Executive Target (1997)

Tagline:

Kidnapping the President is worth a hell of a lot of money.

Movie Review:

Michael Madsen plays Nick, an ex-stunt driver who is serving time for a petty crime. While being transferred to prison the bus is attacked and rolls. A group of armed militants free Nick, kill the other prisoners and take Nick hostage. He is taken to a secret base known as Area 55 where he is informed of a plan that will see him driving a getaway vehicle in a bank heist because he's such an awesome stunt driver. He is forced to do this as they have his wife held captive. The heist goes smoothly, with about a hundred explosions along the way and destruction of most of the police force squad cars, and Nick thinks that he and his wife will be set free. Keith David (They Live) who runs Area 55 has other ideas - kidnap the President of the United States and sell him to the highest bidder.

This is what I'm talking about, right here. Movies like this are why I got into this game in the first place. Holy hell you couldn't cram more action into a movie if you tried. This is 100 solid minutes of car chases, explosions and fire-fights. I lost track of how many squad cars were blown up in this film. The first 15 minutes was so jammed packed with excitement that I felt sad, because traditionally the welcome is warn out thereafter until the final 20 minute finale. I was pleasently surprised - actually ecstatic - to see that this movie simply does not stop. After the massive pile up in the beginning we cut instantly to a strip club being patroned by none other than Dayton Callie, a true TV 'that guy' who then went on to have roles in Undisputed and JCVD's Derailed. He plays Bela, a mechanic and safe-house to Nick early on and later in the film. He also gets the funniest line in the movie; running towards the bad guys brandishing a gun yelling "Cherry Coke!!!".

After the initial kidnapping of Nick he is forced to drive again and be the getaway driver for the kidnapping of the President. If the action wasn't large-scale enough for you in the opening sequence then strap yourself in for the second act. I'm talking cars flying over bridges. I'm talking cars flying through the sides of trucks. Multiple helicopters being shot out of the sky by truck-mounted artillery, and landing on yet more piles of police cars. The old favourite of crashing through a fruit stand is multiplied as Nick crashes through an entire fruit market in a sixteen-wheeler. It all culminates in the remote detonation of a roadblock that causes squad car after squad car (I counted about 25) to fly, burning, into the ground all while a choir sings over the sounds of explosions. Sensational.

The cover of my DVD proudly states in font as large as the movie title itself "The greatest crash movie ever made!! The best car chase since Bullitt!! The fastest action movie you'll ever see!!" Yes, they did use double esclamation marks there, but I know how they feel. I am finding it hard to describe just how downright awesome this movie is. It's not a funny action movie ala 48 Hours, this is a late 90's explosive bank heist come kidnapping action movie that borrows ideas heavily from Die Hard with a Vengeance (in that the bank heist is only a cover for what would follow after) but should have come out ten years earlier. You wouldn't think that this is a PM Entertainment movie either. This comes from the same company that seven years earlier made Repo Jake and TWO years earlier made the hideous To the Limit. They had never up until this point demonstrated such professionalism with their movies - at least with the ones that I have seen so far. This could have easily had a small-scale theatrical run for the traditional action movie aficionado.

Michael Madsen, who has been riding the DTV train of late, is solid if understated in this. In fact all the actors in the movie take back seat to the action, which I feel is how a true action movie that doesn't focus on a particular Seagal, Van-Damme or Lundgren should be. There is not much in the acting department that I can point out as especially interesting or powerful. I will say that Keith David really hams it up as the mastermind of the whole operation; he alternates between spitting bile at his underlings to drinking champagne and laughing as he watches his plan unfold. He describes this movie well when after witnessing a thirty car pile up from the safety of his couch says "This is enough to give you a hard on." Top stuff.

Roy Scheider does an admirable job as the President and even gets chucked into the boot of a car, the poor old guy. In the third act after being rescued, he agrees to let Nick and a small team infiltrate Area 55 and take the place apart in the rescue of his wife. Angie Everhart is the eye-candy in the movie playing Lacey, one of the bad girls, and she does a fine job despite a few bad lines and awkward scenes. Robert Miano (Out for Blood, No Escape No Return, A Time to Die) has a small role as one of the bad guys which was cool, but not as cool as the small role given to Matthias Hues. He's not used much and dies early but somebody does refer to him as Fabio, which was fantastic. If there was a downside to this movie, it was not enough Matthias screen time.

I'm definitely on an adrenaline rush as I write this. That should be enough to convince you to go get this movie as soon as possible. Jump on Amazon, get on eBay or rummage through those sale bins. You need this movie in your life. Without a doubt the best PM Entertainment movie I have seen so far with massive re-playability. I have many PM flicks still to watch but I can't see how they could top this. This was very late in the career of Joseph Merhi and Richard Pepin as PM only had a few years left in it before they went their separate ways. Chronologically moving forward we have the likes of Gary Daniels' Recoil and Jeff Speakman's Land of the Free to enjoy. I don't see how they could improve upon Executive Target. In time I guess we will find that out. Right now, I think I'm having a mangasm over the possibility of watching Executive Target again.

The Video:

A little soft but overall a strong full screen presentation with a massive, explosive soundtrack. Better than most PM Entertainment films up to this point but nothing spectacular. Runtime 100 minutes.

Sourced From:

Region 2 DVD from eBay for a few bucks.

Trailer:

More Screens:

A Time to Die (1991)



Tagline:

A time to fight or a time to die.

Back of DVD:

Traci Lords (Cry Baby, Not Of This Earth) is freelance photographer ackie Swanson, whose only desire is to make enough money to keep custody of her five-year-old boy.

