The Gratuitous B-Movie Column 5.18.08: Issue #14

Posted by Bryan Kristopowitz on 05.18.2008

"Dead Heist" (2007) and "Dragon Fighter" (2003)

The Gratuitous B-Movie Column Issue #14: "Dead Heist" (2007) and "Dragon Fighter" (2003)

Hello, everyone, and welcome to issue number fourteen of the internets movie review column that wants to see Howie Long and Brian Bosworth have a knife fight in a bowling alley in Dickens, Nebraska, The Gratuitous B-Movie Column, and I am your host, Bryan Kristopowitz. This issue, I take a look at the low budget zombie flick from 2007, "Dead Heist," and the Dean Cain starring sci-fi action flick, 2003's "Dragon Fighter."

Dead Heist



"Dead Heist" is one of those rare, mega low budget zombie action movies that manages to mostly succeed despite itself. Populated by no name actors and rap stars (like Big Daddy Kane and E-40, who I'm going to assume is a rapper because of the name) and directed by Bo Webb in his feature flick debut, "Dead Heist" tells the somewhat familiar story of different kinds of people, holed up in one place, surrounded by rampaging evil. On paper, the flick has no business being even moderately good because it just has too many things against it. But through obvious effort, pluck, a wicked fast running time and a charismatic cast (especially Big Daddy Kane), "Dead Heist" ends up being pretty decent. It's the modern mega low budget equivalent of John Carpenter's "Assault on Precinct 13," which in its day was a low budget action flick featuring cops and criminals holed up in a building surrounded by gang members who resemble zombies.

The flick stars D. J Naylor as Ackson, a reluctant gang member who wants to get out of the business and do something else. Ackson's boss, a man known as Hustle (E-40), initially refuses. Ackson knows too much about the operation, and Hustle figures that Ackson still owes him for giving him a job after getting out of prison. But, after some minor cajoling, Hustle tells Ackson he can leave the gang if he helps pull off one last, for the lack of a better word, operation. What that last operation/job is, Hustle won't reveal until the last minute, but Ackson has his boss' word: if he completes the job, whatever it is, he's free and clear of the gang.

Then there's Malcolm (Dominic L. Santana), a young man looking for something better than he's got. He's a low level member of Hustle's gang and is tired of selling drugs on street corners for apparently very little money. He wants to make one "big score" that'll move him away from the corners and into an "easier" life. With the help (well, more like advice) of his imprisoned uncle Arthur (Charlie Lucas), Malcolm decides that the best way to get out of his current life is to rob a bank. With the help of fellow low level gang members Ski (Brandon Hardin), Trey (Michael Braxton), and Bone (Chris Bailey) (I think there was another guy but I can't remember who it is), they eventually get the blessing of Hustle to rob the bank. Hustle even gives them the necessary weaponry to pull off the job, including a bit of extra help.

You can see where this is going, right?

So Ackson, Malcolm, Ski, and the rest go to a little dinky town on the outskirts of Miami to plan the robbery. After some hilarious, profanity laced arguing, Ackson takes charge of the operation and tells everyone that they're going to wait at least a day before going through with it. They're going to have to do some recon work beforehand, as well, which Ackson volunteers for. So Ackson goes to the bank to "open an account." Little does he know that his cohorts are super antsy and can't wait another day and decide to go right that second and rob the bank.

The robbery doesn't go well, as Malcolm, Ski, and the rest of the crew end up shooting a local sheriff's deputy and a bank security guard and taking another sheriff's deputy, Kate (as played by Traci Dinwiddie, also known as T-Love) before getting trapped in the bank when the rest of the town's cops show up and surround the place. It looks like a long, drawn out stand off is about to ensue. The cops try to negotiate, telling the robbers that as long as they let the hostages go and leave the money inside they can walk away scott free. Ski and the rest don't approve of that idea because, hey, they want to keep the money (Ackson just wants to get out alive. The whole thing has gone patootie and he has no intention of getting blown away by potentially trigger happy cops likely out for revenge). It's all just a big mess. And it's about to become an even bigger mess when something happens no one, either inside or outside the bank, could have possibly seen coming.

Freaking zombies.

Brandon Hardin is good as Ski, the defacto new head of the robbery crew. He's got a decent enough screen presence and he can whip out his lines with abandon. His essential nemesis, Ackson, as played by D.J. Taylor, isn't as good as Hardin when it comes to line reading (he comes off as a bit of a jagoff at times), but he makes up for it in the end in the big zombie fighting scenes. Santana, Braxton, and Bailey all do okay for themselves throughout. They're good enough supporting players and they never look all that bad. Traci "T-Love" Dinwiddie, though, is just passable as Kate the deputy sheriff. She has barely an screen presence and just isn't that interesting.

