On the eve of a US-Japan trade summit, a reporter gets a tip that the Japanese-American head of a big aerospace firm will be selling trade secrets. Intent on getting a scoop, the reporter hires private investigator John Blaylock to help her find out just what information is being handed over. In the course of snooping, the pair are discovered, but not before they learn that the Japanese contact is a member of the Yakuza. When the executive turns up dead after an apparent suicide, the pair realise that some very big secrets are being kept by some very important people.....Oliver Gruner, Jeff Speakman, Jalal Merhi, Brian Bosworth. If you were of an age during the early nineties, these were names you'll recognise. They all had one decent movie, and then went on to make some awful movies.Much like Griffith, and this movie. I've still yet to see Crackerjack, but I think that will be his defining movie. Yes he was in Vampires, XXX, and Karate Kid 3, but they were not vehicles like this.The film promises so much, but if your looking for a straight up action film like they used to make, fight, talk a little, fight more, and then fight the main bad guy, you'll be sorely disappointed.The marketers are to blame for this, name dropping two of the biggest action stars of the time on the cover is a big mistake, as this movie is more like Lundgrens Cover Up than anything else.The cast are fine, its full of your generic typecasts and the good looking lead, but nothing else really happens.A pointless movie.

Thomas Ian Griffith stars as Jack Blayclock, a private detective who is hired by reporter Erica (Mary Page Keller) to do some snooping on a Japanese businessman, however when said businessman is found dead, Erica and Jack realize that there is far more that meets the eye and the people involved hit close to home for our duo. Thomas Ian Griffith is an actor who on the basis of this movie clearly had more potential than what he amounted to as an action star. I remember saying that Griffith resembled a used car salesman in Excessive Force, but here that sleazy look (Also put to good use in the entertaining Karate Kid Part III) is well suited and let it be said that the biggest surprise with this movie, isn't the action sequences or even what the material goes over.(It's nothing different then what you would find in Rising Sun) Rather the big surprise is just how much this works as a suspense thriller. Indeed the characters are believable, the Japan bashing and the politics depicting such are all credibly handled and when the fight sequences finally do happen they feel more exciting because we actually care about the characters and there are surprises that even this jaded viewer couldn't guess. Sure the main villain is an obvious answer, but the twisty narrative offers a good deal of suspense and the ending doesn't cop out on a downbeat ending. In other words this is a low budget movie with ambition, something often lacking in theatrical pictures of the day. (Even more so now.)Ulterior Motives is one obscurity that is well worth discovering.* * *1/2 out of 4-(Very good)

The performances are the selling point here, overshadowing the low budget and routine script. Thomas Ian Griffith handles his role as a private investigator just fine and is well matched with Mary Page Keller as the Lois Lane-like truth-seeking reporter. Connecting the bad guys to the Japanese Mafia is, at least, an attempt to come up with unusual villains. What's unfortunate about this film is that so little screen time is given to Ellen Crawford, who plays the most interesting character -- the "mystery woman." Her fascinating face and persona appears quite prominently in the early scenes but, sadly, only intermittently after that. It's too bad that more of the movie does not feature her. Although the ending is a bit of a letdown, overall I'd say "Ulterior Motives" is worth a look.

Thomas Ian Griffith, the cut price Steven Seagal, stars in this above average action thriller. The story centers around a New York journalist (Mary Page Keller) who suspects a Japanese businessman of selling American military secrets to Japan. To help her get to the truth she employs the services of a private investigator (Griffith) and before long the body count starts to rise. The action scenes are typical for this type of movie but the plot, storyline and characters are well above average. If your a fan of action movies, there is plenty here for you and Thomas Ian Griffith does it just as well as Seagal or Van Damme.