Tag Archives: Matthias Hues

I Come In Peace (1990, directed by Craig R. Baxley)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

“I come in peace.”

“And you go in pieces.”

How have I not reviewed this one yet?

Dolph Lundgren is Jack Crain, a Houston cop who teams up with FBI agent Larry Smith (Brian Benben) to investigate who is killing criminals in H-town.  The killer is a drug dealer but not your everyday drug dealer.  He’s an alien named Talec (Matthias Hues) and he’s figured out how to say “I come in peace,” but the rest of the English language is beyond him.  “I come in peace,” turns out to be the scariest phrase you can hear when you’re being pursued by a white-haired, intergalactic mass murderer.  His targets include Jesse Vint and Michael J. Pollard.  This terminator wannabe is after character actors!

On the second-tier action stars of the 90s, Lundgren was the one who could actually act.  Van Damme could actually do all the acrobatic stunts his characters did but he couldn’t show emotion like Lundgren.  Steven Seagal seemed like he could handle himself in a fight but he lacked Lundgren’s self-aware humor.  Lundgren plays Jack as almost being a parody of the type of hard-boiled cop who is always getting yelled at by the commissioner for wasting the city’s money.  Brian Benben is remembered, by some, as the star of HBO’s Dream On, the sitcom that convinced a generation of young men that there’s nothing women love more than obscure pop cultural obsessions.  Benben is actually pretty funny in I Come In Peace.  He’s the everyman who can’t believe he’s having to deal with an intergalactic drug dealer.  Good heroes need a good villain and Matthias Hues is just right as the drug dealing alien who literally doesn’t know what he’s saying.

If you want to see a Terminator rip-off with nonstop action, a memorable villain, frequently (and intentionally) funny dialogue, an Al Leong cameo, and Dolph Lundgren as a hero who pushes people around just because he feels like it, I Come In Peace is the movie for you!

#MondayMuggers presents DARK ANGEL (1990) starring Dolph Lundgren!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

Every Monday night at 9:00 Central Time, my wife Sierra and I host a “Live Movie Tweet” event on X using the hashtag #MondayMuggers. We rotate movie picks each week, and our tastes are quite different. Tonight, Monday May 5th, we celebrate Cinco de Mayo with DARK ANGEL (1990) starring Dolph Lundgren, Brian Benben, Betsy Brantley, Matthias Hues, and Michael J. Pollard. 

I really enjoy Amazon Prime’s plot description for the film… “A renegade cop undercover on a drug sting discovers a murderous alien who feasts on the brains of heroin addicts.” Honestly, if that description doesn’t make you want to watch the film, there’s probably nothing I can say to bring you along. On a side note, I remember this movie going under the name I COME IN PEACE when I was in high school, which is kind of cool because the bad guy will say he comes in peace right before committing horrific murder. But now it’s called DARK ANGEL, so that’s that.

So join us tonight for #MondayMuggers and watch DARK ANGEL! It’s on Amazon Prime. The trailer is included below:

Cage (1989, directed by Lang Elliott)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

As with so many stories, it all starts with Vietnam.

In 1969, soldier Billy Thomas (Lou Ferrigno) heroically saves the life of his captain, Scott Monroe (Reb Brown).  Unfortunately, while their helicopter is taking off, Billy takes a bullet to the head.  While he survives the wound, he is left with the mind of a child.  Scott dedicates his life to taking care of Billy and, after the war, they open a bar together.  However, mobster Tony Baccola (Michael Dante) feels that Billy would be the perfect contestant for a series of fight-to-death cage matches that have been set up by Chinese gangster Tin Lum Yin (James Shigeta).  In desperate need of money, Tony kidnaps Billy and forces him to fight, telling him that it’s what Scott needs him to do.  Billy doesn’t want to fight and, when he first enters the cage, he says, “Hi, how are you?” and tries to shake his opponent’s hand.  But when his opponents try to hit Billy, he has no choice but to defend himself.  It’s up to Scott to rescue his friend.

The plot of this movie is pretty dumb but I’m not embarrassed to say that the film itself won me over.  The fights were decent but the main reason why the movie works is because of Lou Ferrigno and Reb Brown, who made their friendship and their bond feel very real.  Ferrigno was especially good in this film.  How can you not root for a guy who just wants to be everyone’s friend and who, even after his twelfth cage match, still gets upset over having to hit people?

A pure B-movie all the way, Cage also features familiar faces like Branscombe Richmond, Al Leong, and Danny Trejo.  Most of the critics may not have liked it but Ferrigno has described Cage as being his his favorite film performance and I agree.

Mission of Justice (1992, directed by Steve Barnett)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Suspended from the police force because he does thing his way and doesn’t follow the book, martial artist Kurt Harris (Jeff Wincott) joins the Peacekeepers, a Guardian Angel-like group that is led by Dr. Rachel K. Larkin (Brigitte Nielsen).  Larkin is running for mayor on a law-and-order platform.  Just as the Peacekeepers have protected the local bodegas, Dr. Larkin will clean up the streets.

Kurt has a reason beyond just bitterness for joining the Peacekeepers.  Kurt suspects that the Peacekeepers is actually a criminal enterprise and that they are responsible for the murder of his mentor, Cedric Williams (Tony Burton, who does not throw the damn towel when confronted by the bad guys).

