Brad reviews BONE DADDY (1998), starring Rutger Hauer!

Posted on October 29, 2025 by Bradley Crain

I became obsessed with the actor Rutger Hauer in the summer of 1990. I was about to go into my senior year of high school, and I was attending the Arkansas Governor’s School. I had seen Hauer before in films like THE HITCHER and WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE, but as part of our curriculum, we all watched BLADE RUNNER and then broke up into smaller groups to analyze the film. Blown away by the film, Hauer’s powerful performance, and the opportunity to engage in a serious conversation about a movie with my peers, it was a rewarding experience, and I soon found myself seeking out every Hauer film I could find. I followed the charismatic Dutch actor’s career closely from that point forward, all the way up to his death in July of 2019. I was actually sitting on a beach in Florida when I read that he had passed away. Based on my extreme interest in every project that Hauer was associated with, I specifically remember when BONE DADDY premiered on HBO in 1998. I didn’t have HBO so I had to wait for a few months to catch it when it arrived on home video.

In BONE DADDY (1998), Rutger Hauer stars as Dr. Bill Palmer, a retired Chicago medical examiner turned bestselling author. Years earlier, Palmer investigated a series of brutal unsolved murders committed by a serial killer known as “Bone Daddy.” Retiring in frustration from not being able to solve the murders, Palmer pens the novel, “Bone Daddy,” a fictionalized account of the crimes where, unlike real life, the killer is caught and brought to justice. The book’s runaway success catapults Palmer to fame, but it also seems to pull the notorious Bone Daddy out of retirement. When his literary agent, the cocky, Rocky Carlson, is kidnapped and subjected to the killer’s signature torture, the surgical removal of bones from a living body, Palmer finds himself back on the case and teamed up with the no-nonsense police detective Sharon Wells (Barbara Williams). As the bones and the suspects pile up, Palmer is determined to make sure the killer is found and brought to justice this time around!

BONE DADDY is a pretty darn good entertainment option if you’re in the mood for an undemanding serial killer flick that’s in and out of your life in 90 minutes. It’s certainly not in the same league as SE7EN, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be enjoyed for what it is. The premise is pretty twisted, and the scenes where the killer is preparing to remove the bones of fully coherent victims is horrifying to say the least! There isn’t a lot of gore, but what’s there is pretty gross. This is B-movie territory and the lack of Hollywood gloss works in its favor. The film’s plot also has quite a bit of family drama between Dr. Palmer and his adult son Peter (Joseph Kell), who’s following in his dad’s professional footsteps in the medical field. It seems Dr. Palmer wasn’t the greatest dad and the current state of their relationship figures strongly throughout various portions of the film. This element of the story is actually handled quite well and adds some interesting tension as we move towards the end.

At the end of the day, the best thing about BONE DADDY is the presence of Rutger Hauer in the lead. He brings gravitas to the role of Dr. Palmer, a man who has had his share of successes and failures in the world. It’s his failures that continue to haunt him throughout this story and seems to put everyone around him in danger. Hauer, known for his ability to go over the top at times, plays the role completely straight with the quiet intensity and determination of a man trying to make up for past wrongs. It’s another solid performance in the career of the then-53 year old actor. I also want to give a special shout out to his nice, bushy mustache. I enjoyed it very much! The other primary performance of the film comes from Canadian actress Barbara Williams as the lead cop. In contrast to how much I enjoy Hauer, I’m just not much of a fan of Williams. She seems to be in a perpetual state of being offended in every role I’ve seen her in. She played Charles Bronson’s daughter in the FAMILY OF COPS series and her character was always on the ready to jump down someone’s throat for just about anything they said. It’s kind of the same here. I should probably try to look for some more of her work just to see if she ever smiles.

Overall, I think BONE DADDY is worth a watch, especially for fans of Rutger Hauer or movies about serial killers. The plot is predictable, and so is the identity of the killer if you’re paying attention, but you could definitely do a lot worse!

Brad reviews FAMILY OF COPS (1995), starring Charles Bronson!

Posted on June 25, 2025 by Bradley Crain

Legendary actor Charles Bronson ended his five-decade career by starring in a series of made-for-TV movies, FAMILY OF COPS (1995), BREACH OF FAITH: A FAMILY OF COPS II (1997), and FAMILY OF COPS III: UNDER SUSPICION (1999). I was in my mid-twenties as this series played out, and I enjoyed each of the installments. Today, I’m going to take a look at the first in the series.

