We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.
SNIPER: THE LAST STAND (2025)
The eleventh film in the Sniper action franchise, Sniper: The Last Stand gets started with a very cool 11 minute action sequence in which series hero Brandon Beckett (Chad Michael Collins), a former Marine sniper who now works for a black ops C.I.A. team called G.R.I.T., and a fellow sniper provide long distance assistance while Agent Zero (Ryan Robbins), a returning character from the last few sequels, and a team of resistance fighters called the Phoenix Rebellion raid an isolated compound in an effort to take down arms dealer Ryker Kovalov (Arnold Vosloo), a.k.a. “the Death Broker,” and weapons designer Mauser Maxim (Rob Van Vuuren). The raid goes reasonably well, the resistance fighters don’t suffer any casualties and are able to catch Kovalov and Maxim in a room where they have set up some kind of sonic wave weapon called the Grim Reaper. Unfortunately, Kovalov sets off the Grim Reaper. And as a sonic wave bowls over characters both good and bad, the movie jumps back 48 hours so we can find out exactly what’s going on here and who these people are that Brandon and Zero are working with.
I’ve referred to the previous few films as “the Oliver Thompson trilogy,” since Thompson wrote Sniper: Assassin’s End and came back to write and direct Sniper: Rogue Mission and Sniper: G.R.I.T. - Global Response & Intelligence Team. The Thompson era has come to an end, Sniper: The Last Stand was directed by Danishka Esterhazy (the Slumber Party Massacre remake) from a screenplay by Sean Wathen, but the story Wathen came up with ties back to the beginning of Assassin’s End, showing us the consequences of an assassination that was carried out at the start of that movie. The target of that assassination was Bruno Diaz, the leader of a country called Costa Verde. As it turns out, Diaz’s brother rose to power after Bruno was killed and has gone on to sell off the country to the highest bidders, like the Death Broker, who is allowed to do whatever he wants in the country as long as he provides weapons to the leader’s personal army. The Phoenix Rebellion, which includes Bruno’s son Casanova (Manuel Rodriguez-Saenz), is fighting to take their country back – and to put the Death Broker out of business.
The C.I.A. can’t officially be involved with what’s going on in Costa Verde, but G.R.I.T. members Brandon and Zero have been loaned out to help the resistance fighters. The characters they work with on this mission include Modise (Vusi Kunene), Angel (Noxolo Dlamini), Hera (Sharon Taylor), Hilo (Scott George), Nadia (Shamilla Miller), Sello (Hope Thangata), Jansen (Kathleen Stephens), Jedd (Kiroshan Naidoo), the aforementioned Casanova, and Zondi (Sizo Mahlangu), an inexperienced sniper Brandon becomes a mentor to.
Esterhazy and Wathen spend a thirty minute stretch giving us the background on the mission we saw at the beginning of the film and letting us get to know the characters involved. So it would actually add some emotional depth to the beginning if a viewer were to watch minutes 11 through 44 and then circle back to the opening action so they can be fully aware of what’s going on and care about the people we’re seeing in action (and in danger) – but don’t worry, there’s plenty more action to come. The movie catches up with the opening sequence around the 45 minute point... and reveals just how dangerous the Grim Reaper device is. For the remaining 50 minutes, Brandon and the others fight to keep the Grim Reaper from falling into the wrong hands as the Costa Verde army descends on the compound.
The Sniper franchise has had its ups and downs, with one of the lowest points only being a couple of movies behind this one, but Sniper: The Last Stand represents another upswing. All of these movies are made on modest budgets, and when you break down the elements of this one you can see how Esterhazy and Wathen were being economical – there are only a few locations, and a substantial portion of the running time is focused on characters talking to each other – but it works. The story is intriguing, with some good twists and turns, and there’s plenty of action. In the end, I would count this as one of my favorite entries in the series... and I’m left wanting more. Despite the subtitle, I hope this won’t be The Last Stand for the franchise. Bring on Sniper 12!
FOLKS! (1992)
Author and screenwriter Robert Klane was known for writing dark comedies that dealt with taboos. Like Where’s Poppa?, which was about a man trying to get rid of his senile mother. Or Fire Sale, about a dysfunctional family trying to benefit from arson. He wrote Unfaithfully Yours, which follows a guy who thinks his wife is having an affair and plots to kill her and her supposed lover. In 1989, he teamed up with First Blood director Ted Kotcheff to bring the world Weekend at Bernie’s, which saw a couple of guys moving a corpse around as if it were still a live simply (at first) so they wouldn’t miss the chance to party with the dead guy’s friends. In 1992, Klane and Kotcheff re-teamed for the comedy Folks!, which digs into more dark material: it’s a story about a man agreeing to help his mother and senile father kill themselves in an accident so they can move on from this world and he can collect their life insurance money. It’s quite twisted... and that went right over my head when I first saw the movie when it was released on VHS, at which time I probably would have been nine years old. I just saw it as a goofy comedy and really enjoyed it without realizing just how dark the story was.
