#6: UNIVERSAL SOLDIER (1992)

The ultimate weapons of the future have just declared war… on each other.

It is 1969. Army Private Luc Deveraux and his sergeant, Andrew Scott, are deep in the thick rainy jungles of North Vietnam, under orders to secure a village and hold tight for reinforcements. Things go very wrong when Deveraux discovers that many of his squad members are dead, along with nearly all of the village's innocent civilians. The culprit for this mayhem is Sergeant Scott, who wears a necklace of cut-off ears as a trophy. Scott, who is holding two children hostage, shoots one of them and demands that Deveraux shoot the other to prove his loyalty to "the cause." Deveraux refuses, a grenade makes an appearance, the young hostage dies, and the two soldiers shoot each other to death. They are dead for good RIP just kidding. Resurrected an unknown number of years later in a government program called “Universal Soldier,” Deveraux and Scott’s corpses have been transformed into semi-living cyborgs of sorts, stripped of their memories, and put into action to alleviate a hostage situation at the Hoover Damn. Deveraux works efficiently; Scott works drastically. Though the problem is alleviated, UniSol officials are worried about Scott’s overly aggressive methods. During this time, both Deveraux’s and Scott’s memories begin to come back – they each remember the incident that took place in Vietnam, and Scott becomes convinced that Deveraux is a traitorous enemy who must be eliminated. When Veronica Roberts, a television reporter, comes sniffing around, UniSol powers command Deveraux and Scott to go and take care of her, only Deveraux absconds with the reporter, leaving Scott to pursue the both of them across the country to Deveraux’s home in Louisiana. Throughout their journey, Deveraux and Veronica will learn the truth about the UniSol program, men will be pummeled and/or killed, ears will be removed, UniSol will lose all control they thought they had over their program, and Deveraux will discover his love for shitty diner food.

Universal Soldier was directed by Roland Emmerich, perhaps the most well-known filmmaker to appear within these hallowed halls of Murdered Men so far. Yes, the man most famous for destroying a handful of major cities in Independence Day, along with a lot of other films with similar amounts of destruction but with far less rewatchability, has bestowed upon us quite handily the most entertaining film of his career. Story credit goes to Richard Rothstein (writer on The Bates Motel – Bud Cort, not Freddie Highmore) and Christopher Leich (director-for-hire for television), but the screenplay credit goes to Emmerich’s one-time writing partner Dean Devlin (whose collaboration with Emmerich ended after the disastrous Godzilla remake). It’s when one compares Universal Soldier against the rest of Emmerich’s directorial career when the realization sets in just how special the film actually is. And if you’ve seen Universal Soldier, you’re probably laughing out loud at that, but, it’s true. One of the very few films in Emmerich’s filmography to receive an R-rating (and one well deserved), Universal Soldier surprisingly shows off a side of the director who’s more than willing to get down and gritty with the violence the story demands. Between this and the director’s other R-rated effort, The Patriot, a reasonably entertaining film which manages to survive drowning in its pervading feeling of self-importance, and which also contains a rather surprisingly dark undertone of violent acts, committed on screen of course, but also present in one of Mel Gibson’s most infamous monologues (the one about cutting off enemy soldiers’ hands and feet and sending them in baskets down the river for more enemy soldiers to find), Emmerich clearly enjoys these darker stories, and it’s a shame his career has been mostly relegated to Michael Bay-like extravaganzas of family-friendly special effects and gimmicky storytelling.

A low-budget independent affair, Universal Soldier was bankrolled by Carolco Pictures, who were in financial trouble at the time and who were very much hoping that this film would be their knight in shining camo. Originally envisioned as an attempt to adapt the comic book series “Deathlok the Demolisher” to the screen, the script was ultimately passed over and retooled to stand as its own adventure. It did reasonably well domestically but very well internationally (which seems to be the case quite often with the action genre); still, one gets the feeling that Emmerich doesn’t enjoy going out of his way to talk about it, figuring his bigger budget efforts starring John Cusack or Jake Gyllenhaal are somehow more notable. (They’re not.)

Though the later Universal Soldier sequels to come (directed by John Hyams; interview here) take the UniSol concept and make actual, honest-to-gosh good films, it’s a shame Carolco couldn’t continue the Universal Soldier name with proper sequels rather than the very strange path on which it instead struck out. Still, as diverse and ill-advised as many of the true sequels turned out to be, it still proved that this was a concept later filmmakers thought was worthy of revisiting. While one might argue that the two most recent sequels are better films than the original, there is no denying that Universal Soldier drips with everything action aficionados demand – an appealing and established lead hero and villain, a sexy and spunky femme sidekick, a healthy dose of violence, an even healthier dose of senseless destruction married to seas of broken glass, consistent and cheeseball humor, and perhaps most importantly, an utter and definitive display of superiority committed by our hero against all the other hapless meat puppets who for whatever reason believe they’re worthy of even breathing his air. To be specific, the diner scene. To be more specific, who the fuck is this eleventh guy who tries to throw down against the clearly invincible Luc Deveraux and think that he’s going to be the one to take him out – that he’ll be victorious where the previous TEN DUDES failed? This particular trope is a well that’s gone back to repeatedly in this genre, and it’s one that will never grow tired.

There are a few cameos worth noting: of all people, Jerry Orbach makes an unexpected return to Top Ten Murdered Men, his first appearance being in #7’s Out for Justice. Following that, we get Tommy “Tiny” Lister likely garnering the most exclamations of “Hey, it’s that guy!” But the most interesting one belongs to the blink-and-miss appearance of Michael Jai White, who has not only enjoyed a spotty but mostly entertaining career where he’s been able to show off his fighting skills on screen (he was also Black Dynamite!), but who would also make another appearance in Universal Soldier: The Return as a new character, the villain to battle against the also-returning Luc Deveraux.

Universal Soldier: The Return is a dreadful piece of shit, by the way.

Speaking of, and not surprisingly, Universal Soldier was torn apart by critics upon its release, many of them labeling it a cheap imitation attempting to ride the coat tails of Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Even The Austin Chronicle quipped, “Universal Soldier may flex its muscles at every opportunity, but it’s still second-rate Schwarzenegger.”

Ouch.

THE GOOD GUY

Luv Deveraux aka GR44. Soldier of misfortune. Reanimated corpse. Kind of a robot. Efficient assassin. Cool as ice. Shedder of clothes. Impressive penis owner. Inadvertent traitor. Enthusiastic food eater. Stiffer of diner checks. Inexplicably a product of Rance Howard’s semen.

Jean-Claude Van Damme has one of the better but typical Hollywood stories – the actor who started off in obscurity, slowly gained prominence, became an American sensation, and then lost it all in a fit of cocaine addiction, claims of domestic abuse, and even a diagnosis of bi-polar disorder. It was in the late ’90s that he experienced a massive decline in results at the box office, which is all it takes before an actor ends up in direct-to-video hell. However, except for a stinker here and there (Derailed is still one of the worst things you’ll ever see), Van Damme has actually exercised pretty good judgment in choosing quality projects in which to take part – more so than any of his other colleagues who have since begun a career which bypasses theaters. His repeat collaborations with directors Ringo Lam (Replicant), Ernie Barbarash (Assassination Games), and John Hyams (the two latest Universal Soldier entries) have not only resulted in films actually worth a damn (direct-to-video though they may be), but many of them are superior to the films from the portion of Van Damme’s career that actually made it to theaters and did well financially. Let’s not forget his titular role in the somewhat autobiographical JCVD, where he plays a loose version of himself as a failure of a father and husband, and who finds himself in a bank robbery/hostage situation, but is unable to convey the point that he’s not the action superstar known on screen for so long – that he’s just a man, and one not brave enough to save the day. His performance in JCVD is remarkable, allowing him to use his native tongue for once, and his long, unbroken monologue where he uses the camera as a confessional is an extremely powerful moment that has the ability to commit some serious Van Dammage against your heart.

