DARKNESS RISING (2017)

Make a haunted house movie and I’m there. I can’t help it. Straight horror, horror/comedy; traditional or found footage. If it’s got ghosts, it’s got me. Put on that bed sheet, poke some holes, and scream at me. That’s all I want, and because of this I can be pretty forgiving. But the worst thing you can do — even worse than making a bad horror film — is making a boring one.

And that’s what Darkness Rising is: boring. And bland.

Even if it existed in a barren landscape void of any films about ghosts or the paranormal, Darkness Rising would still be pretty uninspired, but it’s kind of a shame that James Wan had to come along and reinvigorate the haunted house subgenre with his Insidious and The Conjuring series — films that weren’t just well made but legitimately frightening. Other lesser known filmmakers have followed in his footsteps: Mike Flanagan’s Oculus, Ouija: Origin of Evil, and his masterful Netflix miniseries The Haunting of Hill House, as well as André Øvredal’s The Autopsy of Jane Doe, are further examples of made by filmmakers who get and respect the genre. It’s been a good era for the ghost, and as such, when a minor movement finds prominence in the horror genre, other filmmakers are eager to throw down their hand and ride those coattails.

That can only explain why Darkness Rising is now a thing.

Darkness Rising is every haunted house movie, from the creepy-eyed demons to the fantastical events that prevent our (extremely irritating) characters from leaving that stupid house. The only positive to come out of this mess is a small appearance by Ted Raimi, who even in a very small part manages to show off some decent dramatic chops, doing much of the heavy lifting with his craggy face and soulful eyes. I’m serious! Good for you, Ted Raimi!

IFC Midnight has had a good run lately with its ghost-laden acquisitions: the aforementioned Autopsy of Jane Doe, A Dark Song, and The Devil’s Candy, etc. Darkness Rising doesn’t rank in comparison and is best forgotten — and it absolutely will be before the credits even roll.

FREAKY (2020)

The slasher sub-genre has been around for almost as long as the horror genre itself, with elements found as far back as 1920’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Ever since then, crops of filmmakers have been content to do one of two things with the slasher film: present a dependable, uncomplicated tale that relies on its simplistic foundations, or concoct a clever take on the concept that spins the sub-genre on its head. Halloween (1978) and Scream (1996) are two perfect examples of this dichotomy. The first took all the slasher elements that had existed at that time and finally planted them into an environment that most audiences could relate to – suburbia – whereas Scream, which gleefully embraced its Halloween inspirations, masterfully took all the elements that had existed by that time and blessed its characters with a working knowledge of how the sub-genre worked, theoretically making them savvier in the face of danger. Following its release, Scream was foretold to be the harbinger of the slasher flick’s ultimate demise. Because a film had come along that called out the tropes and pitfalls of the sub-genre, critics said there would be no going back to standard slasher films as we knew them. Thankfully, filmmakers went back anyway (and Scream wasn’t even the first to go full meta – see 1991’s, albeit terrible, There’s Nothing Out There), and though this new generation of slasher fodder may have been savvier, they still ultimately fell victim to the same pitfalls as before. Like many of their masked villains, slasher films had proven they will never truly die, with most of their future offerings eagerly going back to their roots of simplicity and watered-down mythology. (Ironically, enter 2018’s Halloween.)

Last year’s Freaky, directed by Happy Death Day’s Christopher Landon, is the latest twist on a well-worn concept, taking both its concept and its namesake from, of all things, Disney’s family-friendly Freaky Friday films (the remake which stars, ironically, Halloween’s Jamie Lee Curtis, and which is GREAT – YEAH, I SAID IT.). Landon’s dedication to the genre is well established by now, having written most of the Paranormal Activity sequels along with another similarly quirky horror-comedy, Scouts Guide to the Apocalypse (2015); those stationary-camera haunted condo movies aside, his body of work proves he understands the workable balance between horror and comedy, with his scripts never coming down too prominently on one side versus the other. Freaky, which is brimming with homages to slasher films of old, clearly takes its cues from the aforementioned Scream and Halloween, while also throwing in some Evil Dead, The Shining, and Friday the 13^th for good measure. (Enjoy the homage to that latter title while it lasts, too, because thanks to all the lawsuits the series is currently saturated with, Freaky may very well be the final slasher flick to show you the below words on a movie screen…)

