Action, torture, erotic thrills, and demonic activity.
LINE OF DUTY (2019)
Last year, Steven C. Miller directed Sylvester Stallone in his first direct-to-video action movie, the mediocre Escape Plan 2: Hades - which Stallone would later describe as "the worst produced film I have ever had the misfortune to be in." Well, at least he didn't say "worst directed." If Miller ever gave a public response to Stallone's opinion on Escape Plan 2, I didn't see it. Instead, he just focused on making a much better movie this year. While the Escape Plan franchise was redeemed by a third film, Escape Plan: The Extractors, Miller has also moved on from the disappointment of Hades by making one of the best films of his career to date. Line of Duty.
Aaron Eckhart stars in this one as Frank Penny, a police officer who has a troubled past and will be dealing with more troubles over the course of the film. Things get off to an exciting start, as we find out that someone has kidnapped the young daughter of Penny's former partner Volk (Giancarlo Esposito), who is now the chief of police. An attempt to apprehend the kidnapper goes wrong, and the guy goes running off through the city... in the same area where Penny happens to just be hanging out on a corner, talking to a kid about basketball. Officers are ordered to stand down, but Penny ignores this order and pursues him.
This lengthy sequence is the highlight of the film as far as I'm concerned. It's a foot chase that takes a few breaks for physical altercations, as the kidnapper fights off Penny and other police officers he crosses paths with. It ends with Penny cornering the guy in an alleyway - and he isn't even aware of what his crime was when the kidnapper pulls a gun, forcing Penny to shoot him dead. Penny only finds out afterward that the guy has hidden Volk's daughter somewhere.
Thankfully, the kidnapper had a partner in this crime. This partner has trapped the girl in a box that is slowly filling with water. Now the police have to find her before she drowns. And even though Penny is berated for acting like a "damn cowboy" and has to turn over his weapon, he still takes it upon himself to correct the mistake he made of killing their only lead by putting together the clues that will lead him to Penny. The rest of the film's 99 minute running time all occurs within the amount of time it will take for the box the girl is in to fill with water.
Penny is joined on this unauthorized mission by Ava Brooks (Courtney Eaton), a young woman who works for a website called Media4thePeople and broadcasts his every move live on the internet. That live feed also gets noticed by the networks and broadcast on television. Ava is there because she wants to learn what it's like to be in Penny's situation, to "walk a mile in his shoes"... and this live report stuff is in the movie to make it "relevant to our times", I suppose.
Miller and writer Jeremy Drysdale keep the story moving along at a quick pace, and they throw plenty of action at the audience. There's even a completely random car accident and explosion, just for entertainment purposes, and an encounter with a gay bodybuilder called Bunny (Gary Peebles) that was somewhat reminiscent of the fight with The Russian in The Punisher 2004. The other kidnapper arrives on the scene earlier than expected, and when he does come face-to-face with Penny he is heavily armed.
Line of Duty is a really good action flick. It's exciting, interesting, and features the line "Texas Chainsaw MacGyvers." It's definitely worth a look.
THE HORNET'S DISCIPLE AND THE SCARS SHE LEFT (2018)
Five years ago, prolific independent filmmaker Dustin Mills made a movie called The Hornet's Sting and the Hell It's Caused... which was something that just wasn't for me. It told the story of a photographer named Rose who would torture and murder her models for the enjoyment of clients who paid well to see images of such things. Most of the movie was built around scenes of Rose torturing her latest subject, a young woman named Freya. I wasn't into that, but I might have enjoyed the sequel Mills planned to make, which would have been a revenge film about Freya violently making her way through Rose's client list.
That sequel may still happen someday, but in the meantime Mills has branched off with a meta follow-up that centers on a different Rose, but one who makes a living the same way the one in The Hornet's Sting did. This "disciple" is played by Roni Jonah, and she was already a killer when she watched The Hornet's Sting and the Hell It's Caused and saw a kindred spirit in the fictional Rose. She decided to start shooting snuff pornography, torturing and murdering her models for the enjoyment of clients (she calls them "perverts") who pay well to see images of such things. So this movie is set in a different reality, but it follows the same path as its predecessor. This time the unfortunate subject is J. Ania Lupa as a homeless young woman named Finley, and we get several scenes of Rose hurting and humiliating her.
Again, this is not subject matter I can really get into and The Hornet's Disciple and the Scars She Left is not a movie I'm going to be returning to many times, but I can say that I found this to be a step up from the previous movie. There was more depth to the characters this time and their interactions were more interesting. That made this one a much better viewing experience for me.
As with the first, I have to commend the actors for being quite fearless in their dedication to helping Mills bring his story to the screen.
STORMSWEPT (1995)
Stormswept director David "Frazer" Marsh and his wife/co-writer Svetlana worked in pornography throughout the 1980s, then several years after making their last XXX movie they attempted to make this erotic horror film that has some intriguing cast members (like Kathleen Kinmont of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and Melissa Moore of Sorority House Massacre II and Hard to Die) but not much else going for it.
Kinmont plays Missy, a suspected criminal on the run who is squatting in the cellar of an old plantation in the Louisiana bayou, a place that has a dark history and is now inhabited by a horny spirit that can manipulate her emotions, putting her into a lustful trance. Now there's a threat that Missy could lose her haunted safe haven, as the real estate company Moore's character Dottie works for is renting the place out to Hollywood model/actress Brianna (Julie Hughes) and her pals - among them Lorissa McComas of Raptor and Piranha 1995 and Kim Kopf of Witchcraft VIII: Salem's Ghost. The plantation tends to give people disturbing visions of sex and murder, but its renters are planning to have some good times there.