Because, in Universal Soldier, he’s playing a half-robot/half-corpse cocktail, his ability to show emotions is restrained by either the demands of the role or by his own performance abilities that were approaching the end of their formative years. What this largely amounts to is Van Damme walking around accidentally making ironic comments and observations with an utter look of blankness on his face. And that’s fine – we’re not exactly looking for an Olivier-level complexity from our lead who is essentially playing Frankenstein’s monster. What Van Damme brings to the role is all that was really required; he looks sad every so often, but not too sad, in the same way that Universal Soldier itself wants to be original, but not too original. It would be later, in films like Timecop or Double Team, in which Van Damme would be given the chance to show off his personality and really embrace his action star persona, rattling off pun-douched catch phrases with reckless abandon.

THE BAD GUY

Andrew Scott aka GR13. Also reanimated corpse. Also kind of a robot. Ruthless assassin. Wearer of ear necklaces. Overly strict platoon leader. Shooter of bus drivers. Sufferer from the most extreme PTSD on record. Coiner of the phrase, “Are we having fun yet?”

Welcome back, Dolph! Yes, after having been the first featured action hero in Murdered Men with #10’s The Punisher, Lundgren returns to check in and remind us all that, yeah, he’s still kind of a bad ass. It is here, in Universal Soldier, that he presents the best on-screen character from his entire career – that’s counting both hero and villain. Far more entertaining than his villainous turn as Ivan Drago in Rocky IV, a film as deluded as to its own significance to legitimate cinema as it is inexplicably beloved by film fans everywhere, Lundgren’s Andrew Scott is one of the great action cinema adversaries. Despite being a reanimated corpse raped with robot parts, and still suffering from his demons of war, you have never seen a villain having a better time with how psychologically fucked up he is. Lundgren, rarely given the opportunity to go bad on screen (the first Expendables doesn’t count), is a thing to behold in Universal Soldier, besting Van Damme’s screen presence in every way. This isn’t to say that Van Damme doesn’t make for a good screen presence here because he definitely does; it’s just that it’s the villain who usually provides the more memorable turn, and the actor playing him knows it, and so they wrap their thespian arms around their evil madman and embrace him with all the love and dedication they can muster. Speaking of, when Dolph holds out his ear necklace and asks, “Do you hear me?” only he’s NOT doing this to be funny, God cries because he has never created anything as beautiful.

 THE CASUALTIES

Pre-corpsebot Deveraux stabs Andrew Scott in the gut with a bayonet.

Post-corpsebot Deveraux fires off a satisfying silent shot into the head of a terrorist and commits violent body trauma against another before shooting an enemy UniSol in the face.

Pre-corpsebot Scott shoots one casualty of war point black in the face and blows up that casualty's sister with a grenade before shooting his fellow soldier, Luc, in the chest.

Post-corpsebot Scott shoots two terrorists and cracks the neck/crushes the skull of another; blows the head off of a paparazzo; shoots a colonel in the chest; forces a serum injection into a tech before snapping his neck; shoots two grocery store clerks he’s convinced are traitorous soldiers; and shreds a bus-driver with an M60.

Also, an anonymous UniSol takes out a terrorist with a hand gun cleverly hidden in a box with a gigantic camera lens sticking out of it and UniSol scientists order some of their soldiers to blow themselves up with grenades, which they do. Lastly, an unknown number of hostages at the Hoover Dam are killed by a bunch of terrorists, but except for one dude, this all occurs off-screen. Hey, save some for us! Violent death is awesome!

THE BEST KILL

Andrew Scott punching through a tech’s glass face shield and driving the shards into his face, which he smashes into messy meat with his fist, gets a trophy for best owie.

THE DAMAGE

Well, this will likely be the only “damage taken” ticker in all of Murdered Men that includes the main hero fucking dying, but, here we are! Deveraux also takes a bullet during his escape from the UniSol compound, which he “heals” with a cigarette lighter (don’t think too hard about this) even though technically he’s a corpse so he couldn’t really die of infection (don’t think too hard about this). He’s also garroted with piano wire; semi-blown up by a grenade and rolled over in a bus; pummeled about the chest and face and thrown into a barn door; and smashed headfirst through a car window and door (repeatedly).

Meanwhile, Sergeant Scott turns into Rigid Dolph Dummy as he flies through a windshield; gets his ass handed to him via dozens of high-flying kicks and face-slams during the finale fight before flying through a barn wall; gets his wrist broken pretty much in half; and then…

THE BAD GUY’S COMEUPPANCE

After a fiery and punch-ridden final battle, which takes place at the farm of the very accented Deveraux’s decidedly non-accented parents, Deveraux lets loose one final signature kick and sends Scott sailing through the air and landing on a very pointy field harvester. And if that weren’t enough, Deveraux flips the on-switch, and all those pointy spindle things rip Scott’s body apart, turning him into a pile of man meat. In case you’re wondering, yeah – Andrew Scott returns for two more Universal Soldier films. God bless the movies!

THE LINE

So many wonderful lines from which to choose. Scott bellowing “Now that’s the spirit, soldier!” has become franchise tradition, with “Are we have fun yet?” honing in on the runner-up slot. But a confused and nonplussed Luc Deveraux, after having kicked the asses of about a dozen men, all because they came after him when it was revealed he didn’t have the money to pick up the diner check, said, “I just want to eat.” With his mouth full of all the unauthorized food on which he’d just been gorging himself. Delightful.

THE VERDICT

Of all the films to be featured in Top Ten Murdered Men so far, Universal Soldier just might be the most innocent, carefree, and perhaps even the quintessential action film that defines what this column is all about. There’s just enough of a plot (albeit not a terribly original one) to give it a solid foundation, and that plot is silly enough so that you know not to take everything so seriously. Emmerich was wise enough to realize that his paying audience were interested in seeing Van Damme and Lundgren tear ass at each other for a full 90 minutes, and by making them super soldiers mostly incapable of inflicting any permanent damage on each other, that ass-tearing could go on and on and on. This simple 1992 film would go on to spawn a franchise of direct-to-video sequels, attempts at a television series, and even an art-house film festival darling, all of which went off in very different directions, but none of which were able to retain (or even necessitate) the wonderful tongue-in-cheek and knowing humor that permeates this cinematic match-up between two of the best action superstars who ever walked the soundstage.

#7: OUT FOR JUSTICE (1991)

He’s a cop. It’s a dirty job…but somebody’s got to take out the garbage.

