Elite cop Sam Kettle (Sam J. Jones) just wants to get out of Los Angeles and live a peaceful life with his girlfriend, Sara (Linda Blair), but the streets have other plans.  The evil Kendrick (Gustav Vintas) has kidnapped Dr. London (Bill Erwin) and is determined to get the code for a deadly bioweapon.  For reasons that are never made clear, Kendrick has also kidnapped young Joanna (Joanna Chong).  Backing Kendrick up is the evil Miss Amy (Rebecca Ferrati).  Backing up Kettle is Joanna’s uncle, Jun Kim (Jun Chong) and Bernard (Phillip Rhee), the son of Oyama (Mako), the owner of the local dojo.  Can Sam save the world, saved the doctor and the girl, and also save his relationship with Sara?

Silent Assassins is a terrifically fun martial arts movie.  The action is well-choreographed.  The film’s plot doesn’t make a bit of sense.  The movie is full of weird throw-away dialogue, like an offended Ms. Amy announcing that she’s “a biochemist too.”  Chong shows off his moves, Rhee plays his character as a playboy having the time of life, and Jones glowers at the camera as only Sam J. Jones can.  There’s an army of loud ninjas (so much for the silent part) and Vintas is so villainous that he even carries around a red rose as some sort of strange trademark.  The movie is full of weird details and no one seems to be taking any of it too seriously.  Movies like this are why people like me always went straight for the direct-to-video releases when we went to Blockbuster back in the day.

Linda Blair is second-billed.  When Lisa and I watched this movie, she kept track of Linda’s screentime.  Linda’s onscreen for a total of ten minutes and she spends most of that time doing the worried girlfriend thing.  It’s a sad waste of Linda Blair, the one misstep of an otherwise great experience.