There were some good fight scenes and the idea of the Peacekeepers hiding their crimes behind their vigilante activities was an interesting one. The Peacekeepers were obviously based on New York’s Guardian Angels and it’s interesting that both the leader of the Angels and the leader of the Peacekeepers ended up running for mayor.  Of course, Curt Sliwa’s campaign was not as destructive or evil as Dr. Larkin’s.  In fact, I wasn’t really sure why Dr. Larkin was running for mayor, out of all the things that she could have done with her money and her paramilitary force.

Brigitte Nielsen always makes a good villain and the movie also features dependable straight-to-video action mainstays like Matthias Hues, Luca Bercovivi, and Karen Sheperd.  Unfortunately, Jeff Wincott was always one of the blandest of the 90s second tier action heroes, lacking the charisma of a Dolph Lundgren, a Jean-Claude Van Damme, or even as Steven Seagal.  Wincott was the star you called only after exhausting every attempt to sign Lorenzo Lamas.  Wincott is convincing when he’s throwing a punch or kicking someone in the face but when he has to show emotion or deliver dialogue, the movie come to a halt.

With a more charismatic star, Mission of Justice could have been a B-classic but instead, it’s just another forgettable straight-to-video action movie.

Aftershock (1990, directed by Frank Harris)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

It’s the future and society has collapsed.  America is now controlled by the evil Commander Eastern (Richard Lynch) who, with the help of a propagandist known as Big Sister and a paramilitary leader named Oliver Queen (John Saxon), rules with an iron hand.  Colonel Slater (Christopher Mitchum) is the leader of the revolution that threaten to overthrow Eastern’s regime.

Two revolutionaries, Wille (Jay Roberts, Jr.) and Danny (Chuck Jeffreys), are stuck in one of Eastern’s prison.  Every day, they fight for their lives and they wait for a chance to escape.  That chances come in the form of Sabrina (the beautiful Elizabeth Kaitan), an alien who lands on our planet under the mistaken assumption that Earth is an utopia.

When Sabrina, Willie, and Danny finally manage to escape, they have to make it to Slater’s headquarters while avoiding the bounty hunter (Chris DeRose) who Queen has been sent to capture them.

A fairly standard rip-off of the Mad Max films, the most interesting thing about Aftershock is the cast.  I already mentioned Mitchum, Saxon, Lynch, and Elizabeth Kaitan but there are also appearances from Russ Tamblyn, Michael Berryman, Matthias Hues, and Deanna Oliver.  For a movie that looks cheap and doesn’t really bring anything new to the postapocalyptic genre, there are a lot of very talented people in this movie.  (Even talented people have to pay the bills.)  Most of them are only on for a few minutes.  The instantly forgettable Jay Roberts, Jr. and Chuck Jeffreys are the actual stars here.  Jeffreys was a stunt man who was famous for his resemblance to Eddie Murphy.  He looks good in the action scenes but otherwise, he and Roberts don’t make much of an impression.

At least Elizabeth Kaitan gets a decent amount of screentime.  Kaitan appeared in a lot of movies in the 80s and 90s.  None of the movies were very good.  She got stuck with roles like the girlfriend in Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2 and a victim in Friday The 13th Part VII.  Kaitan got roles primarily because she was beautiful but she had a likable screen presence and more than a little talent.  In Aftershock, she gives a convincing performance as a stranger in a strange land, one who has her own eccentric way of viewing things.  Her performance is the best thing about Aftershock and the main reason to watch.

 

 

Fist Fighter (1989, directed by Frank Zuniga)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

C.J. Thunderbird (played by Jorge Rivero) is a former professional fighter who is now a miner living in Arizona.  Two years ago, Thunderbird’s best friend was killed by a fighter named Rhino (Matthias Hues).  Thunderbird swore vengeance and, when he gets a telegram informing him that Rhino has been spotted in Bolivia, Thunderbird heads down to South America, looking to settle things once and for all.  With the help of a down-on-his-luck trainer named Punchy (Edward Albert), Thunderbird nearly defeats Rhino in the ring but the fight is suddenly stopped by the local police, all of whom are paid off by local drug dealer, Billy Vance (Mike Connors).  Rhino works for Vance and Vance doesn’t want his most fearsome goon to be shown up in public.  Thunderbird and Puchy soon find themselves in one of those prisons where the inmates are forced to take part in underground cage matches.  Thunderbird’s only chance of survival and perhaps escape depends upon defeating yet another fighter, the Beast (Gus Rethwisch).

The coolest thing about Fist Fighter is that it’s called Fist Fighter.  It sounds like a title for a movie that someone made up but instead, it’s very, very real.  The 2nd coolest thing about Fist Fighter is that the hero is named Thunderbird.  I think this was Thunderbird’s only film adventure.  If Fist Fighter had made more money, it could have led to a Thunderbird franchise.  Jorge Rivero wasn’t much of an actor but he’s good in the fight scenes and Edward Albert overacts to such an extent that he easily makes up for Rivero’s inability to actually show emotion.  I also liked Mike Connors as the smug villain.  Brenda Bakker plays Billy Vance’s mistress.  Of course, she ends up falling for Thunderbird.

Fist Fighter is dumb but entertaining.  If Rivero’s role has been played by Jean-Claude Van Damme or Dolph Lundgren, two action stars who could actually act as well as convincingly fight, Fist Fighter would probably be a cult classic.  As it is, it’s one of the more entertaining of the many rip-offs of Bloodsport.