Though Freaky isn’t as innovative as something like Scream or Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, its concept is a clever one, mashing up two utterly disparate genres to create what amounts to a solid, entertaining, bloody, funny, and genuinely touching contribution to the horror-comedy sub-genre…and believe me, that ain’t easy – just ask…well, most horror-comedies. Freaky also offers just enough buyable aspects to its plot that the circumstances under which high school teen Millie (Kathryn Newton, Supernatural) and the town of Blissfield’s very own mass murderer, the Blissfield Butcher (Vince Vaughn) end up switching bodies never gets too mired in its own mythology to the point where the plot overcomplicates itself. Once the body-swap happens, Millie, as now played by Vaughn, relies on her two best friends, Nyla (the forthcoming Ghostbusters: Afterlife’s Celeste O'Connor, giving off strong Olivia Cooke vibes) and Josh (Misha Osherovich, NOS4A2) to track down the Butcher, re-swap their bodies before the switch becomes permanent, and save the town from the Butcher’s Voorhees-esque massacre. (His mask is one fresh coat of paint and few air holes away from being Jason’s hockey mask.)

By the sheer nature of the story, even though Newton does most of the killing, she’s not given the opportunity to lean into the new personality of her Butcher character as much as Vaughn has to somehow embody a teenage girl dealing with this absurd conflict. To be clear, it’s not a fault of Newton’s performance and it’s a joy to see her exact bloody revenge on all the dicks who made her high school life hell, but one “swap” was always going to be more interesting and entertaining than the other, and with that comes Vaughn’s triumph. Freaky, somehow, offers enough situations for Vaughn to sidestep the surface-level silliness of what he’s doing (and don’t get me wrong – he’s very funny, especially whenever there’s a longshot of him running like “a girl”) to present some honest emotional moments in which Millie can finally communicate, for the first time ever, the pain of losing her father and the angst of struggling to know herself to those closest to her. In those same kinds of absurd movie moments where the audience cries over Tom Hanks and Wilson becoming separated at sea or an aging Elvis slowly dying following a battle with a soul-sucking mummy at a convalescent home, Freaky generates handfuls of moments where the audience is sincerely touched by Millie’s emotional awakening even while wrapped in Vaughn’s serial killer body. (And if you’ve ever wanted to see Vaughn lock lips with a teen boy, well…) Luckily, thanks to Vaughn’s previous work in darker genre stuff, like 1998’s Psycho remake or 1999’s Clay Pigeons, he’s also able to convincingly play a deranged and sinister serial killer, saving his best and bloodiest for his final scenes. It’s the best of both worlds, and he’s never been more fun to watch.

Given that Freaky exists in a post-pronouns world, it’s not unfair to say that audiences might be expecting to drown in the film’s “wokeness” agenda, generated by its body-swapping plot, but except for subtly touching hands with the concepts of gender, gender roles, and cross-sexuality, Freaky never perches itself on a soapbox to offer any heavy messages – not because it failed to, but because that was never its mission statement. The characters weren’t designed to experience alternate perspectives based solely on their new bodies of the opposite sex – it was more so Millie could realize she didn’t have to be wearing the body of a tall imposing man to discover her inner strength, and so the Butcher could realize that prey was much easier to come by when the predator wore an unassuming form…even if it became much harder to kill. This careful balance of silliness and sincere conversation is just as finely tuned as its balance between horror and comedy, making Freaky not just a genre highlight of 2020, but one of the best horror-comedies to come down the pike in quite some time.

[Reprinted from Daily Grindhouse.]

CREED II (2018)

2015’s Creed was a risky move, especially after Rocky creator and caretaker Sylvester Stallone had successfully resurrected his character ten years prior for Rocky Balboa to say goodbye and allow the series to retire with some dignity. As great of an ending as Rocky Balboa proved to be, Creed was an even greater reintroduction of the character to a new generation, finding an organic way to reboot the franchise without stripping it of its identity. And now, Creed’s own sequel has arrived, which exists on a very shaky premise: the son of fighter Apollo Creed versus the son of the fighter who killed him – events which unfold in 1985’s Rocky IV, the corniest sequel in the franchise.

