Umpteenth variation on the "Die Hard" formula stars Eric Roberts as an unnamed hero who turns out to be the only hope for the President of the United States (John Beck) when a traitorous government agent (Bryan Genesse, who also wrote the movie) takes advantage of events that occur. You see, it seems that the Presidents' ratings are very low and a member of his staff engineers a phony kidnapping to try to make him look sympathetic. Genesse, a part of the group involved, sees this as his opportunity to make a bunch of money. However, Roberts, an agent himself, still has some scruples and tries to foil Genesses' plans.The movie isn't completely worthless. Director Sam Firstenberg, who'd guided so many classic martial arts movies of the 1980s, keeps it moving forward at an adequate pace. Some of the action set pieces, such as the fights and one amazing stunt, are competently done. However, the script isn't very good, and the nods to "Die Hard" are way too obvious. The characters are fairly nondescript, good guys and bad guys alike, although some of the actors try their best. If one is watching this for co-stars Ice-T and Michael Madsen, be warned that they never do very much. Things very much fall on the shoulders of Roberts and Genesse. The oddest touch is occasionally cutting back to a redneck couple watching the whole event on TV and making commentary.A cast of familiar faces helps some. The movie co-stars Roberts' wife Eliza as the Presidents' Chief of Staff and Genesses' wife Brooke as one of the villains (with whom Roberts has a big fight scene). Also appearing are Larry Manetti, Sal Landi, and Brookes' TV dad Bill Kirchenbauer (from the series 'Just the Ten of Us') in a cameo as a "loud Texan".If you stick it through to the end, you do get rewarded with some fairly amusing outtakes that play out alongside the ending credits.Five out of 10.

The president of the USA is addressing a charity dinner. Anybody attending is searched for weapons, but they have not reckoned on several of the guests turning up with drinking straw blowpipes that shoot poison-darts disguised as toothpicks at incredible ranges, and with such accuracy that the president's minders get it in the neck every time. What a weapon. I'm going out to buy a packet of straws and a box of cocktail sticks right now, and I'm going to wreak havoc in my neighbourhood.It's an attempt by sinister forces to get the president re-elected by staging a fake kidnap attempt and have him escape to make himself popular. The president knows nothing about this plot and has a sudden attack of self righteousness, and the fake kidnap attempt turns into a real one.Eric Roberts comes out of nowhere and does his Die-hard routine. But the difference between Eric Roberts and Bruce Willis as Die-hard is that Bruce Willis actually has a reason to be in the building.Eric Roberts stymies the kidnap attempt after being shot in the knee, continually whacked by an aluminium pole, scorched with a flame thrower, falling down the side of a skyscraper and again down a lift shaft. He certainly earned the ransom money in bearer bonds that the president said he could keep at the end. But it would have been curtains for Eric Roberts if only one of the villains had thought of puffing a drinking straw at him.Apart from those few little details this film is perfectly believable.

Eric Roberts once received rave reviews for movies like "Star 80", "Runaway Train", and even "The Pope of Greenwich Village." This movie, which has several inconsistent titles, is so bad, that one must assume that Mr. Roberts has hit bottom. Perhaps he wishes to embarrass his sister, Julia Roberts. She should give Eric half of her future film salaries, approximately $20 million per film, just to stop him from making any more trash.The other comments are all to the point: the plot is so stupid, unbelievable, so low budget, so silly, that it is an insult to Hollywood and to America. I can't believe that HBO actually airs this film, even if it is at 4:00 am.The worst Kung Foo movie from the late seventies is ten times more entertaining then this so-called martial arts film. There is no reason to watch, except if you have insomnia and need a film to bore you to sleep.

This is a truly poor excuse for an action film. the characters act so stupidly and have so little charisma, it's hard to care for them one way or another. At one point, the villian fakes his death through a helicopter crash. Though he has the money he'd asked for as ransom and has no reason what so ever to go back to the site of his crime-he goes back. Another ridiculous plot point- the hero, having saved the president from a "Die Hard" style terrorist attack, doesn't just walk the Pres out of the building, but rather sits around, making calls on his cell phone.This idiocy would all be okay if this flick had some decent action, but the fight scenes are choreographed with the energy of a sloth monkey and the shoot outs take place with enemies twenty feet from eachother, yet unable to hit a damn thing...and would the hero really shoot back at the villian if the President, this movie's "macguffin" was between them? Yes he would in this flick, because it means he can dive between pillars. This movie isn't bad because it's dumb- dumb ain't bad, I love dumb action movies- it's bad because it's insulting even to the undemanding.