Gino Felino is a cop from Brooklyn whose partner, Bobby Lupo, was just murdered on the street by a drug-addicted sociopath named Richie Madano, who tossed a Polaroid of Bobby ramming some naked chick from behind onto the dead man’s chest, which astute witnesses might concur has something to do with it. The brutality and brazenness of the crime has Gino on a personal vendetta to find the killer – who was also a childhood friend – and put an end to him…one way or the other. His relentless pursuit of Richie leads him all over the streets of Brooklyn – from mafia-owned restaurants to Italian delis to a handful of bars and nightclubs. Gino only has one question on his mind: “Anybody seen Richie?” And while Gino continues his search, the Brooklyn mafia embark on a search of their own, eager to find Richie before Gino does for fear their ties to the drug-addled crazyman will bring a rain of shit down on their heads. All during this, Gino saves a puppy, repairs his marriage, almost plays catch with his son, and drops six 1991 dollars on seltzer that he never drinks. Finally, after pleading with Richie’s parents – people Gino have known since he was just a young, pony-tailed, whispering bad-ass – Gino zeroes in on Richie’s location and proceeds to take him out. FOR JUSTICE.

Out for Justice was directed by John Flynn, who was also responsible for the Stallone vehicle Lock Up, the underrated Rolling Thunder, and Brainscan…the movie where Frank Langella played a computer demon or something. Screenwriter David Lee Henry (who is one “Lucas” away from being a serial killer) contributed the script, and though he only ever wrote five scripts during his career, they consisted of this, a Charles Bronson pic where he vice-grips a man’s nuts for something like 37 Mississippi seconds, and the immortal and totally ridiculous Roadhouse. He wins.

There’s no denying or getting around the fact that Out for Justice is triumphantly stupid. But that’s okay, because that’s a big part of what this column is all about. (If you’ve been waiting to see Die Hard appear within the confines of this column, don’t hold your breath – Die Hard is too…good.) With absolutely no plot to speak of, the film consists of Gino walking from place to place demanding to know if its occupants have seen Richie, and then handing everyone their asses once they inevitably begin mouthing off – especially those who insist Gino wouldn’t be so tough “without that badge and gun.” Every so often, Gino will cease his dogged pursuit to spend time with his wife/ex-wife/I have no idea, or his son, or Jerry Orbach. And while doing so, he’ll wax philosophic about how hard his job is and how he’s unable to shake it when he comes home and gives his wife accida. But no need to worry – he gets back to the requisite number of ass-kickings pretty much immediately. What could be considered a plot for Out for Justice is so simple that it sounds like something a child would concoct on the fly, spurred by a curious parent asking him increasingly probing questions about it:

“What’s your new story about, Junior?” 

“It’s about a boy named Richie who hurts another boy named Bobby because Bobby kissed Richie’s girlfriend, and then Bobby’s friend Gino tries to find Richie to talk to him about it.” 

“What else happens?” 

“Gino finds a puppy in a bag.” 

“Where’d the  puppy come from?” 

“It got throwned out a window.” 

“What does Gino do then?” 

“He tries to find Richie again.” 

“How does he do that?” 

“He asks Richie’s friends if anybody seen him.” 

“What does Gino do after?” 

“Gino goes to talk to Richie’s mommy and daddy and tattles on him.” 

“What does Gino do once he finds Richie?” 

“He fucking destroys him.”

And that’s where Out for Justice really shines: the violence. There’s no more complex way to put it other than: the violence in Out for Justice is really…painful looking. And I know that goes without saying, but, compared to this column’s previous film, Demolition Man (which was essentially an R-rated cartoon), the violence in Out for Justice is intensely hard-edged. Dudes don’t just get punched in the face or their arms twisted…they get thrown through multiple car windows, or their hands are split in half by meat cleavers, or their faces are smashed by pool balls. And yeah, they totally brought it on themselves, but man…I felt really, really bad for some of them.

Out for Justice is also hilariously “Brooklyn.” It’s so Brooklyn there’s a scene where Bobby’s young daughter asks her mother to buy her a hotdog and her mother responds “Fughettabout it!” It’s so Brooklyn that “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” plays in a scene where Gino is driving…around Brooklyn. And since Brooklyn equals Italian, people toss random, non-subtitled slang words at each other, whose meanings remain anonymous, but if it’s an Italian saying it, it’s probably something racist that sounds really romantic. (Don't tell at me; I'm Italian.)

The more astute viewer will catch an array of “before they were famous” cameos from the likes of Titus Welliver (The Town), Kane Hodder (Jason from several Friday the 13th sequels), and the heavily tattooed Robert LaSardo, who has played henchmen in all kinds of flicks, including The Professional. Oh, and fans of The Sopranos will recognize Uncle Junior as Richie’s father (Dominic Chianese). He’s probably responsible for the best performance in this thing, but, that’s not saying much.

THE GOOD GUY

Gino “Cappuccino” Felino. Brooklyn native. Wearer of berets. Rescuer of garbage bag puppies. Refuter of prostitutes. Patronizer of sidewalk cooler vendors. Broken record. Amateur dentist.

Steven Seagal was a box-office draw from the very start of his acting career, beginning with 1988’s Above the Law. He’d established a good working relationship with Warner Bros., who released more of his theatrical films than any other studio (including his directorial debut, the ludicrous On Deadly Ground), and he produced all of his own projects, beginning with his very first, which is unheard of for an unknown. But after this fifteen-year ride, Seagal found himself in direct-to-video oblivion, where, outside of stunt-casting like Machete or The Onion Movie, he’s been ever since. One of the last remaining holdouts to appear in an Expendables entry, citing bad blood between “some of those guys” (Van Damme and producer Avi Lerner), Seagal, sadly, hasn’t made a film that could be considered good since 1996’s Executive Decision (which doesn’t really count considering he was the Janet Leigh of the first act). His very difficult personality, his too-hands-on approaches to his films, and his rather rough shooting style (he punches and kicks all those stunt guys for real) have hindered his career and relegated him to the Redbox. His very strange physical transformation over the years (the extra pounds, the strange shoe-polish hair) and his…er…cultural transformation – he’s been trying to convince everyone he’s Cajun – has him so far removed from the Seagal of old that no one really knows what to do with him except for the same old low-budget thing.

In Out for Justice, for the second time in his career, Seagal inexplicably finds himself playing an Italian from Brooklyn, which means we are blessed with the Irish/Jewish pony-tailed actor trying on his best grease-ball accent with hilarious results. He manages a “fughettabout it!” himself, along with a random dropping of “cetriolo,” the meaning of which you’ll have to Google if you’re that curious. To be fair, his dark skin and slicked back hair give off the false impression that he’s Sicilian, or perhaps Native American, but he’s neither: motherfucker was born in Michigan. 

I know! Boring!

The legends and rumors about Seagal make for intensely interesting reading, but the below ranks among my favorite: recollections of his brief appearance on SNL, and how utterly uncomfortable he made everyone feel:

Julia Sweeney said: “When we pitched our ideas for Seagal at our Monday meeting, he gave us some of his own sketch ideas. And some of his sketch ideas were so heinous, but so hilariously awful, it was like we were on Candid Camera. He had this idea that he’s a therapist and he wanted Victoria Jackson to be his patient who’s just been raped. And the therapist says, ‘You’re going to have to come to me twice a week for like three years,’ because, he said, ‘that’s how therapists freaking are. They’re just trying to get your money.’ And then he says that the psychiatrist tries to have sex with her.”