Creed II ranks as the Rocky II of this new franchise – not nearly as good as the original, but good enough to stand on its own two feet and justify its existence. As a whole, the Rocky series maintains not because every film is blemish-free, but because of the series’ spirit, and what it represents. Creed II ably carries forth with that spirit, as Adonis Creed’s (Michael B. Jordan) family grows, causing the fighter to redefine exactly what it is he’s fighting for. Structurally, the events of Creed II’s story feel a little more predictable: you can forecast the various conflicts that will inevitably arise before they actually do. By now, the franchise has a very familiar pattern: dream, train, fight, lose, wallow, thrive, train, and win (or lose). Creed was unique enough to feel like a fresh take on a standard sports movie. Creed II, meanwhile, is certainly well made, but not enough that it overcomes that familiarity.

What’s lacking the most in this entry is the emotional connection the audience shares with its characters. That’s not to say that Creed II lacks heart, because that’s not at all the case — even the worst Rocky sequels had heart — but there’s nothing here that compares to, say, Rocky railing against a boxing commission denying his desire for one last fight, or a training montage that juxtaposes Adonis Creed running down Philly streets with Rocky in a hospital room receiving chemotherapy. (A deleted scene included on the Blu-ray shows Rocky giving a eulogy at the funeral of fellow fighter Spider Rico, whose character dates back to 1976’s Rocky, which would’ve beefed up Creed II’s emotional core considerably.)

Every Rocky entry has done what so few mainstream movies have been able to do: transcend being movies and feel like events. As such, a Rocky movie, and now, a Creed movie, has to feel big. It has to recognize that its audience hasn’t just come for the story, but for the presentation of that story, and they know that said experience demands the inclusion of certain series iconography. The city of Philadelphia, or the front porch of Rocky’s modest row home, or even his crooked fedora—all these little things defined what a Rocky movie was. Director Steven Caple Jr. (a colleague of Creed director Ryan Coogler, who recommended him for the helm after moving on to Black Panther) recognizes this as well, just as we recognize that any Rocky movie has to feel cinematic. As Ivan Drago (a returning Dolph Lundgren) and his fighter son Viktor (Florian Munteanu) stand on the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum and look on in amusement as passersby take photos with the Rocky statue, or do the famous run up the stairs, Caple is banking on the audience feeling territorial toward Philadelphia, the home of Rocky, the ultimate underdog. Though the level of villainy is far down compared to Rocky IV, we know that the Dragos are essentially the villains, and when the camera pans around to capture them from the back as they look out over the city they hope to dominate, those chills you’re feeling are very real. That’s why we’re here.

As expected by now, Creed II offers an array of excellent performances, from Jordan’s Adonis to Stallone’s weathered Rocky, even to an understated but evocative take on Ivan Drago by Lundgren, who except for Stallone-backed projects like The Expendables franchise has been out of the mainstream limelight for twenty years. The aging action star has made a career playing the hero in direct-to-video action movies, so to see him getting the chance to act instead of perform is a rare treat. Wisely, Creed II uses him sparingly and keeps his dialogue at a minimum (half of which is Russian), maintaining Rocky IV’s mythical qualities of Ivan Drago’s Frankensteinian persona. If a Rocky/Creed fan were to have mockingly predicted the plot of Creed II knowing that Stallone would be writing it, what eventually came to pass wouldn’t have been that far off. (Jokes abound that Creed III will see Adonis fighting the son of Clubber Lang.) But Stallone, who continues to surprise in the franchise he knows better than anyone else, has helped usher in one more respectable entry in the face of a gimmicky plot.

Creed II boasts a very solid, stable, and bright image, and contains the kind of disciplined and specific cinematography essayed in the previous movie, only Caple Jr. embraces the glitz and flashiness of the final throwdown between Adonis and Viktor. Wonderfully complementing this visual component is the musical score by returning Swedish composer Ludwig Göransson, who revisits some of his earlier themes (which were a spin on those by original composer Bill Conti) to create a score that is cinematically stirring, but peppered with hip-hop influences in ways that never feel exploitative or commercial.

Creed II is a welcome addition to the series, and, in spite of Stallone’s threat to retire the character again (this time for good), it probably won’t be the last word on Adonis Creed. Here’s hoping that Creed director Ryan Coogler returns to helm the third (and final?) entry and complete his intended trilogy.

