Ticker is set in San Francisco where narcotics cop Detective Ray Nettles (Tom Sizemore) & his partner Detective Art 'Fuzzy' Rice (Nas) are following up on a lead when they come across IRA terrorist & bomb expert Alex Swan (Dennis Hopper) & his woman Claire Manning (Jamie Pressly), Fuzzy is shot dead & Swan escapes but Nettles manages to capture Claire & take her in. Swan needs Claire so phones the police demanding that Claire be let go or he'll blow lots of things up which will kill people, lots of people. Nettles teams up with the bomb squad & Lieutenant Frank Glass (Steven Seagal) who is the one in charge to track down Swan & disarm his bombs, erm that's about it really.
Directed by Albert Pyun this film has a pretty bad reputation which, I'm sad to report, it fully deserves. Things got off to a bad start when I saw the 'Nu Image' logo appear prior to the films commencement, my heart literally sank as I'm one of the few poor souls who has actually sat through some of their giant 'creature feature' flicks so my hopes for Ticker were not high & despite that I still felt let down. The script by Paul B. Margolis is awful, the character's are awful, the dialogue is awful, the story is awful, things happen to accommodate the copious use of footage stolen from other 'Nu Image' films & the fact the three main 'stars' who are all packing some serious excess weight around their belly's probably never met each other & were probably only available for short times means the script was also tailored for this & it just ends up looking & feeling an absolute mess. Ticker is just awful, I've seen some terrible Seagal flicks but even I think this is probably his worst film & believe me that's saying something. As for respectable actors such as Tom Sizemore & Dennis Hopper they should know better & are far too good for crap like this. The only good aspect of Ticker is that it actually had a decent plot twist towards the end but coming in such a bad film it matters little.
Director Pyun turns in a terrible film, the action scenes are absolutely terrible since almost all of the explosions & action is stolen from other films, footage from Deadly Outbreak (1996) makes for the opening explosion of the senator's house, The Last Days of Frankie the Fly (1997) steals footage of Dennis Hopper, The Peacekeeper (1997) accounts for virtually the entire final 20 minutes & it also uses footage from Sweepers (1998). The continuity is absolutely horrible, the sites of explosions changes between shots, the things that are blowing up changes, cars change types, the number of passengers in them changes & this is just a really badly, cheaply made flick that is quite frankly a disaster on every level.
The IMDb says Ticker cost $25,000,000 to make, no disrespect but that's bull. The makers have said that it cost a lot less & director Pyun has said in interviews that it cost a mere $600,000 & was shot in just 11 days & I believe him. Apparently Hopper was only on set for 1 day & never met any of his co-stars, his Irish accent is terrible & I think you can see he knows the films junk & he isn't really trying. In fact Hopper's role as a mad bomber holding a city to ransom isn't a million miles from his role in Speed (1994), having said that Seagal playing a hard as nails karate kicking cop is more or less the same role as every other film he's been in as well. Why actor's like Sizemore, Hopper, Seagal & Peter Greene agreed to do Ticker is beyond me. Ice-T also makes a small appearance at the end.
Ticker is an awful film, there are some unintentionally hilarious moments in it which makes it one of those car crash films which are a complete disaster but you can't take your eyes off it. Do yourself a favour & give this one a miss.
Directed by Albert Pyun this film has a pretty bad reputation which, I'm sad to report, it fully deserves. Things got off to a bad start when I saw the 'Nu Image' logo appear prior to the films commencement, my heart literally sank as I'm one of the few poor souls who has actually sat through some of their giant 'creature feature' flicks so my hopes for Ticker were not high & despite that I still felt let down. The script by Paul B. Margolis is awful, the character's are awful, the dialogue is awful, the story is awful, things happen to accommodate the copious use of footage stolen from other 'Nu Image' films & the fact the three main 'stars' who are all packing some serious excess weight around their belly's probably never met each other & were probably only available for short times means the script was also tailored for this & it just ends up looking & feeling an absolute mess. Ticker is just awful, I've seen some terrible Seagal flicks but even I think this is probably his worst film & believe me that's saying something. As for respectable actors such as Tom Sizemore & Dennis Hopper they should know better & are far too good for crap like this. The only good aspect of Ticker is that it actually had a decent plot twist towards the end but coming in such a bad film it matters little.
Director Pyun turns in a terrible film, the action scenes are absolutely terrible since almost all of the explosions & action is stolen from other films, footage from Deadly Outbreak (1996) makes for the opening explosion of the senator's house, The Last Days of Frankie the Fly (1997) steals footage of Dennis Hopper, The Peacekeeper (1997) accounts for virtually the entire final 20 minutes & it also uses footage from Sweepers (1998). The continuity is absolutely horrible, the sites of explosions changes between shots, the things that are blowing up changes, cars change types, the number of passengers in them changes & this is just a really badly, cheaply made flick that is quite frankly a disaster on every level.
The IMDb says Ticker cost $25,000,000 to make, no disrespect but that's bull. The makers have said that it cost a lot less & director Pyun has said in interviews that it cost a mere $600,000 & was shot in just 11 days & I believe him. Apparently Hopper was only on set for 1 day & never met any of his co-stars, his Irish accent is terrible & I think you can see he knows the films junk & he isn't really trying. In fact Hopper's role as a mad bomber holding a city to ransom isn't a million miles from his role in Speed (1994), having said that Seagal playing a hard as nails karate kicking cop is more or less the same role as every other film he's been in as well. Why actor's like Sizemore, Hopper, Seagal & Peter Greene agreed to do Ticker is beyond me. Ice-T also makes a small appearance at the end.
Ticker is an awful film, there are some unintentionally hilarious moments in it which makes it one of those car crash films which are a complete disaster but you can't take your eyes off it. Do yourself a favour & give this one a miss.