White Rush (2003, directed by Mark L. Lester)

Posted on August 16, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Five friends, while on their annual camping trip outside of Salt Lake City, stumble across a cocaine deal gone bad. They think that all of the drug dealers have been killed and Chick (Louis Mandylor), who happens to be a police detective, suggests that they should take the cocaine for themselves and sell it to the local drug lord. Everyone agree but Eva (Tricia Helfer), a former addict who is so disgusted by Chick’s plans that she runs away from the group.

While she’s stumbling through the wilderness, Eva runs into Brian Nathanson (Judd Nelson), the sole survivor of the drug deal. Determined to get his cocaine back, Brian convinces Eva to help him out by explaining to her that there’s an even worse drug dealer than him who also wants the cocaine. In fact, that even worse drug dealer has already sent a sexy assassin named Solange (Sandra Vidal) to kill everyone involved in the botched drug deal. The obvious solution would be to just return the drugs to Brian and let him take the fall but Chick and his friends aren’t that smart.

A film starring Judd Nelson and directed by Mark L. Lester, the man behind such classics as Class of 1984 and Commando? Sounds pretty good, right? Actually, the film isn’t bad. Or, at least, it’s better than you’d expect from a low budget, direct-to-video Judd Nelson movie. Even though the plot may be full of holes that you could drive a semi-trailer truck through, Mark L. Lester doesn’t waste any time getting the story rolling and he keeps the action moving. Lester knows better than to pretend that this movie is anything more than just a B-action movie. Judd Nelson gives one of his better performances as Brian, playing him as if John Bender grew up and became a drug dealer. (We all knew that was going to happen, no matter what happened at the end of The Breakfast Club.) Finally, Sandra Vidal is sexy and convincingly lethal as Solange.

White Rush is currently available on Tubi and Prime.

Film Review: The Twin (dir by Max Derin and Fred Olen Ray)

Posted on February 19, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

According to the imdb, Fred Olen Ray is, as of this writing, credited with directing 148 films. Few of those films have necessarily been acclaimed by the mainstream critics but almost all of them are a lot of fun when taken on their own terms.

Take The Twin for instance, on which Ray shares a directing credit with screenwriter Max Derin.

Now, in many ways, The Twin is a ludicrous film. It’s very, very melodramatic and the whole film’s central issue (i.e., which twin is which) could have been very easily resolved if just one person in the movie had used a little common sense.

But you know what?

Criticism like that misses the entire point of the film. The Twin is a lot of fun and it’s certainly not a film that’s meant to be taken seriously. This is not a serious look at mental illness, young love, sibling rivalry, or anything else for that matter. This is an over-the-top and rather silly piece of pure entertainment and, if we can’t enjoy something like that, what hope is there for the world?

The film deals with Tyler (Timothy Granaderos), who would seem to be almost perfect. He’s handsome. He’s intelligent. He’s compassionate. He’s a wonderful boyfriend, always polite and considerate to his girlfriend, Jocelyn (Jess Gabor). Even Jocelyn’s overprotective mother, Ashley (Brigid Brannah), seems to like him.

However, Tyler has a secret. Years ago, his parents were killed in a car accident. The accident was caused by Tyler’s brother, Derrick. As you may have guessed from the film’s title, Derrick is Tyler’s twin. And we all know that, whenever a movie is called The Twin, that means that there’s going to be a good twin and an evil twin. It turns out that Derrick is the evil twin and that accident was no accident.

Derrick has spent the last few years in a mental asylum. When Tyler shows up to visit his brother, the staff tells Tyler that Derrick has picked up a strange new habit. He’s telling everyone that he’s actually Tyler and Tyler is Derrick. Oh well, Tyler shrugs, that’s what happens when you’ve got a sociopathic twin.

Later, when Tyler is alone with his twin, he’s shocked when Derrick attacks him. Derrick knocks him out and then switches clothes with him. Claiming to be Tyler, Derrick walks out of the hospital and into the lives on Jocelyn and Ashley. Meanwhile, Tyler is stuck in the hospital, begging for someone to just give him a blood test so that he can prove who he is….