CREED (2015)

Early reaction to the announcement of Creed, described more as a spin-off than a sequel to the long-running Rocky franchise, was understandably cynical. After all, Rocky creator and caretaker Sylvester Stallone had resurrected the character ten years previous, after several entries showcasing diminishing returns, to say goodbye to the most enduring character of his career—and in a final sequel that would hopefully provide some damage control to the inherent silliness the Rocky franchise had accumulated. Rocky Balboa was a fitting end to a character’s thirty year saga which saw the punchy boxer who stole America’s hearts fight from the very bottom to the very top, and then back down again. But above all else, it was just a fine film, with unexpected melancholy, beauty, and that Capra-esque goodness in which the character of Rocky Balboa has been ensconced since the first time he stepped into the ring. A lot of this trepidation following Creed’s announcement was because of its possible undoing of such a satisfying conclusion to one of cinema’s most iconic characters. Fans of the series had long seen just how wrong sequels can go, and because Rocky Balboa felt like lightning, it was unlikely that same kind of lightning would strike twice with another risky entry. 

As the character of Rocky Balboa has done time and time again, we were once again very very surprised by the underdog we never saw coming.

From the duo behind 2013’s wrenching Fruitvale Station, writer/director Ryan Coogler and superstar-in-training Michael B. Jordan, comes the best entry in the Rocky franchise since the 1976 original—one that meets the beauty and drive of Rocky Balboa in every way, but also exceeds it. Creed contains real power, contained in every single piece of construct, from the unexpectedly emotional performances and sequences—including the most poignant and deeply moving training montage yet in a Rocky film—to the non-stop, unbroken fighting scenes in the ring.

Originally sold more as a spin-off—a soft reboot of sorts, which is a move many studios are going for these days, in case you haven’t noticed—fans of the franchise will be relieved to know that Creed is a Rocky movie through and through, despite being the first Rocky film not written and directed by Stallone. Though Jordan’s namesake is the lead character, and Stallone’s boxer-cum-trainer Rocky Balboa has transitioned to supporting role, nothing about Creed is ever so foreign and different that it feels as if Rocky is existing in a strange alternate film universe. If there is any film franchise that has a feeling, it’s Rocky, and if there’s ever been a sequel/reboot/spin-off that so ably captured that same feeling, it’s Creed. Even if Rocky’s story as a boxer looking to prove his worth may have come to a satisfying end, Creed proved that, though his story as the headliner and focus may be done, his life has continued outside of that limelight, and there was still a story to tell—still with conflicts for him to overcome.

One of the most rewarding things about Creed is its ability to surprise. A more-than-spiritual Rocky 7 of sorts, it not only ably beats the sequel curse, but manages to neutralize and embrace the very specific and very silly sequel that has given Creed its main conflict. Rocky IV, aka America: The Movie, has long since been considered one of the more favored Rocky movies—not because it’s good in the same sense that the original was (because ha ha, no way in hell), but because it filtered the spirit of Rocky through a heightened and cartoony conflict and achieved pure lowest-common denominator status. It was a film filled with nonstop training montages, “Eye of the Tiger,” Christmas!, and Dolph Lundgren as a Frankenstein’s monosyllabic monster Soviet boxer Ivan Drago. Rocky IV is iconic, beloved, and very stupid. Which is what makes Creed even more of a surprise. Newer audiences unaware of previous Rocky films, including Rocky IV, might not know that the references made to Johnson’s father, Apollo Creed, dying in the ring, don’t play out in their imaginations the same way they played out on theater screens in 1985. Newer audiences might picture a long, drawn out, gritty, bloody, emotionally wrenching sequence which sees Apollo dying before horrified audiences, but what actually happened—Apollo dancing around on a levitating stage with James Brown and mascots dressed as Uncle Sam, pretty much tiring himself out before he gets in the ring to be instantly killed—is, again, much stupider. That Creed manages to build such a poignant conflict with such emotional weight off such a stupid development in the Rocky series was nothing anyone could have ever seen coming—let alone it being something to celebrate.

And from there the surprises continue: Michael B. Jordan’s intimidating physical form and his dedication to the role, Stallone’s devastating turn as an aged Rocky fighting a battle of his own—in a performance even his most ardent fans didn’t think he was capable of at this point in his career—and most effective, that we can leave a theater as Creed’s closing credits roll on screen, not just having loved what we’d witnessed for the previous two hours, but billowing with that exhilarating reminder of why we love movies in the first place.

