Just look at the cast for this film; Andrew Dice Clay as main villain, Robert Davi as mystical bodyguard, Roddy Piper as a henchmen... do I need to go on? Yes, the stage is definitely set for a cheesy, campy and thoroughly corny action-film... but it falls short. The dialog is cheesy, but not cheesy enough... there are too few one-liners, and some of them are a little lame as well(which they shouldn't be; they should be bad-ass and deadpan, instead they are tame and poorly delivered). The plot is pretty good, but it's too obvious a rip-off of Die Hard(arguably the best of this action sub-genre; the important-people-trapped-in-building-with-hero sub-genre) and the pacing is not very good. The film just doesn't have enough campy qualities to keep it entertaining, and you're left with mediocre action and poor one-liners. The acting isn't great, but that's, of course, not the point; this is clear for anyone who knows the names I dropped in the first line of this review. However, it's not good in it's own way, either. The characters are (purposefully, of course) clichés and stereotypes; however, they don't work as well as you'd expect, in a purposefully campy film... they just seem flat and empty. All in all, the only real reason for watching this film is if you're interested in seeing the failed experiment at making a campy action-flick that it is. It's fun to see the various B-list actors, recognizing them from either cameos from big productions(like Dice Clay in One Night At McCool's) or big roles in other small productions(like Piper in They Live) or even small roles from other small productions(like Davi in various flicks), but that's it. I recommend it only to big fans of campy movies, and/or of the actors. Otherwise, just skip this one. 2/10
Review of No Contest