Big Daddy Kane, as Hunter, a pseudo survivalist and zombie hunter who explains the origins of the zombie menace and how to kill them, is just outstanding. He just looks like the kind of guy who could take on fifteen angry undead killers at a time with only a knife and a gun and not break much of a sweat doing it. It would have been great if we got more of his Hunter character, but maybe they're saving that for a sequel. And E-40 is freaking hilarious as Hustle the gang boss. The man can string together f-words like a pro, and, most importantly, he has a complete and total inability to be boring. His best scene is the "porno" sequence, which is just brilliant (watch the flick and see).

Now, the flick does have its problems. While the zombies are as brutal as any low budget zombie movie zombie can be, they're just not that interesting to look at (no traditional zombie make up here, most likely a victim of the flick's low budget). There isn't much in the way of gore (although we do get a nice head shot effect towards the end of the flick), and there are moments where they forgot to add in muzzle flashes for the guns, which ends up making one particular scene look ridiculous instead of thrilling. But, in totality, the flick's flaws don't outweigh the flick's good stuff, which is often the only thing that matters in the world of low budget movies.

"Dead Heist" is definitely worth a look.

So what do we have here? People getting lost in the middle of nowhere, a woman's shoe, a guy investigating stuff over the opening credits, jungle fever, a red Sharpie marker, a fat Vin Diesel look alike, a disco ball at a strip club, gratuitous loud mouthed fat guy, gratuitous dice playing, gratuitous drug dealing, gratuitous old guy, french fry making, gratuitous money laundering, gratuitous music recording, gratuitous interracial hot lesbo porno making, a guy with a missing index finger, an old fat white guy, knife shopping, gratuitous gun cocking, gratuitous potential gay preacher bank manager, a fat woman bank teller, vault opening, gratuitous bags of money, gratuitous bricks of money, shotgun blast to the chest, shotgun blast to the shoulder, negotiating with the cops, gratuitous Big Daddy Kane suiting up in his zombie killing gear, gratuitous montage of zombies falling out of hiding places, neck ripping, washing the blood off the driver's side window at the gas station, robbing a convenience store, stealing an energy drink, arm eating, gratuitous zombie massacre with gun with no muzzle flashes, gratuitous zombie origin story, looking at a woman's ass, Bible reading, door checking, attempted rape, blood smearing, a nifty looking head shot, a great elevator suspense scene, gratuitous final zombie massacre, gratuitous moment where suddenly everyone is a Navy SEAL knife fighter, a hidden arm knife, Kim Richards, and walking down the road.

Best lines: "We are so lost," "What, is he on crack?," "Show the pussy!," "Take it all off. I don't need all that shit!," "Is this top shelf?," "You've got some serious issues, man," "Brush your teeth, man, your breath stinks," "Yo, man, when the nigga coming through?," "Bullshit, nigga, I'm eating!," "Never heard of a business lunch?," "That was beautiful, dog. It sounded just like an after school special," "What's up pimp?," "I'm not a lesbian, motherfucker! I like dick, too!," "Dog, this is getting complicated," "Maybe you're under the impression that I give a fuck what you think," "Oh, again with the insults!," "Dog, he just took your plan, bent you over, and fucked you in the ass with it," "Nice knife," "Oh, Jesus, please give me through this," "Oh, shit, man, what the fuck do we do now?," "Yeah, that's Tom," "Goddamit, you just killed him like that!," "We're losing the light," "These niggas fucked all this shit up," "This place wreaks of death. If you had a conscience you'd be sick, too," "So, please, get the fuck out of my face with that bullshit, bitch!," "I like your courage, lady," "That's a dope ass outfit, dog," "I guess you picked the wrong night to rob a bank," "I'm trying to find an upside to this bullshit," "Hey, guys, have you ever considered the teachings of Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam? There is only one god, Allah. His respect is everlasting," "Well, this is weird," "No disrespect," "Later, brother," "Oh, fuck," "A bad ass like me don't need no luck," "Shin guards?," "You sonofabitch! I am not an acceptable loss!," "Brenda," and "Now the sun decides to rise."