For the last ten years, studios have been looking to properties they own in an effort to resurrect them for new audiences. Though many of these attempts have resulted in underwhelming efforts, Warner Bros. continues to prove they are the king at breathing new life into old ideas, resurrecting dormant franchises like Batman, Mad Max, and now, Rocky. Creed's success with both critics and audiences ensured that Adonis Johnson and Rocky Balboa would return. But in the same way Creed successfully embodied the Rocky spirit, critics and audiences held out hope that future installments would have the humility to look past the dollar signs and avoid the same mistakes that the elder Rocky franchise had made. 

THREE O'CLOCK HIGH (1987)

Three O’Clock High is one of those broad, high-concept, and innocent teen films that don’t get made very often. Regarding its making, director Phil Joanou was quick to say that he was very aware of John Hughs’ mark on the high school teen comedy and that he very purposely steered the execution of Three O’Clock High in a different and less grounded direction. Despite that (and he does — I’m not about to call him a liar), Three O’Clock High shares the broadness, innocence, and easily communicated conflicts of Hughs’ films.

A bully wants to beat up another student.

That’s it. That’s the conflict. There is no deeper hidden meaning (unless you’re really reaching). Punchee-to-be Jerry Mitchell doesn’t go on a day of self-discovery as he awaits his fate. He’s the same character at the end of the day (okay, perhaps braver) than he was when he first woke up late that morning. One might think this is a shortcoming of Three O’Clock High, but on the contrary: the simplicity is the film’s greatest strength.

It’s also a wonderful product of its time. I don’t think it’s a spoiler alert to say that in this lovable, lighthearted teen comedy that Jerry punches the bully back at the end and wins the day, and that’s what makes it so unique: the message IS “seriously, use violence to solve your problems.”

Even the PRINCIPAL (John P. Ryan, in a rare role where he’s not killing someone in a Cannon film) urges Jerry to punch the bully.

A SCHOOL OFFICIAL IS URGING VIOLENCE.

Think that teen-oriented message would ever make the final cut today?

Much of the comedy on display is of the timeless sort, with some gags harking back to the earliest days of Chaplin (the library sequence is one of my new favorite things), and Casey Siemaszko (Back to the Future) plays a very likeable, every-day type of kid who’s just as confused as the audience is as to why Buddy the bully (Richard Tyson, the evil dad from Kindergarten Cop) has singled him out.

Three O’Clock High is just a fun film, and not one that’s well known, likely getting lost in all the adoration of John Hughes’ output. It’s light, easy, and breezy fare, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Not every high school teen flick needs to have kids at detention spilling their guts, tears, and greatest fears. Sometimes they just have to punch the bully and get the car home before Mom and Dad get back from vacation. Take the opportunity to get to know the trials and tribulations of student school store manager Jerry Mitchell and the punch that was heard around the world.

ASSASSINATION (1987)

When it comes to an actress's legacy, I don't think there's ever been anyone as maligned as Jill Ireland. She might even be less popular than Talia Shire (who, if we're being honest, suffered because of the parts she played, not the performances she gave). The real-life spouse of Charles Bronson, Ireland and the celebrated action icon appeared together in sixteen films (seventeen if we count her cameo in Lola), the first being 1968's Villa Rides. Not necessarily one who married an actor and then became an actress, she'd already worked fairly steadily in film and television for more than a decade before meeting Bronson on the set of 1967's The Great Escape. However, out of politeness, it's not commonly discussed that it was through Bronson's stipulation for many of his films that if the studio/director/producer wanted him, they had to have her, too. This was likely a chagrin for said filmmakers, being that, well, Jill Ireland was kind of a lousy actress.

Sure, it's all subjective and it's all just one person's opinion. But, after marrying Bronson in 1968, she made seventeen more films. Fifteen of them were Bronson pics. Their last was 1987's Assassination, considered to be the worst offender of the Bronson/Ireland pairing.

Despite the involvement of both Bronson and Cannon Films, Assassination is a surprisingly light-hearted offering from a pair of collaborators more well known for violent, stark, "adult," and at times even ugly films. Calling it a screwball comedy would be going too far, but there's a definite It Happened One Night vibe, even maintaining the "aristocracy meets working class" aesthetic, but Assassination swaps the snappy dialogue and sexual tension for rocket launchers and a lunatic plot, which sees Bronson's secret service agent single-handedly taking on an unending squad of hitmen bent on taking out the First Lady, who may or may not have been sent by the President himself. (In 1987, this was considered a wacky plot. These days...)