In FAMILY OF COPS, Charles Bronson stars as Police Inspector Paul Fein. Paul, a widower as we enter this story, leads a family who is heavily involved in law enforcement in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His oldest son Ben (Daniel Baldwin) is a detective on the force. Ben is a family man in a loving marriage with several wild kids. Paul’s younger son Eddie (Sebastian Spence) is a patrol cop. Eddie’s single, has a beautiful girlfriend, and seems to be a nice guy with a well-adjusted life. Paul’s oldest daughter Kate (Barbara Williams) is a local public defender. She seems to be dedicated to her work, not leaving much time for a social life. And then there’s Paul’s youngest daughter Jackie (Angela Featherstone), who has moved out to California and refers to herself as “the family curse.” This story opens with Jackie reluctantly coming back to Milwaukee to attend her dad’s birthday party. All Paul wants for his birthday is for his family to be together. We soon learn that neither Ben or Kate care much for Jackie and her irresponsible life choices. As a matter of fact, the reason she ran off to California in the first place was to get out from under her family’s disapproval. It’s not long after she gets back that the family wishes she would have stayed away. Sneaking out of her sister’s house late at night to drink and party, she meets the prominent local businessman Adam Novacek (Simon MacCorkindale), eventually going to his home and engaging in sexual intercourse. Sadly, the next morning she wakes up to Novacek’s recently deceased corpse, and she’s arrested as the prime suspect in his murder. Convinced of her innocence, Paul, Ben, and Eddie set about trying to clear her name and find the real murderer. Besides Jackie, other suspects begin to emerge, including Novacek’s current wife Anna (Lesley-Anne Down), his former wife Laura (Kate Trotter), who’s now confined to a looney bin, and a local gangster named Frank Rampola (John Vernon), who has a vendetta against Paul for recently busting his grandson. How far will Paul Fein go to protect his family in his search for a killer?!!

FAMILY OF COPS is a perfect example of what I would refer to as entertainment for the “older person crowd,” and I don’t mean this as a put-down in any way as I enjoyed the movie. I just mean that it fits a type of entertainment that was popular in the 80’s and 90’s. These types of shows would depend greatly on the charisma or reputation of a veteran actor or actress, would contain simple production values, and would usually follow formulaic plots. Examples of the types of shows I’m referring to include MURDER, SHE WROTE with Angela Lansbury, MATLOCK with Andy Griffith, DIAGNOSIS MURDER with Dick Van Dyke, and WALKER: TEXAS RANGER with Chuck Norris. A combination of my dad, mom and grandma loved all of these shows. I’m a big fan of MATLOCK myself. In this case, FAMILY OF COPS leans heavily on Charles Bronson’s five decades as a tough guy icon to anchor a somewhat formulaic crime film and family melodrama. The role of Paul Fein fits a 73-year-old Bronson like a glove. He’s still in good physical shape, and the movie gives him a couple of opportunities to punch the shit out of some much younger thugs and henchmen. That was fun for me.

The supporting cast of the film is solid. Daniel Baldwin and Angela Featherstone make the biggest impact. Baldwin is good as the oldest son, a hothead, tough guy on the job who is constantly being humbled at home. Featherstone has the most beautiful eyes, and her rebellious character seems to have a good heart, but she just can’t seem to keep herself out of trouble. Paul Fein’s love for his troubled daughter Jackie is a sweet part of the story and provides something that most of us can relate to. She told me that she “loved Charles,” and I think you can see that in their scenes together. Sebastian Spence and Barbara Williams don’t have a lot to do in this first installment, but their characters will get their own moments to shine in the sequels. I also enjoy seeing John Vernon and Lesley Anne-Down show up in the movie as various persons of interest throughout the story. Bronson and Lesley Anne-Down had recently worked together in DEATH WISH V: THE FACE OF DEATH (1994) and were reportedly good friends in real life. Ted Kotcheff directed FAMILY OF COPS, which I find kind of disappointing. The same guy who directed movies like NORTH DALLAS FORTY (1979) and FIRST BLOOD (1982) didn’t bring anything special to the table in this film. I know it’s a modestly budgeted made-for-TV movie, but the best that can be said for the direction is that it’s workmanlike, and you would never suspect that the director had once helmed the original Rambo movie.

Ultimately, I enjoy FAMILY OF COPS because it stars Charles Bronson. Even as an older man, Bronson still dominates a scene, and the ratings success of the movie proved that Bronson still had an audience who wanted to see him on screen. And even though the story isn’t very unique and the central mystery isn’t very exciting, just the fact that Bronson is leading a solid story that includes action, crime, mystery and family melodrama will always provide some moments of joy for his fans like me. This is far from Bronson’s best work, but the old workhorse still knows how to entertain!