Rating: 8.0/10

Dragon Fighter



"Dragon Fighter" stars Dean Cain as Captain David Carver, the new head of security of the super secret underground lab smack dab in the middle of nowhere, California, that's engaged in some weird beard cloning experiments that may or may not be on the up and up (well, let's face, when was the last time you saw a sci-fi action movie featuring scientists doing good and worthwhile research that doesn't end up killing a whole bunch of people and put the world at large in jeopardy? Yeah, I can't think of one either). The lab is run by the shifty looking Dr. Ian Drackovitch (Robert Zachar), who doesn't tell anyone what the next big hooha cloning experiment is really all about until it's too late to ask any really good questions like "Why the hell are we even doing this shit?" and "What are you, Drackovitch, an idiot?" By the time Carver and everyone else figures out what's really going on, it becomes a race against time to get the hell out of the super secret underground lab before they're all killed by the good doctor's brand new, ground breaking, incredibly stupid cloning experiment.

So what exactly is Drackovitch cloning?

A freaking dragon.

Yeah, that's right, a freaking "real life," fire breathing flying dragon.

The best part about "Dragon Fighter," besides Cain's outstanding performance as Captain Carver, is the dragon monster. Yeah, the dragon is created via CGI, but unlike other low budget sci-fi action movies, "Dragon Fighter" actually has a CGI monster that looks like a finished special effect. There isn't any of that low rent, way too bright or too dull early Playstation graphics hooey going on here like in plenty of other similar movies (like dang near every Sci Fi Channel monster movie ever made). I mean, yeah, the flick uses the same "pissed off dragon walking through the hallways looking to set someone on fire and then eat them" scene like ten times, but, again, the dragon looks like it almost could be real. Even the flying sequences are pretty decent (very little of that glowing halo stuff that you usually see in movies like this). Very cool stuff all around. It's too bad they didn't spend as much money on the helicopter Carver flies at the beginning. It looks like Carver is sitting behind a big piece of cardboard with holes in it.

The opening scene, which takes place in England circa 1190 A.D. and features armored knights trapping a dragon in a cave is interesting but plays on a little too long. I'm not even sure the flick even needs it since it doesn't really tie into anything that happens later except for the dragon and the information it contains could have easily been explained in quick cutting flashbacks that were and still are all the rage. The only thing I don't like about the flick is its use of split screens every so often. When it happens it takes you out of the story and breaks some of the tension, which is something you don't want to do in a movie as short as this one.

As I said, Cain is just awesome as Carver. I've never really been a fan of Cain, which, for me anyway, makes his performance here that much more interesting. He's funny, charismatic, ironic at times, and he doesn't look like an idiot in the action scenes. He does hold a shotgun in a funny way, but that could just be a situation where he's the only one holding it correctly and everyone else is holding it like a person in a movie would. Zachar is great as Dr. Drackovitch. He really makes you hate the idiot scientist. Kristine Byers is pretty good as Dr. Meredith Winter, Carver's eventual love interest. She does take some getting used to, though, because she looks way too cheery most of the time. Robert DiTillio plays a perfect douchebag in Kevin Korisch, the lab's resident slob and unrepentant drunk. I don't know if his character's actions towards the end are all that believable, but at least they're kind of funny. And Chuck Echert's Cookie, the lab cook, is a nifty little throw away character that gets a few good gags before he dies (it's not much of a spoiler, people. You know as soon as you see him he's going to die. He's just one of those characters).

Both Marcus Aurelius, as the lab's animal loving game controller Dr. Greg Travis, and Russian security specialist Captain Sergei Petrov, as played by Hristo Shopov, don't get enough screen time, which is a pity as their characters are more interesting than Vassela Dimitrova's Bailey Kent, who exists in the movie for reasons that escape me (well, she is kind of hot, so that probably explains it). I'd love to see both Travis and Petrov in their own movies, a weird little comedy for Travis and a full on action flick for Petrov. I bet they'd both rock.

The flick does start to fall apart towards the end, mostly because the explanations given by the characters for why they have to do stuff are confusing. If you're going to have a ticking clock ending where the remaining characters have "X" amount of time to get out of wherever, it's usually best to keep that ticking clock scenario as simple as possible. There's no real need to add anything towards the end of the scenario unless those additions can be easily explained by the characters to the audience. But there are enough explosions and "ooh ah" moments to sort of make up for the confusion, so at least the flick doesn't end on a total downer.

All in all, "Dragon Fighter" is worth a look. It's not like you're going to find a Dean Cain movie that's that much better.