(Read a lot more of these anecdotes here.)

Still, personality aside, there’s no denying that in his prime, Seagal had a commanding screen presence, and his interesting physical appearance and somewhat anonymous ethnicity allowed him to slip into different kinds of roles. While guys like Arnold and Sly relied on their impeccably chiseled bodies to achieve their status as action icons, Seagal, who never bulked up for any of his films and maintained an average if not wiry frame, instead relied on his knowledge of martial arts, namely aikido, to present something on-screen a lot of his contemporaries weren’t utilizing.

Seagal’s biggest claim to fame came in the form of 1992’s Under Siege, directed by The Fugitive's Andrew Davis, which not only resulted in a fun action offering, but a legitimately good film, due in part to the maniacal villainous performance by Tommy Lee Jones. The film did well enough to earn a sequel, 1995’s adolescent Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, and perhaps, if the admittedly untrustworthy Seagal is to be believed, a possible Under Siege 3, which would see Casey Ryback taking on…aliens. In an interview with MTV, Seagal was quoted as saying, “I personally want it to be something more modern. I wouldn’t mind if it was about something more mystical or…maybe extraterrestrial in nature. Some real government top secrets instead of just the typical.”

Fat Steven Seagal is one thing, but a fat, direct-to-video Casey Ryback fighting aliens isn’t something I’m eager to see.

In the end, I suppose it doesn’t matter. Seagal….is a shitty actor. And I know it’s easy to label most of our action icons from yesteryear as shit actors, but if we’re being fair, it’s because many of those icons found it difficult, as they were foreign-born, to find a way to perform their way through their accents. Many of Van Damme’s films had him playing someone either in or from New Orleans’ French Quarter to explain why he sounded so mush-mouthed; same for Arnold, who found himself being consistently labeled as Austrian, East German, and even Russian. (C’mon, except for Arnold Schwarzenegger, have you ever met, seen, or heard anyone else who sounds remotely like that? Maybe Werner Herzog.) In this regard, Seagal was spared, as his lineage didn’t saddle him with an insurmountable accent that would come to define him. But, the point is, it wouldn’t have really mattered: he’s not a good actor. Though he certainly attempts to infuse Gino “Maraschino” Felino with exuberance and enthusiasm, it comes across as so over-the-top and silly that you sort of shrink back a bit. But I ask you: when’s the last time you watched a Seagal film for his performance, and not his ability to squint at the camera, whisper all his lines, and snap someone’s spine in three places?

THE BAD GUY

Richie Madano. Crack-smoker. Ultimate road-rager. Ventriloquism dummy lookalike. Non-supporter of a woman’s right to self-improve. Provider of broads. Packer of pounds.

Character actor William Forsythe plays assholes in his sleep – that’s how good he is, and how often he does it. In Out for Justice he is completely unhinged, a crack-head maniac. He plays an even viler and slimier asshole here than he does in Rob Zombie’s Halloween, and that’s saying something. He gives 110%, and though his character is entirely overbearing, the film could have benefited from featuring more of him. Sadly, at Seagal’s insistence, much of Forsythe’s contributions were cut from the film because his performance was so good Seagal was afraid of being upstaged (according to IMDB, anyway, which is about as sure-footed and credible as Donald Trump on fire).

Speaking of Seagal enforcing creative control, if you’re wondering about that awful montage in the second act where cops storm bars and Gino talks heatedly with people but no one knows what the fuck anyone is saying because of the awful music playing over it all, this was another instance of Seagal exerting his producer power, claiming that to see all these scenes play out as intended would have been too boring.

 THE CASUALTIES

A lot of men’s knees touch the ground, which some would argue equals a death. When it’s at the hands of Seagal, it’s safe to assume that those guys whose knees have been grounded aren’t getting back up again, especially since Seagal is technically playing a cop, and cops just don’t get to kill as many dudes without consequences as we’d like (because this film doesn’t take place in the 21st century).

So, having said that, Gino “Il Postino” Felino unleashes the following body hurt: a pimp gets his head smashed through a car window, thrown over some barrels, and then heaved through a windshield; dudes in a deli get a meat cleaver to the knee and hand, face-smashed against the floor, crushed Adams apple and ball-sac, broken arms, beaten with a bat, and beaten in the head with a pepperoni; a whole gaggle of dudes in a bar get pushed to the ground, punched in the face, cracked in the head with a pool-ball-stuffed towel, punched in the balls, and supremely fucking disrespected; five home-invaders get shot and one thrown one out a window; five dudes get blown away by shotguns (one of them getting a leg entirely sheered off); and one dude gets his face smashed against a brick wall (same dude who gets the honor of “the best kill”).

As for the bad guy, well, Richie shoots: Bobby Lupo six times in the chest; an innocent (female) bystander point-blank in the face because Richie wouldn’t move his “god damn car”;  a wheelchair-bound auto mechanic in the chest; and a bunch of mafia henchmen.

THE BEST KILL

Technically not a kill, but an asshole in a bar gets smashed in the face with that aforementioned pool-ball-stuffed towel and spits four teeth out onto the pool table. After attempting to regain his pride with a meager “Motherfucker, you knocked my teeth out” and lunges for Gino in another attack, Gino smashes him in the face with that pool ball. Again.

THE DAMAGE

What, for Gino? Fughettabout it! I’m pretty sure Seagal has it in his contract that he can’t appear even remotely weak in any of his films, so literally nothing happens to him until the very end when he gets grazed by a bullet, from which he very quickly recovers and proceeds to take his revenge. No one lands a punch or a kick, no one scratches him with a knife, no one shouts loudly in his ears. Even an adorable puppy gets thrown out a car window, but Gino gets off easy with a bullet wound he can’t even fucking feel. Massive egos tend to make one superhuman.

THE BAD GUY’S COMEUPPANCE

When it comes time for Gino vs. Richie, the latter has no chance. Gino tosses him around a kitchen like a fat rag doll, disarming him of knives, pans, and whatever other random things he picks up to defend himself with. It’s all rather (and typically) emasculating for a Seagal character – a total hyperbolic castration – before Gino finally ends the madness by stabbing Richie through the brain with a corkscrew and then firing several bullets into his chest.

THE LINE

In what almost amounted to a throwaway scene with Gino driving down the street, a random prostitute calls through his window as he passes by, “Wanna fuck?” leading Gino to laugh uproariously. He then drives up to some homeless men and asks them, “Did you hear what she just said?”and one of them shouts, “What’d she say, my man?” Gino drives away, still laughing, without answering.

I am 100% convinced that this scene was not scripted, and a random hooker totally propositioned Seagal for a fuck, leading him to break character. To be honest, even if this scene were scripted, please…just let me have this.

I’m also really partial to “Whose hot dog is this, eh?” and, of course, “Anybody seen Richie? I’m gonna keep comin’ back until someone REMEMBERS seein’ Richie!”

THE VERDICT

Steven Seagal has made exactly one “good” film in his career in which he was the lead, and that honor will always go to Under Siege. But as for his most entertaining, his most ridiculous, and perhaps his most violent, look no further than Out for Justice.

And do let me know if anybody seen Richie.

#8: DEMOLITION MAN (1993)

The 21st Century’s most dangerous cop.
The 21st Century’s most ruthless criminal.

