Back in the day if you were making an action film and couldn't afford Stallone or Arnie you got Van Damme or Segal. And if you couldn't afford them you got Gary Daniels. For a while you couldn't walk into a video store without seeing a new action film staring the British born martial artist, or have him turn up in a supporting role in some big budget film. And while he isn't cranking them out like he used to, he is still playing both ends of the budget spectrum. His most recent starring role is the very low budget “Dark Secrets”, (aka “Cold Earth”) but he also has roles in Sylvester Stallone's upcoming extravaganza “The Expendables” as well as the video game adaptation “Tekken”.
But this being my first real post it's only fitting that we look at his first film, 1988's “Final Reprisal”, (aka “Assault System”, “Platoon Without Return”, “Warriors Without Return” ). It was this Philippines lensed cheapie that gave him his start, as inauspicious as it might have been.
Like many such of these films the story begins in Vietnam as David Callahan (Daniels), and his crack team get wind of a meeting of the top Vietcong leadership and plan an attack. Infiltrating the compound they run into a slight problem, the conference has been rescheduled and they're now trapped. They find themselves pinned down in a room with the General's daughter, who looks to be all of 10 years old. Seeing an opportunity they take her hostage and use her as their ticket out. Yes, you read that right, the heroes take a little girl hostage.
Their escape goes smoothly until the jeep hits a land mine. The survivors separate and here we get to the plot's second major twist. As the little girl runs off screaming we see the boots and legs of somebody following her. Somebody who shoots the screaming girl in the head. And it isn't a cutaway, we see the bullet hole in her forehead and her open eyes staring up. Needless to say when her father finds the body he is not happy, he vows revenge on the attackers blaming them for her death, (and we know one of them is guilty). The sequence ends with him torturing David's friend Charlie, (James Gaines, who also co-wrote the script), to find out who the killer is.
And then we flash forward to the present, or at least 1988. David is married and working at the embassy when who should miraculously appear but Charlie. And as anyone who's seen any movies in this genre knows, that's a sure sign things are about to get ugly. Sure enough, not five minutes later an outing to the beach becomes a bloodbath leaving David's wife and son dead and David and Charlie injured.
From here the plot goes down the familiar road of crosses, double crosses and revenge with no shortage of fights, shootings and explosions. Director Teddy Page made a career of cranking out cheap and efficient action films like this under a long list of aliases. This is from the middle of his career and he shows he knows what he's doing, staging all manner of mayhem from martial arts battles to military strikes and keeping the film moving along at a good pace.
The script gives him plenty to work with to keep the macho action coming. Indeed the cast is almost all male with the General's daughter and David's wife the only female characters of note and both of them are dead within minutes of their appearance. It's very much a man's movie, both in cast as well as plot with not even a female soldier or somebody's girlfriend around for eye candy.
The other place where the script deviates from the norm is the main villain. It's pretty obvious from the start just who is responsible for all the mayhem, but it's hard to work up the usual hatred for him. After all he is going after the man he believes killed his child in cold blood. You may not approve of what he does, and there's no doubt he's an evil bastard, but you can't really bring yourself to hate him the way you normally would the villain in this kind of film. Whether that weakens the film or gives it more emotional depth than usual is a matter of opinion.
The acting in these kinds of films is usually not anything worth discussing, but as it is Gary Daniels debut we'll take a minute to look at it. Daniels certainly looks the part, big, muscular and cut. And his fight scenes show off his considerable martial arts skills. But he really doesn't do much in the way of acting. In part hat's because the script gives him little to do apart from react to the death of his family. The rest of the film he just has him looking badass and beating the crap out of people. To be honest he really doesn't show many signs of the actor he would become.
Of the rest of the cast several will be familiar to fans of low budget film, especially the previously mentioned Jim Gaines, who's appeared in an number of Italian low budeters including “Robowar”, “Zombie 4: After Death” and Bruno Mattie's last two films Island of the Living Dead” and “Zombies: The Beginning”
So in the end what we have is a film that's slightly better than average for it's kind and with the added bonus of a star in his first role. It's a bit hard to find, but if you can track down a copy it's a fun watch.
