bus transfer of several prison inmates, several professional killers dressed in black suits take out the cops (in typical bloody fashion). They instruct the inmates to liberate themselves and some of the inmates are reluctant to join up. Nevertheless, they enter a local mall and quickly eliminate the mall cops, and hold the entire mall hostage. The breakout has been masterminded by a corporate type named Howard (Paul Ben-Victor) for some police distraction so he can enforce his money laundering business (or something to that effect). The police are held at bay by the crazed prisoners led by the psychotic Wallace (Trejo).

Enter Rudy Ray, ex-Texas Ranger now working on his fathers farm. His brother is one of the reluctant inmates involved in this whole mess. The sheriff recruits Rudy to do what the police cannot—penetrate the mall perimeter unseen and take out the prisoners from the inside. Ruby is reluctant to get involved at first. But soon the sheriff is arming Ruby to the teeth and dropping him off behind the mall (not for shopping). Here is where the madness begins. You can pretty much figure out the rest of the plot. But the ending is not what you expect and is pretty satisfying.

SIGHT

The transfer is full frame (1.33.1), but has a very sharp and slick picture. The movie was filmed for video and cable TV release and therefore was not a widescreen presentation and thus nothing is missing from the image. Keith Smith’s cinematography and Matt Beesly’s directorial style give a film a big budget look not normally associated with a B movie, and it shows in the transfer. Color reproduction is vivid and without bleeding, or chroma noise. The blacks and shadow details are above average. Flesh tones looked natural (except for Mick’s radioactive tan) in all lighting. The gunplay, explosions, hand-to-hand combat, interiors and exteriors all look great.

SOUND

This is one of the best DD Stereo Surround soundtracks I’ve heard yet. While the film would have benefited from a 5.1 remaster, I was surprised how much clarity, directionality, and bass the surround field put out. Composer Stevie Edwards did a good job of combining traditional scoring with rock n’ roll music that enhanced the fight scenes. For example, electric guitar leads play over combat scenes and gun fights. Bullets fly around your head and it sounds pretty good for a non-5.1 mix. During the non-action scenes (which are few) the sound field is ambient with nature sounds, car sounds, mall sounds, etc. The explosions and collisions give your bass amp a workout.

FEATURES

The talent bios are for actors Mickey Rourke, Danny Trejo, Paul Ben Victor, Frederick Forrest, Michael Wright, and Kevin Gage. The campy theatrical trailer is full frame, stereo, and runs 1:40.

CONCLUSION

Well, chances are if you have read down this far, you may be considering a rental or purchase of this movie. As long as you know up front what you are in for (and you do if you read the above) you should enjoy POINT BLANK. The film provides a tongue-in-cheek send up of big-budget Hollywood action movies. The direction and production is ambitious, but the efforts are betrayed by the limited budget (such as the poor interior mall sets). However, the stunt work and combat choreography is surprisingly well done (with a few laugh-packed exceptions). This is one where you’ll want to have a few brews while the story unfolds, so call your friends over and have yourselves a MST 3000 session. Sterling’s DVD authoring for this title is sterling. Rated R for pervasive violence, nudity, sexuality, drug use, and foul language.

POINT BLANK is available at DVDEmpire

                                     Rating (out of 5):