The year is temporarily 1996. Los Angeles is a fiery hellhole. Criminals run rampant, and the lights and sirens of police cars flash and shriek constantly. John Spartan, detective for the LAPD, is on the trail of his arch nemesis of two years, Simon Phoenix, who has hijacked a bus of thirty passengers and taken them all hostage within an abandoned factory. Spartan bungy jumps in from a helicopter, guns blazing, to take down Phoenix once and for all, but the madman has other plans: he sets fire to the place and the two duke it out, and even though Spartan disarms Phoenix and takes him into custody, Phoenix ultimately has the upper hand, as those thirty hostages have lost their lives in the exploding factory. Spartan is charged with manslaughter for the deaths of the hostages and gets a seventy-year sentence in a cryogenic prison, where he will share ice cube space alongside his greatest enemy. Flash forward 36 years to the year 2032. At a routine parole meeting, during which Phoenix has been defrosted, he breaks out of his restraints and begins wreaking havoc across the new LA – now called San Angeles, revitalized and redubbed by a man named Dr. Raymond Cocteau following a disastrous earthquake. Now inexplicably three times as strong, fluent in Spanish, and adept at computer hacking, Phoenix begins carrying out the orders of the disembodied voice inside his head…orders that command him to kill a man named Edgar Friendly, leader of a rebellion of the disenchanted called “Scraps” who refuse to be part of Dr. Cocteau’s new world order, and who instead live below the streets of San Angeles, emerging only to steal food and knock over lots of restaurant tents and stuff. In a future where violence is almost non-existent, the castrated SAPD doesn’t know what to do, so they defrost the one man who does: John Spartan. Saddled with a new partner – the ‘90s-obsessed Lenina Huxley – Spartan will do battle once again with his foe amid a new futuristic landscape in which he will find himself confused by nearly every technological amenity while proving that the old ways are still the best ways…

Not that the film world has become less intrigued by the potentials of the future, but the late ‘80s/early ’90s were a little too infatuated with the notion of how the world could possibly look in the next century to come. You’ll notice not a single film ever made that was set in the future was a positive one – every novelist, screenwriter, and filmmaker living and dead who dabbled in the make-believe world of the possible had been terrified, and these “what if?” environments shared much in common: cities are uniform, sterile, and manned by slick-looking sentries in tinted masked helmets; interiors are brightly lit like wealthy hospital wards and everyone wears uniformed clothing; no one uses paper, only screens; no one steers their own cars, and sometimes those cars don’t even touch the road upon which they are driving; doors open by themselves, and omniscient computer voices know everything. No one’s ever made a future-set film where the future looks better. 

The landscape of Demolition Man sure doesn’t! 

The film’s prologue is set only three years into the future and things already look like hammered shit. Way to be optimistic!

Directed by Marco Brambilla (whose only other directorial feature credit is 1997’s Excess Baggage), Demolition Man had a fairly troubled production. Allegedly, though the screenplay’s final credits go to three writers, it was being almost constantly rewritten during shooting (the history of which is so confusing that more than half-a-dozen people, from Night of the Creeps director Fred Dekker to big-chinned actor Craig Scheffer, claim a modicum of story credit), adding and dropping significant subplots depending on the moods of Warner Bros. executives. (For example: though in the finished film it’s claimed that the character of John Spartan’s daughter died in the earthquake, earlier versions of the rough cut had her not only surviving the quake but living among the Edgar Friendly “Scraps” and inevitably encountering her father during his trip to the underground. In certain scenes where John Spartan is underground and shielding a dirty female with gigantic hair from a burst of gunfire, this seeming bystander who ultimately becomes a random extra was initially meant to be his daughter.)

However, you can’t keep a good concept down, and in spite of its troubled production, Demolition Man results in a fun, funny, and extremely entertaining film that hardly ever stops to take a breath. It’s of the rare breed of action film that’s as comedic as it is filled with carnage and wonderful violence. Nearly every line in some way is meant to be amusing, ironic, or confounding. What’s most comedically appealing about this version of the future is how pussified it’s all become. The San Angeles police department are entirely useless; they answer emergency calls with big smiles plastered on their faces and nary a look of concern. Homicides are so rare that when they occur, they’ve been given the term “murder-death-kills,” because in the future, one person killing another is, like, three times as bad. (“We’re police officers! We’re not trained to handle this kind of violence!”) Things like minor car accidents offer big thrills to the rather bored Lenina Huxley, the film’s unsubtle homage to the famed author of “Brave New World” (title-dropped by Phoenix during his trip to the “Hall of Violence” in the San Andreas museum).

Speaking of unsubtle, all of Demolition Man is. This is a film in which the lead hero gets so pissed off by his nemesis trying to set him on fire that he yell-runs through a pool of burning gasoline just to punch him in the face. This is a film in which it’s established that the hero’s nickname is “Demolition Man” because he’s apparently incapable of carrying out his duties as an LAPD detective without destroying at least one building per assignment (enforced by numerous supporting characters calling him “the Demolition Man,” including his captain, who is “getting tired of this 'Demolition Man' crap”). This is a film that drops a reference to Rambo, but which also stars the guy who was in Rambo…as Rambo. This is a film that kinda-sorta pretends to be “about” something and endeavors to convey the emotional consequences involved with the idea of freezing prisoners and conserving their physical age while the rest of the world ages around them, offering exactly one scene in which Spartan kinda-sorta seems quite upset about being conscious during his time in cryo and seeing his wife “beat her fists against the block of ice that used to be her husband” but who INSTANTLY drops all this not much later when he’s all-too-eager to have sex with Huxley. (“I was wondering if you’d like to have sex.” “OH, YEAH!”)

Demolition Man may not boast the biggest body count (this title will likely see the least amount of casualties of all the films that appear in this column), but what it sacrifices for bloodletting it makes up for with its humor, which works much more often than it doesn’t. This idea of a future that’s so hell-bent on forcing people to be happy that single use of the word “joy” has become scarce, replaced with “joyjoy” – (“Enjoyjoy your meal, sir.”) – is amusing obviously because of how absurd it is, but also doubly so when you realize that this is the caliber of writing with which we’re dealing – that instead of constructing a future where the idea of enforced happiness is subtly suggested, we’re provided this notion of enforced happiness via people saying “joy” twice. And this humor continues, from the curious to the downright surreal: the three seashells joke has become legendary (and is ruined the second your Googling leads you to Stallone’s icky explanation), but it’s the odder alternatives for culture offered in this future that are both comedic and clever – the “oldies” radio station consists of ‘50s-era commercial jingles, like Armor Hotdogs and Jolly Green Giant, and the only restaurant franchise that still exists is Taco Bell, which has become fine dining. Salt, smoking, meat, unlicensed pregnancy, profanity, non-educational toys, physical sex, and high-fiving have become illegal. It would seem that Dr. Cocteau’s douche-bagging of anything the least bit bad for his citizens inadvertently caused anything even suggestive of culture to also come out in the wash.

Something not touched on enough in this alternate future is suggested in exactly one moment during the third act: Spartan makes a reference to Pancho Villa, to which someone responds, “Who?” For most of Spartan’s defrosting, it’s been his pop culture references that have been greeted by blank stares and ignorance, only now it’s his reference to a genuine and significant part of history that someone doesn’t know, and that’s a scary implication of where our future is headed. More of this would have been appreciated, but then again, who needs all that weighty-themes shit when you’ve got scenes of John Spartan flinging a television by its wire into the spine of Simon Phoenix while shouting, “You’re on TV!”

