Film Review: Survive The Game (dir by James Cullen Bressack)

Posted on March 25, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Looking at the title of 2021’s Survive the Game, you may be tempted to wonder what game the characters are attempting to survive.

The answer is that there isn’t a game, unless you’re one of those people who still insists on using “The Game,” to refer to the drug trade because you once heard someone do the same thing on The Wire.

Though there are no games, the film is full of people who are trying to survive. For instance, after a drug bust gone wrong, Detective David Watson (Bruce Willis) is trying to survive having been shot in the gut. He manages to do so surprisingly well, even though he’s being held hostage by the bad guys. The leader of the bad guys, Frank (Michael Sirow), is supposed to be a fearsome torture expert but David just smirks at him.

David’s partner, Cal (Swen Temmel), survives by running to a nearby farm. The farm itself is owned by Eric (Chad Michael Murray), a veteran who is haunted by the death of his wife and who just wants to be left alone. With the bad guys surrounding his farm and looking to eliminate all of the witnesses, Eric teams up with Cal.

There’s a lot of bad guys in this film and they’re all so eccentric that they really do become the main attraction. The bad guys are occasionally entertaining. They spend a lot of time bickering and each one has at least one particularly obnoxious personality trait that can be used to distinguish one from the other. Most of them have a tattoos. One has a mohawk. Quite a few have brightly colored hair. You can’t help but wonder how any of these people could possibly be successful criminals because they’ve all gone out of their way to make sure that it will be easy for law enforcement to spot and identify them. To once again cite The Wire, Wee-Bey Brice yelled at at his son Namond for not shaving his head because the police would be able to easily spot Namond’s haircut. Wee-Bey had a point.

Anyway, this is a siege film. Cal and Eric spend almost the entire movie running around the farm and picking off bad guys. For those of you who are into this sort of thing, some of the kills are imaginative and ruthless. Interestingly, some of the bad guys are presented as being more sympathetic than the film’s heroes. They have their own relationships and fears and they get upset when their friends are killed. I actually felt a little bit bad for some of them. It makes Survive the Game slightly more interesting than the usual DTV B-action movie.

As you may have guessed, this is another Randall Emmett production. Emmett is best-known for his ability to get former and current A-listers to take small roles in his B-movies. As such, an actor like Bruce Willis or Sylvester Stallone would put in a day’s worth of work and the film could be advertised as starring Bruce Willis as opposed to Chad Michael Murray. In Survive The Game, there’s a somewhat endearing moment that occurs when Willis appears to start laughing at the ludicrous dialogue to which he is being subjected. That said, Willis was obviously not doing well when he appeared in this film and it does make some of his scenes somewhat difficult to watch. The viewer really does end up missing the Bruce who could drive Alan Rickman to distraction.

Survive the Game is a film that I had long meant to watch, though I’m not sure why. I think the title appealed to me. Again, I’m not sure why. It’s better than some of Emmett’s DTV action movies but it’s still pretty forgettable. I would still watch a prequel about how the mohawk guy became a ruthless mercenary. It seems like there’s probably a story there.

I Watched Perry Mason: The Case of the Killer Kiss (1993, Dir. by Christian I. Nyby II)

Posted on January 30, 2026 by Dazzling Erin

On the set of a popular soap opera, actor Mark Stanton (Sean Kanan) dies after he films a kiss with co-star Kris Buckner (Genie Francis). Kris is accused of intentionally poisoning Mark to get back at him for trying to force her off the show but Kris says she’s innocent. Fortunately, Kris is the goddaughter of Perry Mason (Raymond Burr).

This movie was the last time that Raymond Burr played Perry Mason and it actually aired a few weeks after his death. There are scenes that are hard to watch because it is clear that Burr was not doing well during filming. He rarely stands and when he does, he still leans against the table for support. He’s still great when he’s asking questions and making objections but physically, it’s obvious that he was struggling. He still lights whenever he’s talking to Della, though. The best scenes in the movie are just Raymond Burr and Barbara Hale being Perry and Della. Their affection for each other shines through in every scene. The mystery is routine but the guest cast is full of daytime drama royalty like Stuart Damon, Linda Dano, and Genie Francis.

As I said when I started reviewing these movies at the start of the month, my Aunt Kate loved watching these movies. I know she watched them when they first aired and later, when they started re-airing them on Hallmark or MeTV, she loved rewatching them even though she already knew who the murderer was going to be. I would watch with her sometimes. We agreed that Perry and Della were in love and that Paul Drake, Jr. was Della’s son, even if he didn’t know it.

Rewatching all of the movies this month, what struck me is that most of them are still a lot of fun. Sure, there’s a few clunkers. But the majority of the 27 Perry Mason films are still entertaining to watch. Raymond Burr as Perry Mason and Barbara Hale as Della Street? Nobody did it better.