After she is hired by the police to help their public image, Jackie takes one picture too many. Now she holds the only physical evidence to a police murder cover-up.

As her life is threatened, she doesn't run or hide, she searches for justice. But when the police use her little boy to get to her, Jackie trades in her 35mm camera for a 45-magnum.

She learns that the time to fight is not the TIME TO DIE.

Movie Review:

The cover to this DVD makes it look far more exciting and explosive than it really is. This is no Explosive Action movie. It's more of a thriller with a little bit of gunfire thrown in, acted out by a former porn star. And no she doesn't get her kit off. Traci Lords made the transition from XXX to DTV over only six years. She was Penthouse Pet September 1984, two years before she was even legal (a story in itself), got a lead in the remake of Not Of This Earth, appeared as a regular on Melrose Place and became the lead feature in a few PM Entertainment productions - one of which is A Time to Die.

It starts off interesting. A couple of sleazy dealer types in suits are drinking on a roof top waiting for a buyer for their weapons merchandise. The buyer finally shows up and is shown the wears, but at the same time some punk kid is screwing around with the dealer's car down on the street. The kid is told to leave his car alone but doesn't listen so the guy shoots him with his pistol from five stories up (great scream) and the buyer runs off without paying. The cops arrive at the scene but are only interested in the body on the car and don't even realise there are two armed guys on the roof until one starts shooting at them. Traci is present and taking photos of the dead kid (she's a reporter/photographer type). One of the cops is shot next to her but she goes on taking photos - dedication right there. Detective Frank (Jeff Conaway) arrives at the scene, tells Traci to stay out of it and sneaks up stairs to get the shooters. Frank orders their surrender hilariously ("GIVE UP.. OR DIE!") and shoots one of the guys. As the other guy goes for his gun, Traci appears from behind and kicks the poor guy in the balls! Youch!

To show his appreciation Frank takes Traci for a 'cup of tea'. I thought this was funny itself. It's an early 90's American action movie and the cop drinks tea. If I've learnt anything from American bad acton movies is that cops drink filthy black coffee from a percolator and not much else. Perhaps I should have taken this as a sign of things to come, because aside from a few scenes here and there, most of the action has subsided. I had some reassurance later when we are introduced to Traci's parole officer/police Captain who is straight out of the "around here we go by the book" school of Captaining, but it was short lived. Traci tells Frank her life story over tea (married, one kid) but this is partially a lie. At 3.30am she calls her ex-husband on the phone who has custody of her son and says she wants to see him but under the terms of the custody she is not allowed to. So Traci is a girl with a past that we see through various flashbacks as the movie goes on. During a photo shoot the police raid her studio and find cocaine which Traci claims belongs to the model, but as the model denies everything Traci gets her motherhood rights stripped and has to do community service photography for the police to try and improve their image.

The real bad stuff in this movie is the family scenes with Traci, her ex-husband, her kid and the ex's new girl. Painful stuff indeed, though some of the lines are unintentionally hilarious. Far too much "I love you mommy" going on and montages through a soft focus lens in A Time to Die and not enough explosions, though the kid making a typical kids breakfast when left unintended was a cute moment (milk with 90% chocolate sauce in it, etc.). Some other funny stuff is delivered by the cop Frank as he does his beat. He takes Traci along on a regular disturbance of the peace call and we get to see two lesbian lovers having a tiff that escalates into a hysterical sword fight! Frank has seen the two do this dozens of times before so just let's it go with a smile.

Traci admits to Frank that she is actually divorced and has lost her kid. Then the two go on a wholesome date to the shooting gallery where Frank 'assists' Traci in shooting her gun. This of course leads to sex by an open fire and I started to groan in annoyance even more as to where this movie was going. Anyway she kicks him out of her house after doing the deed to which he responds "I am a cop.. but I'm a HUMAN BEING FIRST." I died a little. The next day Frank buys Traci a present - her own gun. Jesus Christ, is this just how things are done in America or is it too much to expect he give her flowers? I kind of like our "no guns" rule here in Australia.

Things get a little more interesting the next evening at their second date. Frank waits at the bar and gets talking with an old colleague of his, another cop Eddie (Robert Miano). He's a bit of a sleaze playing around with a hooker at the bar, and when Traci arrives she tries not to catch his eye. It's revealed through more flashbacks that Eddie was the cop that arrested her on the drug charges so she makes her excuses and leaves. Eddie also leaves with the girl and Traci decides to follow him in the hope of getting some photographs she could use to blackmail him. He drops her stoned arse off at the brothel and immediately her pimp comes storming in looking for "Sunshine". Half hysterical the pimp can't find Sunshine and looks for her in the back alley, but awaiting for him is Eddie with his high beams on and Traci in the shadows. Eddie blows the pimp away and Traci get the photo evidence but she unfortunately also makes her presence known and we finally get a car chase with a crash and explosion. This is 50 minutes into the movie mind you, and I'm starting to yawn.

The rest of the movie is Eddie trying to get Traci and the negatives from the photos she took of the murder, with a twist thrown in with Frank for good measure. That's another 40 minutes though with only the last 10 being any real good. It's just all too tedious with far too much Bold and the Beautiful shit going on that I couldn't care less about. Blow more things up for christ's sake. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for a mostly action-less thriller? I don't think I'll be compelled to revisit this any time soon to find out.

The Video:

A clear enough presentation for a PM Entertainment DTV film from the early 90's. Pretty standard stuff; dark city streets, overly bright interiors. The audio is okay but a bit shoddy in some places where a boom microphone clearly wasn't used, like the scenes in her cavernous house. Runtime 89 minutes.

Trailer:

More Screens: