Directed by Adamo Paulo CulatranoStarring Steve Austin, Michael Jai White and Lexa Doig Plot Overview: After a hostage situation gone bad, Tate(Steve Austin) and his SWAT team are sent back to do basic training but when they are caught in the middle of a gang war and with no live ammo, things go bad real fast.General: Overall: I will never rate a movie either a 1 or a 10 just to decrease its rank. I will only rank movies based on what I genuinely think they should be ranked. That being said, this is one of the worst movies I've watched in the past few years. With the bleak exception of a kind of alright premise(which they drop within the first 40 minutes), there is nothing redeeming to this movie. The acting was atrocious, the story was nonexistent and the action was just awful. The tone is all over the place and the dialogue was depressingly bad. I can genuinely not think of one proper strength of this movie. I just can't. Aside from a premise which is dropped, there isn't anything that I can say kept me watching other than the fact that I was interested if it could become any worse. If this is your standard for quality entertainment and you hold this movie at a rank with 'Die Hard' and 'Judgement Day', then I don't envy you, and I suggest you watch a LOT more movies. I don't know what type of people will like this other than maybe if you enjoy Steve Austin and if you admire this 'style' of action.Wouldn't Recommend.Detailed: The acting was just all around atrocious. I'm not gonna bother mentioning names *cough* Steve Austin *cough* because I don't deem the majority of them worthy of space in this review. That is how poor they were. To top that off, each and every character was either an archetype or human stereotype, and none of them were even remotely interesting or likable or enjoyable to watch.There was an idea, buried deep deep down under this trash, that could have made a competent, fun action movie with some quirky characters and cool one liners. This good idea was completely disregarded after maybe 40 minutes and it just becomes a stupid action movie after that. I'm not sure if there was an actual story and that plot overview I wrote above was something I think I made up to flow with the movie because very little time is actually dedicated to it. That would be fine but if there was a semi-competent story, I could have named a strength to the film. The ending was also absolutely absurd. Nothing more needs to be said on the matter. It was awful.The cinematography can be summed up in THREE words: What. The. Heck. The framing of shots, the editing, the lighting - what were they thinking! I can give credit to Joel Schumacher's dutch angle obsessed 'Batman and Robin' in the cinematography department but even this movie lacks that.The effects are, to put it in layman's terms, absolutely barbarically god awful. The set design was lazy and generic. The costume design fell into three categories: Cop stereotypes, Russian Stereotypes and Italian stereotypes. That's not a compliment by the way.The movie's main focus should have been the action. So if little effort went to anything before it, the action should be amazing. Right? Well, logically yes; in reality no. The action was just bad. This movie's exhausted by brain cells and I just don't feel like it deserves anything above Primary school vocabulary. Another flaw with the film is the tone. Upon hearing the premise of this film, I thought it could be an alright and fun action movie with some witty one liners and clever action. Well I've established the poor action so I'll address the tone. The opening sequence of this film is pretty light hearted and almost fun. Then the movie continues and the tone goes on a roller coaster but, unlike a roller coaster, there's no satisfying climax. The dialogue was terrible. Here's a game: Take a shot whenever someone says something racist/sexist/homophobic OR when there is some form of stereotype uses. I guarantee you'll be hospitalised by the half way mark.1/10Wouldn't Recommend
... View More(Credit, IMDb) A training exercise for the LAPD SWAT Team goes terribly wrong when they find themselves pitted against two rival gangs while trapped in an abandoned Hangar, armed with nothing but blanks.I really wish Stone Cold would choose better projects. He's incredibly charismatic, and the greatest superstar of all time. I have no idea why he succumbs to this sort of thing. There is barely any action in this movie, which is something that might seem shocking, considering Michael Jai White is in this movie as well. I don't remember much about this movie. I saw it when it first came out on DVD. I do remember that it throws in some twists and turns in the finale, and it had no impact on me what so ever. I'm not sure what they were going for it, but it's nothing more than a generic police film that lacks excitement and action3/10
... View MoreAfter resolving a supermarket hold up in violent fashion, a Los Angeles S.W.A.T. team - leader Tate (Steve Austin), Hunt (Michael Jai White), Jannard (Lexa Doig), and Blanco (Steve Bacic) - are assigned to do training at a remote facility (with only themselves on the site...huh, no trainers?). This is bad news as two mob factions (including Michael Shanks doing one of cinema's worst Russian accents) have descended up on the warehouse looking for a mysterious briefcase. Walter Hill's TRESPASS, much? This is really bottom of the barrel stuff and I feel bad for the big names who actually signed up to be in this. Particularly the very talented Jai White, who deserves so much better. Director Adamo Paolo Cultraro, he of the many Os, just makes an ugly, ugly film with flat digital photography and horrible editing during the fights. For example, any time a person gets punched, they do a visual effect of the image rocking/blurring. Austin still has little personality (his attempts at comedy are almost unbearable) and I'm surprised he still gets these lead roles. The final fight is WWE vs. UFC as he takes on veteran MMA fighter Keith "The Dean of Mean" Jardine. I'll let you guess who wins.
... View More"You want to do this the easy way or the hard way?" After a S.W.A.T. team led by Tate (Austin) get suspended they are assigned to undergo a re-training exercise. During the training they hear something and are left to stop an actual crime, with no real weapons. This will be a hard movie to review. The movie itself is not all the bad. The action is good and it moves pretty quick. The biggest problem with the movie is the dialog. Being an action movie starring a wrestler I can usually overlook stuff like this, but the words were distractingly bad. Lines like "Eat my grandma" shouted before firing a gun really take away from the action and makes you laugh throughout the movie instead of wondering what is happening. This will be the worst comparison ever but the action to dialog problems are "Star Wars" quality. The dialog is that bad, not so much the acting, just the dialog. Overall, a pretty entertaining movie that is made worse by the talking. Action is a B, dialog is a D. Taken together, I give it a B- Would I watch again? - I don't think I will.
... View More