Movie Review - An Eye For An Eye

An Eye For An Eye

1981

The Cast

Now, this film really takes me back to my youth, where you were a member of a video shop... or fifteen (I counted the cards I used to have)... and you would troll around them all to find a movie worth watching - at least it kept us fit.

This is pretty much your basic '80's action flick.  Where the good guy is out for revenge for the death of a lover, a family member, friend, or in this case a partner on the force.  The plot, like this one, would usually revolve around drugs trafficking.  Throw in a love interest and loads of exciting fights and you have the perfect mix.  This was the start of the "Leave your brain at the door" movies.  To be fair, it's nice to let enjoyment and excitement take you out of your daily routine.  I know I need it at the moment.

So in this story, you have Kane (Norris) and his partner, Dave (Kiser), heading to an undercover meet.  However, it's a trap and Dave is killed, in quite a nasty way.  From here on in Kane is out to solve the murder and get revenge for his dead partner.  This leads him and Dave's girlfriend reporter, Linda (Chao) into a world of drug trafficking...

So what makes this a film worth watching?

Well there is Chuck Norris, who to be honest, isn't too bad in this film.  He was just coming into being an actor in his own right at this time.  These types of characters, like the films, were ten-a-penny and you were lucky if they made it to two-dimensional, let alone three.  I have to believe that it's the likes of Christopher Lee (Canfield), Richard Roundtree (Captain Stevens), Matt Clark (McCoy), and even Mako (Chan) that elevated his acting up a notch or two for this movie.  The rest of the cast are solid actors and carry the film and the much-used scenario easily.

Next, there's the direction.  Steve Carver does a really good job with the camera work.  There are some really well-framed sections.  I loved the part where Kane goes to visit his sensei and master, Chan.  He parks his beautiful red Mustang and gets out.  This is all superbly framed in a long shot by an ornamental oriental fence.  Even on the drive up to his masters home, he is followed by a helicopter.  This is filmed smoothly; you have a side portrait of Norris driving and outside the passenger window you see the copter flying at his side.  There's also a nice sequence where Kane runs from his house, down his pier to his private jetty, opens his speedboats enclosure, jumps in and speeds away.  There is a lot in this film that Carver should be proud about.  Even the slow motion sections of the fight scene's work.  When a lot of martial arts opted to speed up the action, slowing it down works really well - especially when you have a master of the arts like Norris.

Carver also sets a nice rollercoaster pace for the movie.  He knows when to slow down to drive the plot and quicken it up to boost excitement and tension.  A Lot of filmmakers could take a few notes from this film.

The only thing in the film that irked me was the love interest, Maggie Cooper.  This was mainly for Sullivan's wooden performance.  In some scenes, she appears so laid back that she may have been sampling the product the bad guys were moving.

If you like your martial arts flicks and are not too worried about plot, then I would recommend this one to you.  It may not be intellectually brilliant but it is kick ass entertaining.

I give this a Chuck Norris Kick-Ass 5.75 out of 10.

The Trailer

Movie Review - Dragon Eyes

Dragon Eyes

2012

After Dark Films / Signature Entertainment / Autonomous Films / Dark Castle Entertainment / Silver Pictures : After Dark Films / G2 Pictures / IM Global

2.25 / 10

I've been a fan of Jean-Claude Van Damme films since No Retreat No Surrender back in 1986, in fact, that's when my interest in martial arts movies started to grow.  To be honest, Van Damme has done some bad films in his time and this has to be one of the worst, though not because of him... Van Damme is the strongest actor in the cast.

This is a strange story of police corruption and gang warfare which flares up out of control when Hong, played by Cung Le is released from prison and drives into St. Jude.  So that premise alone should allow for great drama and martial arts action, especially as Cung Le is a mixed martial arts champion and the cast sports Peter Weller as the crooked cop Mister V.

However, the story is weak and full of plotholes, whereas the martial arts scenes are all fought in slow motion and is easier to spot the fakes and the fluffs - the thrown punches that miss their opponent.  The slowness also distracts from the action.  There was a reason some 80's martial arts films speeded up the action, they knew it made it more exciting.  Hence, you slow it down and it gets boring.  This was a major fubar by director John Hyams - the other was to try and make the film stylish and cool, it was too obvious and failed miserably.

Then there's the set's these are so cheap and tacky they look as if they were either abandoned buildings or somebodies garage.  Should have paid for a location scout, people.

It's Weller as the over-the-top Mister V and Van Damme as Tiano who actually appear to give a damn about the film as they both get into their characters pretty well, though it's nowhere nearly enough to raise this out of the toilet it should be flushed down.

Yet another movie that could have been so much better had things been done differently.

I wouldn't even recommend this to Van Damme fans as he's just not in it fo long enough.  If you're thinking of making a martial arts film then you could watch this to see how it shouldn't be done!