Lethal Force

Director: Alvin Ecarma

Plot: When wealthy Gangster – Jack comes home to find that his wife and son have been kidnapped by a ruthless mad-man who seeks revenge against the man who shot him. Jack must betray his best friend/hitman– Savitch, in order to restore what’s left of his family.

Review: When taking on an amateur/low budget film I try not to pick at its obvious flaws like effects, props, acting and settings. Although those are pretty much the elements of a movie if you exclude the storyline. So in this review I’m going to attempt to be as unbiased as possible. To prepare myself for the movie I watched director - Alvin Ecarma’s short movies. Well two I’d saw would be short movies; the dog’s cyst is pretty much a short clip of the director filming his pet dog. Where as later movies did show a vast improvement.

I have to admit I was very intrigued when reading the blurb on the back cover of the DVD, I can’t remember the exact quote but it runs along these lines “The movie’s like Quentin Tarantino & Robert Rodridgez had a conversation with Kevin Smith & Dr. Evil”, I’m quite a fan those directors so it has really given me high hopes for the movie, but does it deliver the goods?

It does, to its aimed audience. This film falls into the category of those entire classic so good it’s bad 70’s Ghetto-American kung fu flicks, although it’s set in modern day.

The movie takes the opportunity add in a spoof of John Woo’s classic ‘A Better Tomorrow’, mainly the friendship between these brothers-in-arms, although by the way it was filmed and with the background music it gives you more of a “Broke back Mountain” feel. Yikes! I do admit it was a good spoof it included the most memorable moments, Chow lighting a cigarette with the burning note etc. Cash Flagg Jr.’s looks surprisingly resemble A Better Tomorrow star Waise Lee, although his soft spoken voice just rings “Steven Seagull” in my mind, sorry mate.

I liked the storyline, it sounds simple but I’ve not seen it used in many movies. Gangster who betrays his best friend/person hitman in order to save his son from the evil Mal Locke and his many masked goons! I must say I thought the mask goons were great, just the mysterious/uneasy look around them, it was great.

The movie has some great gags anything from Savitch’s 2 dozen kicks in the air from the beginning or the kid’s terrible aim at the end of the movie.

The last half of the movie really slips down into the B-Movie Horror Genre with some gruesome torture scenes, some true 70’s B-Movie gore fest!

Final thoughts, a great effort from cult film-maker Alvin Ecarma!

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.0