Perhaps the scariest thing about Demolition Man isn’t its lame and neutered look at the future, but that when the film came out in 1993, this prediction of the future was 36 years away. As of this writing, we’re thirty years closer, with only eight more years to go. The future that was presented to us in 1993 is scarily on the path that was predicted, and this can be scientifically confirmed utilizing one strong piece of evidence: people in Demolition Man used tablets with FaceTime capabilities: JUST LIKE NOW.

RUN!

Why This Future is Awesome:

• Arnold Schwarzenegger was president.
• Taco Bell is everywhere.
• Denis Leary is living underground, so most of civilization is spared his awful comedy.
• Laserdisc is still the preferred home video format.
• When girls video-call you, their boobs are out.
• The phasing out of one-ply toilet paper.
• Girls who look like Sandra Bullock love Jackie Chan movies, fluid transference, and Lethal Weapon 3.

THE GOOD GUY

John Spartan. LAPD detective. Breeder of destruction. Somewhat-but-not-really conflicted widower; occasional mourner of his perished daughter. Smoker of Marlboros. Skipper of prison protocol. User of the incredible descriptor “fuck-faced.” Driver of giant cannolis. Knitter of apology sweaters. Dismisser of profanity robots. Exuberant supporter of old-fashioned sex. Emitter of acceptable-smelling breath.

Oh, Stallone, you wonderful action legend. Between Rocky Balboa and John Rambo, you’ve managed to create two culturally significant figures in cinema history, and audiences will always be grateful.

His somewhat recent and successful returns with Rocky Balboa, Creed, and Rambo were worthy returns to his most famous roles, and they reminded people why he was so successful in Hollywood for going on three decades. However The Expendables franchise may have caused fans to lower their opinions of him, Stallone is a great screenwriter and a great director, and he’s earned the right to continue to make the kinds of films he wants to make until he feels it’s time to step aside. In our current landscape where controversy erupts over the amount of films nominated for Academy Awards that lack the involvement of black individuals in prominent positions, or the prejudicial behavior toward aging women or even women in general as it pertains to roles they can obtain, somehow it’s still okay for people to joke about guys like Stallone and Schwarzenegger for insisting on maintaining a role in the action genre despite their age. Comments regarding Stallone revisiting the John Rambo character for Rambo: Last Blood, his fifth and purported final entry, in the Rambo series, leaned on the disrespectful and irritatingly predictable: “What, does he break out of a retirement home LOL?” And while these same people blindly show enthusiasm for what will soon be the eleventh film in which a group of young beautiful people steal cars and/or money and race around the streets of foreign countries, these commenters will sling these kinds of ignorant condemnations against these icons they grew up watching, who got them into the types of films that have since regressed to the watered-down PG-13 nonsense which has dominated the genre, and frankly, who fucking paved the way for these films of heightened-ridiculousness and über-machoism in the first place. (If you think the Fast and the Furious or John Wick franchises, or any film The Rock has made, would exist without the likes of Stallone or Schwarzenegger, you have a lot to learn.) Ironically, these guys have made belief-suspending films about time-traveling killer assassin cyborgs, or mountain climbers possessing the uncanny ability to kill off a dozen well-trained mercenaries with mountain picks – films now considered classics, and eagerly accepted into the lexicon – but asking audiences to accept that men in their late-60s are capable of running, throwing a punch, and toting a gun is apparently something entirely out of the realm of believability. What pissers.

Anyway, Stallone is a lot of fun here in the very fun film that surrounds him. Demolition Man is stupid, and everyone involved knows it’s stupid, which is why everyone lets loose in their performances without a hint of hesitation. Stallone seems incredibly comfortable as John Spartan, playing a bad-ass with charm, wit, and yeah, even a bit of sex appeal. Even though he manages to show off some decent comedic chops and timing, he’s not an actor who relied on that kind of technique for much of his career, as he’s always been much more serious-minded in his approach to roles and his self-penned screenplays. Despite his Rambo films getting progressively sillier, the John Rambo character never really relied on humor as a crutch – not even in Rambo III, arguably the silliest of the sequels. (Perhaps it’s because of his involvement in Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot!, one of the worst things in history, that caused him to hold back on roles of a more comedic nature.)

Comedy aside, Stallone is more than up for all the action elements required: the man knows how to hold a gun, look bad-ass, and run from explosions. If we’re keeping count, Stallone has FOUR slow-motion sequences in which he is either running through fire or from explosions while bellowing that iconic Stallone yell. He was in great shape at this point in his career, so he was still of the mind to show off as much of his (naked) body as possible without reverting back to his brief early career working in stag films. Between Demolition Man and 1994’s The Specialist, in which he shared disconcertingly unsexy sex scenes with Sharon Stone, let’s just say, during the mid-’90s, he more than met his quota of instances in which the camera stopped just above his pubes.

One last thing that bolsters his performance is the incredible on-screen chemistry he shares with his foe, his foil, his dastardly arch nemesis…

THE BAD GUY

Simon Phoenix. Modern-LA crime lord. Future-SA crime lord. Bleacher of heads. Wearer of bumble-bee-colored outfits. Also a smoker of Marlboros. Mocker of Asian tourists. (“Ha ha! Ching chawng ching chawng!”) Future enthusiast. Proud user of the opener “Simon says.” Muser of the accordion. Lover of Jeffrey Dahmer.

The official Simon Phoenix wrap sheet is as follows: four counts of murder; two counts each of rape, assault, grand theft, and robbery; and one count each of possession of a controlled substance, counterfeiting, credit card fraud, driving under the influence, extortion, grand theft, inciting to riot, jury rigging, petty theft, public drunkenness (which becomes more and more hilariously lame when you remember that he’s also a convicted rapist twice over), smuggling, and obviously the best is saved for last: tax evasion (another thing the future got right).

Wesley Snipes is another action actor who was simply not given enough opportunities to show off his talents as a comedic one. (Thankfully Stallone gave him another chance with The Expendables 3, in which Snipes’ character, Doc, steals every scene.) Outside of entertaining and harmless but forgettable titles like Money Train or Drop Zone, Snipes spent most of his career playing serious roles in serious films (King of New York comes to mind), or the kind of silly in which he showed no emotions at all (the Blade trilogy). Without hyperbole, his Simon Phoenix may very well be one of the greatest villains in action film history. There’s no quip cheesy enough and no physicality he won’t incorporate into his performance. An actor legitimately trained in martial artistry, having obtained black belts in Shotokan and Hapkido, Snipes famously had to tame his own fighting techniques on-screen because he moved so fast that the cameras only recorded blurs.

At the start of the film, Snipes is essentially playing a cartoon version of the antagonist he played in New Jack City – that of a crime lord who took over an entire city, out of which he planned on setting up a distribution center for drugs, only now instead of drugs he’s dispensing carnage and blonde hair dye. He warned everyone to stay out of his part of town, including the cops and the postmen, but the damned bus drivers just…wouldn’t…listen.

Wesley Snipes has never been more fun to watch.

