So whatever you’re gonna do, quit flapping your gums and do it. But when you come, boy, you come sharp. Because you make a mistake, I’m gonna cut your heart out.
A band of army veterans gather at the local VFW. In stumbles a teenage girl with a load of drugs she’s stolen from a local gang-leader. Hot on her heels is an army of psychopaths. And we’ve got a standoff. I mean, as premises go, it’s a solid one; the inspirations and influences are obvious from the jump, from Assault on Precinct 17 to The Warriors to Night of the Living Dead. The draw here is the cast, populated entirely by a crew of wiley old character actors. Stephen Lang leads the pack as the hard-as-nails bartender. In support, there’s William Sadler, George Wendt, Fred Williamson, Martin “Sweep the leg” Kove and David Patrick “Warriors come out and play” Kelly. I mean, yeah, I’ll watch those guys murder leather-clad punks all day every day, right? Well, the movie has some serious problems, but, yeah, the reasons it works as well as it does mostly flow from the cast. Lang, always a force of nature, is a wonder; he’s the most serious of the veterans and the one who takes command once things start to turn deadly; and he’s the one who discovers he still has a knack for ultraviolence and, more than that, he’s kind of getting his taste for it back. At a certain point, he kind of takes a turn and you realize that he’s enjoying himself more than he has in years. None of the other veterans has as strong a character arc, but the script is careful to let each of them have a cheesy moment or two. Sierra McCormack is actually very good as the teenage girl who kicks everything off; she has one of only a handful of serious scenes in the film, a quiet, painful conversation between her character, Lizard, and Lang’s character. Travis Hammer is very good as the main villain, the leader of the drug gang that is after Lizard. Josh Ethier isn’t in the movie enough as Tank, a massive sidekick to the villain; he embodies violence just in the way he moves. The best action scene in the film is also one of the simplest, a scene where Tank just bursts into the VFW bar all alone and proceeds to just kick the ass of everyone in the room while taking a tremendous amount of damage before he’s even fazed by it.
That does bring me to the movie’s biggest problem, however, which is the action/violence scenes. Begos is definitely trying to evoke the retro feel of eighties B-movies and sometimes it works. The retron synth-based score by Steve Moore is a real highlight of the movie. But, while the intense use of colored lighting and darkness creates atmosphere, it really works against the action scenes. Begos does not use the camera well in these scenes (though, again, this may be intentional) and the majority of the fight scenes are just messy and it’s nearly impossible to even tell who is who sometimes. This works against the gore as well; the movie clearly used a lot of practical effects, but practical effects aren’t nearly as cool when you hide them behind blurry shots and chaos. As well, the film doesn’t go as far as it could in terms of thematics. The set-up of these old soldiers fighting the young, leather-clad punks is obviously thematic and every once in a while, the movie will take a nod to this. There are a couple of very brief scenes where Lang and Hammer actually trade dialogue and it made me wish the movie had found a way, a la Die Hard’s walkie-talkie, to let the two characters talk to each other more, because the movie was at its smartest in those scenes. Hammer has a great line where he responds to Lang calling him a murderer by reminding him that, by its very definition, a VFW outpost is a structure built on murder and violence. I could have used more of that kind of thing.
Still, I had fun with this movie. It’s worth a watch for Lang’s performance alone and, while most of the other characters aren’t as well-rounded and interesting as his character is, it’s still fun to see a passel of old-school character actors just hanging out together. I was hopeful that this would be a movie I could love, but I have to settle for just liking it most of the time. Which isn’t bad or anything, just not as good as it could have been. Begos still has some things to learn, but don’t we all? 3 stars.
tl;dr – high-concept action-horror features a fun ensemble of character actors, a brilliant lead performance and dark atmosphere; the visuals aren’t great unfortunately. 3 stars.