Anyway, you can probably guess what happens next but that’s part of the fun. Derrick (as Tyler) spends a lot of good, quality time with Ashley and Jocelyn, both of whom are surprised by how different “Tyler’s” personality seems to now be. Ashley, of course, is more suspicious than Jocelyn. (This film premiered on Lifetime so you better believe that overprotective mom is eventually proven right.)

It may be predictable but, like I said, it’s all a lot of fun. I don’t know which parts of the film were directed by Derin and which parts by Fred Olen Ray but, as a whole, the film is cheerfully content to be a B-movie and you have to kind of love it for that. At a time when everyone is taking everything so seriously and so many filmmakers are giving into portentous pretension, it’s nice to see a thriller that’s pure entertainment.

Plus, Timothy Granaderos is a lot of fun as both Tyler and Derrick. Tyler is nice but kind of dull. Derrick is exciting but totally batshit crazy. Granaderos seems to be enjoying himself as he switches back and forth between being good and evil. An evil twin movie is only as good as its twins and Granaderos is pretty good.

So, keep an eye out for The Twin. Melodrama this enjoyable should not be missed.

Cleaning Out the DVR, Again #22: Broken Promise (dir by Nadeem Soumah)

Posted on July 8, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa is currently in the process of trying to clean out her DVR by watching and reviewing all 40 of the movies that she recorded from the start of March to the end of June. She’s trying to get it all done by July 11th! Will she make it!? Keep visiting the site to find out!)

The 22nd film on the DVR was Broken Promise, which I recorded off of Lifetime on May 22nd.

Before I get into the film itself, let me just say this about the title: Broken Promise is the perfect generic Lifetime title. I mean, it tells you absolutely nothing and yet it somehow tells you everything as well. If I hadn’t told you that I recorded this movie off of Lifetime, you would have guessed it just from the title, wouldn’t you? There’s an art to coming up with perfectly generic titles and Lifetime has mastered it.

Anyway, Broken Promise opens in 1992! Two high school seniors — Mina (Angeline Appel) and her boyfriend, Reese (Mickey River) — are driving around in Reese’s canary yellow car. If you watch that movie, pay attention to the car because you’ll be seeing it again. It’s like the canary yellow harbinger of death and doom. Anyway, Mina and Reese are young and in love so, naturally, they decide to break into a house for a romantic evening. However, the romance is interrupted when the owner of the house shows up with a shotgun. There’s a struggle. The homeowner is killed. Reese tells Mina that she needs to leave and that he’ll take the blame when the cops show up. Mina promises to wait for him to get out of prison.

However, promises were made to be broken…

Jump forward 25 years! Reese Sinclair (now played by Louis Mandylor) is finally being released from prison. However, no one is waiting to greet him on the outside. While he manages to get back his yellow car, his girlfriend is nowhere to be seen.

That’s right — Mina broke her promise! No only did she not wait for him but she also got married and now has a sullen teenage daughter, Hali (Lauren York). Making matters even worse, Mina not only got married but she married a cop! Ben Gardner (Nick Baillie) may be a nice guy and a good cop but that doesn’t stop Reese from fantasizing about murdering him.

Well, you can probably guess what happens. Reese tracks down Mina and her family. Reese tries to ingratiate himself with the family. Rebellious Hali starts to get too close to her mom’s ex-boyfriend. It’s really pretty much a typical Lifetime film, with all that implies. It’s well-made and well-acted and it won’t surprise you one bit.

In fact, to me, the most interesting thing about the film was looking at the cast and remembering all the other Lifetime films that they’ve appeared in. Ashley Scott was in 16 and Missing. Nick Baillie was in Full Out, which I will be reviewing soon. Lauren York was not only in The Perfect Daughter but also co-starred in Babysitter’s Black Book with Angelina Appel, who plays the younger version of her mom in this movie! According the imdb, York will also be appearing in the sequel to Lavalantula. They all do a pretty good job in this movie and so does Louis Madylor.

Let’s put it like this: if you like Lifetime movies, you’ll like this. If you don’t, you won’t.