Assassination is oddly dated in certain aspects--beyond the frizzy hair of every female lead, that is. The most glaring example of this is the character played by Jan Gan Boyd, an Asian actress saddled with the hilariously offensive character name Charlie Chang, who spends most of the film begging Bronson to sleep with her. Over and over. In every exchange the characters share on screen, it involves the request that Bronson take her home and give her the ol' heave-ho (which he does). For someone like Bronson, who was probably the only person on Planet Earth to suffer from both superiority and inferiority complexes simultaneously, this attractive woman half his age pleading for sex was likely a machination on behalf of the filmmakers to coax Bronson into signing on to the film. (No joke: Bronson suffered a real-life lack of confidence, to the point where he'd refuse to work with actors who were taller than him.) Take all that, add the press conference scene where a reporter flat-out asks the First Lady if the President was responsible for giving her that black eye, which she'd actually suffered during a botched assassination attempt, and you've got a weirdly inappropriate action film which, if remade today, would have to be gutted and rebuilt from the ground up to avoid storms of political incorrectness.

There's nothing the least bit realistic about Assassination's conflict, and even though Bronson and Ireland were real-life husband and wife, their chemistry isn't anything to write home about, but when the film involves scenes of Bronson firing rocket launchers at fleeing motorcyclists or into entire barns to take out one dude, it's really hard to care about Assassination's shortcomings. It's a fun, light, Bronson-having Cannon film that will undoubtedly entertain the legions of fans the craggy-faced superstar left behind following his death in 2003.

Assassination is not exactly bottom-barrel Bronson, but it's nowhere near his most celebrated, either artistically (Walter Hill's Hard Times) or ironically (Michael Winner's masterpiece Death Wish 3). Still, it's a very watchable and consistently entertaining nonsensical romp with some decent stunt work and a healthy amount of casualties, but most importantly, it's Bronson doing what Bronson does best: kill men, make wry comments, and be effortlessly bad-ass while wearing a suit.

SKIN TRADE (2015)

Film fans are very discerning, and very segmented, which is something that can be as advantageous as it can be detrimental. But the most important thing these film fans need to realize, or maintain, is that there’s a difference between a film being good in general, and a film being good for what it is. It’s when one comes to define what “it” means that things can get complicated.

Skin Trade is one of the better limited-release/direct-to-video actioners starring Dolph Lundgren who in the course of ninety minutes kills a LOT of men. Much like his character of Andrew Scott in the original Universal Soldier, Mr. Lundgren, too, must be part machine, as Skin Trade marks his seventh feature film in the last two years. (He also somehow managed to fit in an entire season of a television show.) While Lundgren has built himself a steady and loyal fan-base over the years (your reviewer counts himself as one), and except for nostalgia, it’s sometimes tempting to ask why: simply put, the busy action icon’s output lacks, how shall we put this…consistency. At least, not in the positive sense. Though it may be painful to say, a large portion of Dolph’s post-Rocky IV career is inundated with forgettable titles destined for video store shelves (and in the post-millennium, the Redbox). While it might be relieving for the curious to report that Skin Trade is Dolph’s best action vehicle, as a lead, in quite a while, let’s also keep in mind what we’re utilizing as a basis for comparison. Let’s also discuss how accidentally hilarious so much of it plays out.

Dolph plays New Jersey detective named Nick Cassidy, who one night on the docks of Newark kills the son of Serbian crime boss Viktor Dragovic (Ron Perlman) and inadvertently invites the wrath of the Dragovic family down upon him, leading to the explosive deaths of his wife and daughter. Now on the run in Thailand, he is pursued by Thai detective Tony Vitayakui (Tony Jaa, in his shaky English-language debut), who believes Nick is responsible for the death of his partner. Though initially at odds (meaning, violence is committed upon each other), they begin to work together in an effort to bring down Dragovic for good and put an end to his human trafficking operation. All during this, Nick is relentlessly pursued by FBI Agent Eddie Reed (Michael Jai White), who wants to take Nick down – at any cost.