Dottie knows the plantation isn't a good place to be, but she ends up stranded there anyway when a bad storm hits and causes her to crash her car. While Missy worries in her hidden room that the spirit has abandoned her, the diabolical ghost directs its attention toward its new guests. The spirit manages to get most of the characters naked and induces them to participate in a few sex scenes, even getting a woman who's engaged to a man to have a lesbian affair and a man to keep having sex with another woman even when caught by his girlfriend... Then again, I'm not certain these people wouldn't be getting up to these sexual shenanigans even if there wasn't a spirit lurking around.
Regardless of what's happening, it's rarely successful at making the movie interesting to watch. Some viewers will be glad to have the chance to see the actresses in the nude, but that only takes up a few minutes of the film's excessive 98 minute running time. Stormswept is worth mentioning due to the cast, and really only worth seeking out if you're a dedicated fan of members of the cast.
The following review originally appeared on ArrowintheHead.com
THE DIVINE FURY (2019)
I'll admit that I went into this South Korean action-horror movie, which I knew would be about an MMA fighter teaming up with an exorcist to fight the forces of evil, with a fair amount of expectations in mind, but one thing I didn't expect the movie to do was tug on my heart strings in the first 15 minutes. Writer/director Joo-hwan Kim starts things off by giving us the tragic back story of the character who will become our hero, Yong-hoo Park. Raised by his deeply religious police officer father after his mother died in childbirth, Yong-hoo was told that God would answer his prayers if he just prayed hard enough. But when his dad was seriously injured in an encounter with a couple demons, Yong-hoo's prayers didn't work to save his life - which the kid realized when his father's spirit visited him to tell him to mind his grandma, who would be raising him from now on; to become a good person who will help others; and that he would always be by his side. This is when The Divine Fury began to make me unexpectedly emotional.
Yong-hoo was so upset that his prayers didn't work to save his dad that he injured a priest with a cross and turned his back on religion. Jump ahead 20 years and we find that Yong-hoo (now played by Seo-joon Park) has become a professional MMA fighter who fights a little harder when his opponent is religious, driven by voices in his head that tell him to get revenge for his father and blame priests for his death... But soon a bleeding wound appears in the palm of Yong-hoo's right hand. It's a supernatural occurrence of stigmata, which forces him to face the idea that all the religious stuff he was raised on was true. He's surrounded by demons. And this stigmata in his palm proves to be very helpful with exorcising demons.
The scene that introduces Yong-hoo and the audience to the idea that his affliction is going to be a good thing is one of my favorites in the film, as he happens to seek the help of priest Father Ahn (Sung-Ki Ahn) while the man is in the middle of a tough exorcism that has sent another priest running for his life and nearly takes Ahn's life before Yong-hoo shows up. Yong-hoo immediately shows that he "ain't afraid of no demons" by knocking the possessed person around. Unfazed when the possessed person defies gravity and scurries (while upside down) up the side of a nearby scaffold, Yong-hoo just jumps up, grabs the demon-infested fellow by the hair, and tosses him down to the ground. It's a very cool moment for Yong-hoo.
As Yong-hoo comes to terms with his new demon-banishing abilities by hanging out with Ahn and accompanying him on other exorcisms, The Divine Fury essentially plays like a horrific superhero origin story. A character has developed special powers and has to figure out how to master them so they can put them to use saving people through action sequences. There's even a diabolical supervillain in here, as it turns out that Yong-hoo and Ahn have so much demonic activity to deal with in Seoul because the city is the base of operations for an evil priest known as the Dark Bishop (Do-Hwan Woo), who is stirring up all this trouble with his rituals. And like many origin stories, it takes a while for The Divine Fury to allow Yong-hoo to be the hero I was looking forward to seeing.
Many viewers will probably be expecting Yong-hoo to use his fighting skills more often that he does - while the exorcisms he takes part in are entertaining to watch, he's not exactly kicking ass and busting heads like Blade in them. But don't worry, the movie will let him get closer to that level in time for the final confrontation with the Dark Bishop. That's when Yong-hoo finally becomes full-on superhero and wades into a battle with the Dark Bishop and his minions with his right fist engulfed in holy flame.
The Divine Fury's 129 minute running time did wear on me a bit as I made my way through it, but it is a fairly eventful film overall and it's carried on the shoulders of the friendship and working relationship that develops between Yong-hoo and Father Ahn. Seo-joon Park and Sung-Ki Ahn both do great work in their roles, and it's enjoyable to spend time watching these characters hang out together, banter, and banish demons. I came to care for both of them, especially since I knew what Yong-hoo went through when he was a kid. There's a feeling that the movie isn't quite reaching its full potential for a large part of the 129 minutes, but it gets to that point at the same time Yong-hoo reaches his full potential.
While this wasn't the action-fest I was looking for, it is a well-crafted film that tells an interesting story and has a strong focus on its characters, who are brought to life by a pair of great actors. The horror element is very dark, there are some quite disturbing moments, and we are made to understand just how despicable the Dark Bishop is - because the more threatening the villain is and the more we care for the hero, the more we'll be invested in that climactic fight.
After watching that climactic fight, I'm left wanting to see more of Yong-hoo and his fiery fist in a sequel that will enable him to cut loose on demonic hordes more often. We've seen the origin, now bring on the all-out action.
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