So what do we have here? Gratuitous armored knights riding around on horses in 1190 A.D England, a very long opening credist sequence, finding out that Dean Cain apparently isn't a listed producer, gratuitous flying dragon fire attack, gratuitous scattered bones and ruins, setting a guy on fire, arrows in dippied in fire, exploding barrel, gratuitous falling CGI rocks, a really bad CGI helicopter, gratuitous split screen, gratuitous bit where on screen graphics pop up to tell the audience who is who, gratuitous hand print identification, a runaway dog, gratuitous team meeting that almost mirrors the team meeting in Romero's "Day of the Dead" but not quite, gratuitous talk about cloning dinosaurs, thinking out loud, fixing a helicopter engine, using a fire extinguisher, gratuitous "process bar," gratuitous bit where people walk around in white decontamination suits, the world's fastest DNA extraction and insertions, booze drinking, gratuitous Dean Cain reading an advanced biology text book, gratuitous sawed off shotgun with a flash light on the barrel, gratuitous flashbacks to 1190 A.D England that really don't fit, gratuitous monster rampage, gratuitous "Aliens" homage, gratuitous Dean Cain jumping out of the way of surging fireballs, arguing with potential hand removal, a laptop computer, crawling through air conditioning ducts, fat guy eating, gratuitous use of the same sequence of the dragon walking through the hallways pissed off, a medieval sword, dog saving, gratuitous slow motion dragon attack, an elevator fire, a huge explosion, gratuitous taking pictures of dragon flying in mid air, gratuitous air support, a mid air dragon attack, Dean Cain using jet fuel to his advantage, and the groundwork for a potential sequel.

Best lines: "It's cloning, isn't it, sir?," "So, where do we go from here, Captain?," "The place looks like an old bomb shelter," "Are you going to introduce me to your Mommy?," "Meredith, are you a cloner?," "I wasn't aware the world had a shortage of cute puppies," "Yes, Mr. Carver is suprisingly insightful," "Cloning dinosaurs?," "I think it's a dragon," "So, I have to admit that yor theory is interesting," "The encoding says it is definitely a carnivore," "Jesus, I just have a real phobia of fire," "Okay, let's begin nucleus extraction," "Congratulations, people. We're pregnant," "You have go ahead for extraction of specimen," "What the hell was that?," "Open the goddamn door!," "Doctor, I need the override code!," "This is really screwed up," "Sonofabitch, that thing breathes fire!," "Jesus Christ, hasn't anybody ever heard of safety codes?," "Screw this. I'm not staying here for two months," "It's a dragon. You think it's got a logic for what it does?," "Were you really going to cut my hand off?," "You live like a fucking pig, Kevin," "I'll show you who you're fucking with. I'll show you who you're fucking with," "Why does everyone care about Kevin all of a sudden?," "You are a stupid sonofabitch," "Deaf guys can talk. Dragons. I'm in the freaking Twilight Zone," "Cookie, I need a Phillips head screwdriver," "You guys want anything to eat?," "Thank you, Mr. Dragon," and "I can't believe you know how to fly a helicopter."

Rating: 7.5/10

***

Well, that'll be it for this issue. B-movies rule. Always remember that.

"Dead Heist"

Big Daddy Kane- Hunter
D.J. Naylor- Ackson
Brandon Hardin- Ski
Dominic L. Santana- Malcolm
E-40- Hustle
Traci "T-Love" Dinwiddie- Kate
Michael Braxton- Trey
Chris Bailey- Bone
Zach Hanner- Rich
Charlie Lucas- Uncle Arthur
Directed by Bo Webb
Screenplay by Anghus Houvouras and Eric Tomosunas, based on a story by Anghus Houvouras, with additional writing by Bo Webb
Distributed by Urbanworks LLC
Rated R for violence, language, and nudity
Runtime- 75 minutes
Buy it here




"Dragon Fighter"

Dean Cain- Captain David Carver
Kristine Byers- Dr. Meredith Winter
Robert Zachar- Dr. Ian Drackovitch
Marcus Aurelius- Dr. Greg Travis
Robert DiTillio- Kevin Korisch
Vassela Dimitrova- Bailey Kent
Hristo Shopov- Captain Sergei Petrov
Chuck Echert- Cookie
Directed by Phillip J. Roth
Screenplay by Michael Baldwin and Phillip J. Roth
Distributed by First Look International
Rated R for violence and language
Runtime- 85 minutes
Buy it here