When your film stars Dolph Lundgren, Tony Jaa, Michael Jai White, and Robocop himself, Peter Weller, let’s just say it’s clear the filmmakers are attempting to appeal to a certain faction of their potential audience – an audience that wants to see brutal violence, impressive stunts, and face-smashing fight choreography, all committed by men they have come to idolize. It’s an audience who wants to see Lundgren land cannon-like blows upon his enemies, Jaa take out a room full of men with nothing more than his belt, and Jai White make every living breathing man on Planet Earth feel like an utter waste of gooey skin. In that regard, Skin Trade is massively entertaining. Whether violent shootouts or man-on-man fisticuffs, every icon on the marquee shares a scene with the other, and does what they do best. Lundgren is brute force, Jaa defies every natural biological and physical law, and Jai White…well, god damn, you shit your pants just looking at him. Every confrontation is more thrilling and well-executed than the previous, and it’s during these moments that you won’t be questioning why you’re watching the film in the first place. But while those things aren’t occurring…

Skin Trade first falters with its script, which comes dangerously close to bordering on parody. The dialogue spewed by our characters at no point comes close to realistic and often results in unexpected laughs. Dragovic’s son grasping an MP5 and rushing into a shoot-out while bellowing “I AM MY FATHER’S SON!” only to be immediately cut down is the stuff of Zucker, Zucker, and Abrahams. Lundgren stepping into the interrogation room and staring Dragovic hard in the eye, only to throw down a file folder and demand, “How do you sleep at night?” ain’t helping. But perhaps the best belongs to the scene in which Dolph lies near comatose in a hospital bed following the explosive attack that stole the lives of his wife and daughter. Lundgren, his face half-bandaged, looks up at Costello (Weller), his superior, and asks if his wife and daughter survived the attack. Costello looks down, stoically, emotionally, and shakes his head, confirming Dolph’s worst nightmare…leaving Jai White’s Reed to step up and unnecessarily say, “Your wife and daughter are dead.”

Wha... HE KNOWS. COSTELLO JUST DID THE SAD HEAD SHAKE THING.

The interaction between many of the character seems half-baked, as if written by an automaton trying to mimic human behavior. Cassidy comes home to his teenage daughter and awkwardly ruffles her hair, as if she were instead his ten-year-old so, before she stands up and recites Shakespeare by heart. Dolph, a father in real life to two beautiful teenage daughters, for some reason seems entirely out of his element interacting with who is supposed to be his child, and appears to want the scene over as soon as possible. Once this discomfort ceases, Cassidy’s attractive wife reminds him that it’s actually their anniversary, which he has completely forgotten; watch as she grins big and peels off her robe to reveal a fiery red negligee to pleasure him with, anyway. Anniversary-schmanniversary – let’s bang!

Weller and Perlman appear in very limited capacities, with the latter showing up only during the first act and the last ten minutes, and the former in two scenes in which he's saddled with an awful lot of unconvincing exposition. Weller, even though he's playing a traditional character, seems rather uncomfortable with what he's doing - and this is a guy who once masturbated a giant bug-typewriter on screen. Based on Perlman's performance, it's evident he assumed the film would hardly be seen and didn't expect a label as prominent and respected as Magnet/Magnolia to secure distribution, because except for trying on a lazy Russian accent, he can barely be bothered to appear present. He's capable of far better, which he's already proven with his six-season run on Sons of Anarchy (on which he worked under the eye of director Weller for several episodes).

The direction by Ekachai Uekrongtham, too, shows the kind of dangerous confidence expressed by the overly confident. Editing choices meant to be shocking and unorthodox simply come across as confusing, even disorienting at times. Scenes will begin with the unmistakable feeling that the audience didn't arrive for them in time, and are interrupting something that’s long been in progress. Other scenes will include spliced single shots of characters looking forlornly down at the ground or off into the distance for no real reason, other than to invoke reactions of, “Boy, is HE sad!” Much like national public radio, at times it feels like Skin Trade contains a lot of dead air, leaving it feeling awkward and unfinished.

Perhaps the most telling that Skin Trade was going more for of an Expendables-like casting extravaganza is confirmed by its half-baked ending, which less seems to be promising a sequel and more seems to be suggesting that because the bad guys are dead, and the good guys have no one left to blow away with shotguns or violently pummel about the body, there’s really no reason for the film to keep happening. The last lingering conflict that needs to be resolved is addressed in a casual voice over tantamount to, "Yeah, I'll get to it."

Ultimately, everything above is for naught. It's window dressing. Details. To potential audience members of Skin Trade, look at the poster. Look at those names. Lundgren. Jaa. Jai White. Does that appeal to you? Do you want to see these guys share the screen and commit bloody pain against each other? Do you want to witness these demigods lay to waste dozens of bad guys? Then at the very least, you’ll have a great time.

If you’re intrigued by Skin Trade for any other reason, then I don’t know how you sleep at night.