I Loved Perry Mason: The Case of the Maligned Mobster (1991, Dir. by Ron Satlof)

Posted on January 18, 2026 by Dazzling Erin

Despite being asked to take the case by an old friend (Mason Adams), Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) is reluctant to defend Johnny Sorrento (Michael Nader) in court. Johnny is a former gangster who has been credibly accused of murder in the past. Now, he’s on trial for killing his wife and not even Perry is totally convinced that he’s innocent.

Of the 18 Perry Mason films that I’ve watched so far, this was definitely the best. This is the first time that I’ve seen Perry defend someone who he both dislikes and, even more importantly, distrusts and Raymond Burr was really convincing whenever he got angry at Johnny. For once, the case wasn’t wrapped up as neatly as usual. Solving the murder of Johnny’s wife meant delving into a past murder and it uncovered a lot of dark secrets. The identity of the killer was a real surprise but there was a lot more going on than just solving the mystery of who killed Johnny’s wife. At the end of this movie, Perry looked like he was about to cry, no matter how much Della (Barbara Hale) tried to comfort him.

Sharing much more would be the same as spoiling all of the movie’s twists and turns so I’ll just repeat that this is the best of the Perry Mason movies that I’ve seen so far. The guest cast is great, especially Mason Adams and Paul Anka. The Perry Mason films always follow the same plot and sometimes, they can blend together but this one made a real impression and really took me by surprise.

When Machine Gun Met Al: Gangster Land (2017, directed by Timothy Woodward, Jr.)

Posted on September 3, 2018 by Jedadiah Leland

Chicago in the 1920s. Booze may be illegal but that’s not keeping people from drinking and gangsters from making a killing. When an amateur boxer named Jack McGurn (Sean Faris) joins the mob, he befriend an up-and-coming criminal named Al Capone (Milo Gibson). While Capone rises through the ranks, McGurn is always by his side, usually firing a tommy gun. When Capone finally becomes the boss of Chicago, McGurn becomes his second-in-command and a leading strategist in the war against Capone’s rival, George “Bugs” Moran (Peter Facinelli).

If you’re looking for a historically accurate film about 1920s Chicago, look elsewhere. Today, “Machine Gun” McGurn is best known for being the mastermind behind the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (which, of course, is recreated in Gangster Land) but it’s doubtful that he was ever Capone’s second-in-command. Famed Capone associates like Frank Nitti, Gus Alex, and Murray Humphreys are nowhere to be found in Gangster Land, nor is Eliot Ness. Instead Jason Patric plays the righteous and fictional Detective Reed.

What the film lacks in historical accuracy, it makes up for in gangster action. There’s enough tommy gun action, car chases, and showgirls to keep most gangster film aficionados happy. All of the usual Capone stuff is recreated: Johnny Torrio is assassinated, Dion O’Bannon is killed in his flower shop, and the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre scandalizes the nation. Though the film never displays anything more than a Wikipedia-level understanding of the prohibition era and there’s not a single gangster cliché that isn’t used, Gangster Land is briskly paced and makes good use of its low-budget. Sean Faris is stiff as McGurn but Milo Gibson (son of Mel) is better than you might expect as Al Capone and the underrated Jason Patric makes the most of his limited screen time. Fans of The Sopranos may want to watch for the chance to see Meadow herself, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, as McGurn’s showgirl wife.

A Movie A Day #131: Rich Girl (1991, directed by Joel Bender)

Posted on May 19, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Courtney Wells (Jill Schoelen) is a rich girl (hence, the title). Realizing that she is 21 years old and has yet to really experience life, Courtney declares her independence. She breaks up with her cheating fiancée and tells her industrialist father (Paul Gleason, of course) that she no longer wants to go into the family business. When her father responds by cutting her off, the rich girl becomes a poor girl. Though she struggles at first, Courtney eventually trades her Ferrari for a reasonable car, finds a cheap apartment, and gets a job working as a waitress at a trendy Los Angeles nightclub, which is owned by Rocco (Ron Karabastos, of course). She falls in love with aspiring musician Rick (Don Michael Paul) but he is already involved with his cokehead lead singer (Cherie Currie) and Courtney’s father will do anything to keep her and Rick apart.

In the early 1990s, Rich Girl was a late night HBO mainstay. There is nothing surprising about the movie and Rick’s band has a sound that was already dated by 1991. (While the rest of America is learning to love grunge, Rick and his band are still playing Bon Jovi cover tunes in the garage.) However, Rich Girl does star the always gorgeous Jill Schoelen, which makes it a hundred times better than every other low-budget film that showed up on HBO in the early 90s. Whatever happened to her?