Talking to a family friend about having recently seen the 1991 Action trash epic Stone Cold (also reviewed), I got told that this title was another overlooked/ "classic" Action flick from the year. With Stone Cold having gone so well, I decided to set the timer.
View on the film:
Taking a pay cut and only staying in the role thanks to the writer/director ignoring studio demands for JCVD or Chuck Norris to star,Michael Biehn proves this stubbornness to have paid off,by giving the action scenes a real crunch, with Biehn leaping into the blunt-force hand to hand combat fights and the more peculiar shoot-outs with an infectious passion.
Recalling his The Terminator (1984-also reviewed) role of a man with a hazy past taking on present dangers, Biehn continues to stand out from the tough guys of the era, as Kay's battle to make sense of his fractured memories are used by Biehn to give Kay a shield of destructibility.
Done when she was trying to break out of being a British Soap star,Patsy Kensit (who strips off for a sex scene) gives a good performance as the frightened sceptic to passionate lover of Kay,Anna Nolmar.
Beating Universal Soldier by a year, the screenplay by writer/director Avi Nesher matches the action thrills by injecting Sci-Fi weirdness of recollections coming to Kay in the middle of punch-ups (!),and kooky devices and holograms crystallizing Kay's lost past.
Sending Kay and Nolmar off as lovers on the run, Nesher cranks the action up with slick (unintended?) funny snipes the couple share as they try beat the evil Black Ops.
Losing some of the budget over sticking with Biehn, Nesher & Don't Look Now cinematographer Anthony B. Richmond cover the problems with a charming inventiveness, that brings in an exciting shoot-out in an "adult" cinema, (some keep watching despite the ongoing gun fight!) the hand to hand combat given a razors edge by knives getting tossed in the air, and a last minute save triggering a roof top fight with Billy Blanks, as the time bomb goes off.
View on the film:
Taking a pay cut and only staying in the role thanks to the writer/director ignoring studio demands for JCVD or Chuck Norris to star,Michael Biehn proves this stubbornness to have paid off,by giving the action scenes a real crunch, with Biehn leaping into the blunt-force hand to hand combat fights and the more peculiar shoot-outs with an infectious passion.
Recalling his The Terminator (1984-also reviewed) role of a man with a hazy past taking on present dangers, Biehn continues to stand out from the tough guys of the era, as Kay's battle to make sense of his fractured memories are used by Biehn to give Kay a shield of destructibility.
Done when she was trying to break out of being a British Soap star,Patsy Kensit (who strips off for a sex scene) gives a good performance as the frightened sceptic to passionate lover of Kay,Anna Nolmar.
Beating Universal Soldier by a year, the screenplay by writer/director Avi Nesher matches the action thrills by injecting Sci-Fi weirdness of recollections coming to Kay in the middle of punch-ups (!),and kooky devices and holograms crystallizing Kay's lost past.
Sending Kay and Nolmar off as lovers on the run, Nesher cranks the action up with slick (unintended?) funny snipes the couple share as they try beat the evil Black Ops.
Losing some of the budget over sticking with Biehn, Nesher & Don't Look Now cinematographer Anthony B. Richmond cover the problems with a charming inventiveness, that brings in an exciting shoot-out in an "adult" cinema, (some keep watching despite the ongoing gun fight!) the hand to hand combat given a razors edge by knives getting tossed in the air, and a last minute save triggering a roof top fight with Billy Blanks, as the time bomb goes off.