Folks! stars Tom Selleck (minus his iconic mustache) as Chicago stockbroker Jon Aldrich, who rushes down to Florida like a good son when he hears that his elderly mother Mildred (Anne Jackson) has been hospitalized and needs surgery. But we’ll quickly find out that Jon is not a good son. He hasn’t seen his parents in eight years – so long, there’s a sequence where he thinks he’s reuniting with his father then realizes that he’s been bonding with the wrong old guy! His parents haven’t even met his wife Audrey (Wendy Crewson) or his two young children. Despite the fact that he’s well off financially and could have gone to Florida at any time, or brought his parents up to Chicago to visit. He also sold off with family shoe store without ever telling his parents.
Unbeknownst to Jon, his father Harry (Don Ameche) has developed dementia and can’t function on his own. He remembers his past but has no short term memory and gets some strange ideas in his head at times. Mildred hasn’t been in the hospital for long by the time Harry manages to crash their car and burn down their home. Jon’s sister Arlene (Christine Ebersole) lives in Florida but refuses to take in their parents, so Jon has to take them both back to Chicago with him... and from there, his life gradually falls apart. Arlene and her rambunctious kids end up moving in, his wife and kids leave, his loses his job. Things get dire. So, no longer wanting to be a burden, Mildred and Harry ask that Jon help them die so he and Audrey can collect their life insurance. And they proceed to try to kill off the old folks in a few different methods.
What’s really strange about the whole thing is just how awful Jon and especially Audrey turned out to be. Mildred and Harry are loving, caring people, and yet Jon can’t be bothered to stay in regular contact with them and Audrey doesn’t seem to have any love for them at all, saying she would have run off with Hitler rather than continue living with them when she was younger. She is also completely enthusiastic about the idea of them being killed off so she can get some money. At least Jon has some moments of regret and second thoughts.
Folks! was a box office disappointment and was torn apart by critics, but I liked it when I was a kid and still like it to this day. What really makes it work (for me, anyway) is Don Ameche gives a very endearing performance as the troubled Harry. When I was nine, this movie was just silly stuff to laugh at. I especially liked watching Jon receive a collection of injuries over the course of the film. Now that I’m middle-aged and have lost a lot more loved ones, including my own parents, the subject matter is darker and heavier to experience. But there are still some good chuckles to be had from watching Folks!
FINAL ROUND (1994)
When I first watched Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers as a young kid at the end of the '80s, I quickly developed a crush on cast member Kathleen Kinmont – a crush that carried on through the ‘90s as I watched Kinmont in the likes of Bride of Re-Animator, CIA Code Name: Alexa, CIA II: Target Alexa, the TV series Renegade, and others (not to mention repeated viewings of Halloween 4). Decades later, Kinmont has written a book called I Should’ve Been Nicer to Quentin Tarantino – and Other Short Stories of Epic Fails and Saves, an autobiography that digs into her life story, some of her work experiences, her tumultuous relationship with Lorenzo Lamas, her world view, and more. Including her time being in an acting class with Quentin Tarantino. While reading Kinmont’s book, which is very interesting and well worth picking up, I came to realize that my young self was right to have a crush on her, as she seems to be a really great person. Or, as she describes herself, she’s a “spiritual unicorn rainbow Skittle pooping human.”
Kinmont doesn’t spend a lot of time talking about movie productions in her book. There is a nod to Halloween 4, some talk about working on Bride of Re-Animator, and discussion of her friendship with Tom Hanks leading to a role in his movie That Thing You Do! and her friendship with Kristanna Loken opening the door for her to get the job as Loken’s stand-in on Terminator 3. There’s also talk of working on Renegade with her then-husband Lamas, a situation that didn’t turn out well. But for the most part, the book is about her life, not about her work.
So the low budget 1994 action flick Final Round doesn’t get covered in I Should’ve Been Nicer to Quentin Tarantino, but it seemed like a good Kinmont movie to check out after reading the book. Especially since she stars in it alongside Lamas.
Directed by George Erschbamer from a script by Arne Olsen, Final Round is one of the many variations on the “hunting humans” story The Most Dangerous Game we’ve seen over the decades, and really feels like a cheap rip-off of the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie The Running Man. Lamas plays kickboxer Tyler “I’m a big fan of Chuck Norris” Verdiccio, who is abducted – along with his love interest Jordan (Kinmont) and a guy called Mad Dog (Clark Johnson) – and set loose in an industrial complex, where they are hunted by mercenaries, each with a camera strapped to their head, while heartless rich people all over the world (including a couple played by Stephen Mendel and Isabelle Mejias Jamieson) watch the live video broadcast and make bets like it’s a regular sporting event. This money-making endeavor is headed up by Anthony De Longis as a guy named Jon Delgado, who watches the game play out from his office.
A series of often underwhelming fights ensue as Tyler, Jordan, and Mad Dog battle for their lives – and fare pretty well. Of course, Tyler is especially capable of handling himself in hand-to-hand combat with professional killers. And he does it all with one strap of his bib overalls undone. This game is the first time anyone has ever bet on one of the hunted, and it looks to be a smart bet.
I found Final Round to be a decent watch, but it’s really a movie that only viewers who have a soft spot for cheap ‘90s action movies are likely to be able to enjoy.
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