Horror On TV: Night Visions 1.1 “The Passenger List” (dir by Yves Simoneau) and “The Bokor” (dir by Keith Gordon)

Posted on October 15, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Do y’all remember an old show called Night Visions?

Night Visions was a horror anthology show that ran for a season in 2001. It got some good reviews as a summer replacement series but it struggled to find an audience. After the 9-11 attacks, the show was preempted for three weeks straight and, when it finally did come back, I imagine that viewers weren’t really in the mood for a horror anthology, not when they had real-life horror to deal with on a daily basis.

And so, Night Visions was canceled but apparently, it still has a strong cult following.

Below is the very first episode of Night Visions. It originally aired on July 12th, 2001 and it tells two stories. In the Passenger List, a man investigating a plane crash starts to doubt his own sanity. In the Bokor, a group of medical students make the mistake of cutting into the cadaver of a powerful voodoo priest. Mayhem follows.

From what I’ve seen on YouTube, it looks like Night Visions was actually pretty good so enjoy this episode!

(And yes, each episode was hosted by Henry Rollins.)

Embracing the Melodrama #56: Fierce People (dir by Griffin Dunne)

Posted on July 15, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Much as how Inside Out is a perfect example of how one bad plot twist can ruin an otherwise good film, the 2007 sin-among-the-wealthy melodrama Fierce People shows how one good actor can partially redeem a really bad movie. That actor’s name is Donald Sutherland and Fierce People is worth seeing for one reason: his performance.

Fierce People tells the story of a teenager named Finn Earl (Anton Yelchin). As a character, Finn Earl is almost as annoying as his cutesy name. He’s a permanently sarcastic 16 year-old who goes through life with the same judgmental smirk on his face, while the whole time delivering some of the smuggest narration ever recorded for a voice over in an American film. Finn’s mother is Liz (Diane Lane), a massage therapist with a drug problem. Finn’s father is some jerk who spends all of his time in South America, studying cannibal tribes. (Actually, he’s studying a real-life Indian tribe known as the Yanomami, or the Fierce People. However, I prefer to assume that he was actually studying a cannibal tribe because that means it’s entirely possible that he was eaten at some point and therefore, Finn will never get a chance to spend any time with father. That’s the type of reaction that Finn, as a character, inspires.)

Liz and Finn are invited to spend the summer living the guesthouse of the fabulously wealthy Ogden Osburne (Donald Sutherland). At first, Finn is weary of Ogden and assumes that he must be sleeping with Liz. However, in a scene that works only because of the performance of Donald Sutherland, Ogden very graphically shows Finn why he’s not interested in having an affair with Liz. Instead, Ogden is just a nice, rich eccentric. Unfortunately, the other wealthy people who live around Ogden are not quite as nice and they soon, they start to resent the presence of Finn and his mother. Finn does manages to befriend Ogden’s decadent grandson (played by Chris Evans) and even starts a tentative romance with Ogden’s granddaughter (Kristen Stewart) but the rest of the Osburne clan is not prepared to be so accepting. Soon, the film goes from being an annoying comedy to being an annoying drama with a burst of violence and murder.

Fierce People is not a very good movie. It’s based on a novel and, even if you didn’t know that beforehand, you would guess just from the way that the film tries and fails to present a lot of themes that undoubtedly work better on the page than on the screen. The film’s attempts to draw parallels between the Yanomami and the wealthy (They’re two tribes and they’re both fierce — OH MY GOD, MIND BLOWN!) are way too obvious and the film’s sudden lurch into drama is handled rather clumsily. It’s interesting to see Chris Evans before he became Capt. America and Kristen Stewart before she became Bella (and both of them, by the way, give good performances) but Anton Yelchin’s performance as Finn alternates between being smug and being whiny. (In Yelchin’s defense, he’s developed into a pretty good actor and I loved him in Like Crazy.)

And yet, Fierce People works as an example of what a truly great actor can do with so-so material. As played by Donald Sutherland, Ogden becomes the jaded moral center of the universe. Sutherland plays Ogden with a perversely regal air and yet also makes us totally believe that Ogden actually could be helping the Earls out of the kindness of his heart. It’s a great performance and every minute that Sutherland is on screen, Fierce People works.

If the film had simply been called Fierce Ogden, it would have been a hundred times better.