PRESSURE POINT
REVIEW DATE: 12:28:9:9Brain . . . throbbing. Stomach . . . clenching. Genre . . . burnout . . . nearing. Not much time. Must have . . . crappy action movie. Something so idiotic, so formulaic, that watching it would be like playing connect the dots with only 3 dots.
Must have . . . Steven Sagall.
But, I couldn't find any of his overly subtle crap. What did I do, you ask? Did I stop hoping? Did I give up? Did I pack it in and go watch King Kong Escapes?
Well . . . yes. Expect a review soon. But, after that, I found Pressure Point, a delicious piece of cheese with only 4 years of mold on it. It had everything I was looking for: a hero with an ethnic name, a plot spearheaded by a one-dimensional villain, a woman, explosions, car chases, helicopter chases, snowmobile chases! It was like getting a Steven Sagall movie without the Steven Sagall. Could things get any better?
Oh sweet Jesus, yes.
Within 2 minuets we find out we're in a bad spy movie. How do we know? Did you see the names of any of the Bonds in the credits? Well, there you go.
No, no, wait. That's a broad, sweeping generalization, and I hate those. But within 10 minuets Sebastian leaves his wife and kids to go kill an ambassador in Chile. So he's a spy. The guy playing Sebastian (we'll get to why I don't say his name in a moment) reads his lines with an air of detached boredom. And he's quite bald and a bit overweight, looking horribly miscast. Thus it is a Bad Spy Movie. Shall we move on?
So, Sebastian leaves his family (he's a kinder, gentler sort of spy) so he can go kill an American Ambassador to Chile. The method of death for tonight will be an exploding birthday candle set right on top of the Ambassador's cake. Let's see James Bond just try and top that. Of course, seeing the Ambassador crowded around the Birthday Cake of Doom with children under both arms makes Sebastian stop and think, Hmm . . . this might hurt innocent people. Finding a spark of conscience, he steals the candle, and runs for it.
Before he can get to far he turns to discover someone planted a bomb in the Ambassador's car. And it wasn't him. Okay, this is bad. After a lackluster snowmobile chase (who knew they could be lackluster?), he returns home . . . right into the arms of the FBI. Merry Christmas to them.
Now, you'll excuse me for being cynical, but isn't it the job of Sebastian's boss to assure that as few people as possible will be hurt in an operation? Or, if not, why doesn't Sebastian have freedom to decide when to kill? Why not just pop the guy while he's sleeping? Why blow him up at his birthday party? *sigh* Because it's in the script.
So he goes to jail, and there's a nice cascade of images about his trial and sentencing. Plus snippets from the 3 years he spends in the can. Pretty good stuff. It actually made me start to care about this poor bastard.
So he stews for 3 years. This time in the can has apparently helped his acting ability somewhat since, when his old boss Neil comes to chat, he does a nice job saying, "Fuck you" without saying, "Fuck you". (There's absolutely no profanity in this movie, FYI.) But, Neil gives Sebastian a chance to get out. If he'll do just one more job . . .
Well, Sebastian says he won't do it. Then, of course, he uses his handy, dandy spy tools (left by Neil inside Sebastian's daughter's teddy which he probably stole - the bastard) to break out of the worst maximum security prison in history. The prison has a total of 3 stupid guards (sans guns), no security cameras, and one phone line. The warden's name just has to be I. M. Stupid.
Out, Sebastian meets with Neil. Here's the job: there's a bunch of freaky militia people in New England who are getting in the government's craw. Take 'um out and freedom is yours. Sebastian excepts.
So off to New England to get a job with the militia's front company. When he arrives, he gets into a fight with some local boys. The sheriff (we'll just call her Love Interest) happens by and doesn't arrest Sebastian for assault and battery. Yes, it's a bad spy movie.
Sebastian gets the job because the script says he does. Then he skulks around the worksite, eventually finding out the militia's Evil Plot. The plan to drive a truck full of explosives up to the Congressional Office Building and send it bye, bye. Finding out he knows, they blow up his house.
Escaping because, well, he's the hero and all, Sebastian arrives at Bad Guy Central just in time to find out that Neil is involved in all this, too. Boy, never saw that one coming (*cough, cough*).
But, well, he's the hero and all. So, with the help of Sheriff Love Interest, Sebastian hijacks a FBI helicopter and off they go to Washington where, with cops hot on his heels, Sebastian manages to disarm the bomb with one whole second to spare. Oh the TENSION!
Finding Neil and One-Dimensional Villain's airplane, Sebastian blows them both to hell. As the movie closes, we see him hitchhike off into the sunset. The merciful end.
Is a critique even necessary? How about I just say that the above contains only half of the movie's plot holes? Will that do ya? No? *sigh* Okay.
Upon further examination I think Sebastian is only a good actor by virtue of the fact that he gets all the good lines. Everyone else (besides Neil, their scenes together are the only genuinely good moments here) is saddled with cliched, campy, or otherwise stupid dialogue which they read about as blandly as fourth graders read Hamlet.
Oh, but this might be a decent movie. Hell, it might even be a good movie. But it just insists on doing things to remind us that, yes, Virginia, this is a Bad Spy Movie. It won't destroy your sanity, it won't warp your reality and some parts might even get you interested. Those are, however, few and far between.
So, why don't I use the actor's names? Because, according to the IMDb, this movie doesn't exist. Simple as that. This would fit inside "Unknown Movies" category quite nicely. Paging Greywizard.
Gs (out of a possible five)
MOCK O' METER