IMDB claims the roles of John Spartan and Simon Phoenix were originally offered to Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme, respectively. Though Demolition Man is awesome as it is, seeing this film with this proposed cast would’ve been a different kind of awesome for two reasons: Van Damme makes an excellent villain, and those two action icons can’t fucking stand each other.

THE MURDER-DEATH-KILLS

John Spartan, for all his self-proclamations of being a maniac, manages only a disappointing body count of nine bad guys (four of which were actually blown up by the factory Phoenix set on fire): two dead by gunshot, two by body trauma, and Phoenix's dispatchment from Planet Earth.

Simon Phoenix is the big winner here in terms of murder (-death-kills): he fries thirty hijacked bus passengers, stabs one dude in the brain, commits bodily trauma against two soon-to-be-corpses, kills an off-screen doctor utilizing a mysterious means, tosses Dr. Raymond Cocteau into a fireplace, and according to the automated computer of the SAPD, commits against Warden William Smithers: “severe eye trauma, ruptured spleen, punctured lung, broken rib, internal bleeding” and then rips out the dude’s eyeball.

There are still all kinds of scenes where a hundred dudes get pretty hurt; however, disappointingly, it would seem most of those inflicted were just knocked out. BORING.

THE BEST KILL

Warden Smithers, by far. Phoenix plucks out his eye for the retinal scan security system that will let him walk right out of prison, and the warden’s slow death is broadcast via video into the SAPD station, which allows them all to see just what kind of maniac with whom they must now contend.

THE DAMAGE

Except for some face/body blows, Spartan gets by fine: some future-fun car-crash secure foam rips his clothes; he gets squeezed pretty hard by a giant carnival claw hook; and he endures being body-whipped by a chain. Oh, and the whole framed-for-manslaughter/frozen-for-36-years-while-remaining-conscious thing.

THE BAD GUY’S COMEUPPANCE

At the beginning of the film, Phoenix says, “I’d lose my head if it weren’t attached!”

At the end of the film, Spartan kicks Phoenix’s fucking head off.

THE LINE

“He doesn't know how to use the three seashells!”

THE VERDICT

Ultimately, Demolition Man is the same old stoic-but-human good guy vs. the flamboyant and dynamic bad guy, but it wants to present this classic conflict within the confines of a futuristic landscape to cause our hero and villain both confusion and delight. Sure, lots of the plot points don’t make sense, from the significant–the film asks us to accept that a person can have information uploaded into their brain that makes them physically stronger–to the insignificant–why does Edgar Friendly’s underground rebellion have access to high-tech automated graffiti machines that pop up from the ground and spray their tags on public property, but apparently can’t afford any fucking food? In the end it doesn’t matter, because what we see unfold before us is a lot of fun: Spartan and Phoenix make for a great challenge to each other, Bob Gunton as the SAPD chief once again plays an incredible dick, and the well-meaning but sort of clueless Huxley tries to capture early’90s tough guy vernacular and accidentally says stuff like, “Let’s go blow these guys!”

And that will always provide a joyjoy feeling.

#9: FACE-OFF (1997)

In order to catch him, he must become him. 

Los Angeles FBI agent Sean Archer, investigating a sociopath crime-lord (one Castor Troy), watches as his own son takes an assassin’s bullet that was actually meant for himself – fired by that very same crime-lord. With his life now mostly destroyed, Archer becomes obsessed with finally putting an end to Troy’s career of terrorism and espionage. Meanwhile, on the home front, Archer’s daughter begins to act out, and his wife doesn’t know how to talk to him. He snaps in anger at his investigatory team and finds no joy in pretty much any aspect of life. But finally, Archer and Troy eventually cross paths, and after an intense and dramatic confrontation at an airport hangar, the evil-minded genius and his brother are caught, with the former ending up in a coma and the latter in a maximum security prison. But with the brothers’ nefarious plot, which includes a ton of explosives, still poised to happen, Archer agrees to a highly experimental procedure in which he will switch faces with that of his arch nemesis in order to mine for information from his enemy’s brother and no one except for the three people doing the actual procedure will know who he really is and that includes his own family because why the fuck not? It sounds like a really good and low-stakes idea. But after the comatose Troy awakens to see that his face has been taken, and that there’s this other spare face floating around in this futuristic fish bowl, Troy takes a page out of Archer’s book and begins to infiltrate his dogged pursuer’s life with his new face, teaching Archer’s daughter how to stab, his wife how to sex, his boss how to die just by screaming at him, and everyone else just how much fun he is. With Archer and Troy now Troy and Archer, their pseudo-lives collide in a majestic art-installation of bullets, doves, and blowing, flapping, slow-motion coats. It’s awesome.

Man...Face/Off. Only in the ’90s did this sound like a good idea. And it not only sounded like a good idea, but it was a good idea. Following Nicolas Cage’s much-deserved Oscar win for his role in Leaving Las Vegas (1995), Hollywood did what it does: took advantage of his new spotlight and put him in nonsense very antithetical to his Oscar-winning performance, and he suddenly and inexplicably found himself the go-to action leading man. He would go on to star, back-to-back, in the holy Cage action trifecta of The Rock (1996), Con Air (1997), and Face/Off., Not only were these two of the best consecutive years in action history, it would turn out Cage had saved the best for last. And because this is a John Woo flick, you’re going to get all the doves, eye close-ups, and post-production slow motion you can stand. But that’s not all: John Travolta hams it up, Nicolas Cage whirls around while shooting for NO REASON, Gina Gershon uncharacteristically does not remove her clothes, and we get cameos from Tommy Flanagan, John Carroll Lynch, Thomas Jane, and Joe Bob Fuckin' Briggs. And it’s all glorious.

Face/Off is madness. For over two hours, the plot will be ludicrous, the performances will be cartoonish, and the action will be brutal and unending. Nothing about Face/Off should work. Not one executive in Hollywood should have finished a meeting that began with, “Okay, so, a good guy and a bad guy SWITCH FACES.” An Oscar-winner and a two-time Oscar-nominee should not have been spotted anyhere near this script, this concept, this unbelievable cacophony of cinematic insanity. But my god, it happened – somehow it all came together. Face/Off got the green light, it got the proven director, it got the legendary cast. It soon existed; it became a thing; the action genre hasn’t been the same since.

THE GOOD GUY(S)(?)

ON LEFT: Sean Archer. Mourning father. Distant husband. Ass-bug-infested member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Superior to The Wire's Bunny Colvin. Obsessed with catching the man indirectly responsible for the death of his son. Looks a lot like a corpse when under medical anesthesia.

Within the confines of the very eclectic dichotomy that Face/Off presents, Nicolas Cage is essentially playing two entirely different roles, though one would be considered his primary and the other his secondary. Once Cage picks up where Travolta left off, his layered and extremely interesting performance builds off the rather surprisingly philosophical foundation that is inexplicably present in this very stupid action film (the one that includes a speedboat-chase finale): that for a large portion of the running time, both men – prominent actors – are actually satirizing the art of acting into their own performances; i.e., actors are playing the part of two men playing a part. Going further, when it comes to Cage’s performance, he is playing a man who is still deeply hurting from the loss of his son – a hurt so deep that he’s inadvertently isolated himself from everyone around him – but he still has to find a way to act through that pain in order to successfully play the role of the life-loving carefree Castor Troy. It’s evident in the scene where Archer’s version of Troy is in the midst of a prison riot, and in between laughing uproariously and bellowing “I’m Castor Troy!” he is actually sobbing; or later, in Troy’s pad surrounded by his crime family, someone asks him how he knows so much about Sean Archer, so he confesses, “I sleep with his wife.” And as everyone around him laughs, and though Cage is laughing, too, he's just as conflicted about it as he seems genuinely amused by the irony. That right there is a perfect summation of the interesting parallelisms that Face/Off presents: whether Archer is himself, or masquerading as Castor Troy, he’s always acting like a man who is okay, and he’s not.

ON RIGHT: Uh…Sean Archer, also. Kind of. Sometimes. Everything character-based above applies. Especially the corpse thing.

In a film where there are two lead roles but still four major performances, sadly, one of those performances by one of those lead actors was going to end up being the weakest, and that dishonor falls to John Travolta’s take on Sean Archer. To be clear, there’s nothing inherently wrong with his version of “the good guy” – it’s just that compared to Cage’s typically more-manic performances, or even when Travolta is up against his own take on Castor Troy, this version of Archer has little to do beyond walk around, look haunted, and shout at Margaret Cho. He does have a scene or two where he gets to offer some dynamism, but for the most part he just seems like that tight-ass at the office who is really wound up and abrupt. It’s okay though, because there’s only so much insanity one film can take before it ends up becoming something you watch in a film theory course, and so Travolta allows himself to play it low-key, knowing that it’s going to make his major transition from hero to villain that much more jarring and effective and a hell of a lot of fun.

THE BAD GUY(S)(!)

ON TOP: Castor Troy, fraternal twin brother of Pollox. Explosives enthusiast. Eater of peaches. Deviant of sexuality. Dove-flock-be’er-arounder.

Between his weird gay masseuse rumors, his awful career choices over the last twenty years, his controversial religion, and his delightful head-stuttering “Adele Dazeem” boner from that one year’s Oscars ceremony, John Travolta’s credibility has plummeted significantly – especially compared to his heyday when he was one of the most dependable and sought-after performers in Hollywood; he was handsome, energetic, professional, and kind. Because of that, it’s easy to forget just how fun he was capable of being. And speaking of fun, no one is having more of it than he is as Castor Troy. Though he has very little villainous screen-time in his career (he played another notable antagonist in John Woo’s Broken Arrow [1996]), he seemed to enjoy going for broke here, because there’s not one piece of scenery left unchewed by his unhinged, almost operatic performance. Whatever low levels to which his career has sadly devolved, Travolta will always be one cool-ass, cigarette-smoking, jazz-step dancing motherfucker.

ON BOTTOM: Uh…Castroy Troy, also. Shit.

Nicolas Cage, I have a question: where the fuck did this version of you go? What happened to the guy who used to utterly transform with his performances that he actually made audiences squirm in their seats while also delighting an entire generation of Youtubers?

Though Cage begins the film as the villain before becoming the hero, boy, during the time when he’s actually Castor Troy in both mind and body, it is a thing to behold. From gaping mouths to flamboyant delivery, Cage is all over this role with relish. It’s almost a shame that the switcheroo-based Face/Off hadn’t actually done its own switcheroo behind the scenes and switched the two leading men’s roles, so that Cage could have instead spent the majority of his screentime as the villain. Although at a running time of nearly 2.5 hours, perhaps that’s just too much Cage insanity for one film. (Having read that back, yeah, that’s a dumb thing to say.) Face/Off isn’t even out of the opening credits sequence and Cage is already hamming it up as a priest, head-banging to “Hallelujah” and grabbing the ass of a certainly underage choir singer. Once you stop to realize that Cage’s priest outfit has NOTHING to do with the plot, you will realize two things: Castor Troy is a maniac and Face/Off is incredible.

 THE CASUALTIES

No tally for good guys versus bad guys because give me a break – YOU try categorizing who counts as good guys and bad guys when the good guys and bad guys switch natures back and forth. Overall, there are 33 shootings, 3 dead by conflagration, 2 dead by various body trauma, one dead via harpoon gun, and one dead by a “whoopsie!” sniper’s bullet.

THE BEST KILL

Troy gets things going by shooting an undercover FBI agent in the gut who was pretending to be a stewardess, after of course he posited to her: “If I let you suck my tongue, would you be grateful?” Following this rather bloodthirsty execution, Troy looks at arch nemesis Sean Archer and shrugs in a manner of which Larry Fine would have been immensely proud.

THE DAMAGE

Sean Archer: an off-the-mark bullet through the shoulder intended for him, but which ends up in his son. Talk about a hole in two! He also undergoes: multiple prison fights; a bullet to the shoulder by his real daughter; major back and belly flops; a drop through a glass ceiling and a shard of glass into his side; an exploding speedboat blowing him onto shore; and several sucker-punches and body-hits with various metal pipes.

Castor Troy: a jet turbine slams him into Comaland; stabbed in the thigh by his fake daughter; his own glass-ceiling plummet and speedboat explosion; a pretty nasty and spiteful self-inflicted face-cutting; stabbed in leg with harpoon; and that same harpoon driven into his belly.

THE BAD GUY’S COMEUPPANCE

Only in Hollywood could Sean Archer and Castor Troy still be standing by film’s end, so when John Travolta finally meets his long-overdue harpoon, the audience gratefully lets out a collective sigh of relief, because based on the sheer amount of shoot-outs and chase scenes and explosions and broken glass already witnessed, they’ve been watching this film for, in John Woo time, the last nine years.

THE LINE

“I’d like to take his face…………………………………………………………………..off.”

“Dress up like Halloween, and ghouls will try to get in your pants.”

“DIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

THE VERDICT

In some ways, action cinema died a little on the day Face/Off was released in theaters all the way back in the realm of 1997. Not since then, in spite of all the giant robots and leather-clad dominatrix prostitutes and all the winking/nudging aimed at the camera, has an action film of such sheer gonzo appeal, massive entertainment value, and littered with career-high watermark performances hit theaters. Sadly, John Woo’s American career wouldn’t last much longer, as he would go on to make the critical and box-office disappointment Windtalkers (2002) before hightailing it back to his native China to make more serious-minded films.

Face/Off is bombastically stupid. But it’s also harmlessly and relentlessly entertaining. John Woo has thrown everything at the wall to see what sticks, and he does so with a praiseworthy Billy Mumphrey level of cockeyed optimism. The good news is...everything sticks. But there’s still one little niggling thought that has the potential to fester in the far corner of more learned action-film-fans’ minds whenever they sit down for an annual viewing. And it’s the notion that Face/Off's script had been knocking around Hollywood desks for years and years before it was finally greenlit…and at one point, instead of Cage and Travolta, it saw the potential first on-screen pairing of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. (Yeah, that slight quiver you just felt in your pants? That’s exactly what this column is all about.) What that signifies is that the importance of the casting for these two roles had been a major selling point since the minute this project caught someone’s eye, and even though taking Face/Off as we know it and implanting those two action megastars into either role, whether they were playing hero and then villain or villain and then hero, would have been the stuff of cinematic heart attack, the Face/Off that eventually came to be is just too good to sacrifice – for anything, or anyone.