When you buy as many DVDs off the dollar rack at Wal-Mart as I do, you tend to watch such films with extremely lowered expectations. Occasionally one film rises above what I'd expect from a mere "dollar DVD" and THRILL SEEKERS (sounds like a title for a porn film, doesn't it? It's also known as THE TIME SHIFTERS, if anybody cares) is one such movie. THRILL SEEKERS has an interesting concept and a decent script but unfortunately becomes a victim of the low budget constraints placed upon it by its made-for-TV origins. THRILL SEEKERS stars Casper Van Dien (of "Starship Troopers" fame, who is unfortunately one of the most wooden actors of his generation) as a formerly ratings-hungry TV reporter who left his job in disgrace after his insistence on getting "one more shot" during a spectacular warehouse fire got his camera crew killed. Desperate for work, he takes a job as a reporter for a sleazy "Weekly World News" style tabloid newspaper and is given an assignment to write a story on famous disasters throughout history. While researching archived photographs of such catastrophes as the Titanic sinking and the Hindenburg explosion, he notices the same black-suited man in each photograph, and he doesn't appear to have aged a day even though the events took place years apart. His editor sends him on a plane to Washington to do more research at the Library of Congress, and it just so happens that the same black-suited guy is on his plane. (Don'tcha just love coincidences like that?) He accosts the stranger and finds out he's a "Thrill Seeker," a time traveller from the future who is taking a "tour" of famous disasters. His presence on this plane, of course, means that it's doomed to crash, so Van Dien hijacks the plane just in time to avoid a mid-air collision (thanks to a clip borrowed from the film "Turbulence," according to the end credits). The black-suited guy is nowhere to be found when the plane lands, but Van Dien has stolen his computerized "tour itinerary" book which tells him the next disaster is going to be a subway crash in Chicago. Escaping from the local police and with his research assistant from the newspaper (played by Catherine Bell of "JAG") in tow, he races to stop the "Thrill Seeker" before the crash can happen. Unfortunately, the "tour company" in the future is now threatened since they've been discovered (not to mention, Van Dien's halting of the air crash has "altered the time line" of course), so two assassins (who look like they borrowed their outfits from a "Matrix" yard sale) are sent back to try and eliminate him before he can screw up the future any further. Confused yet? The rest of the film is basically one chase scene after another, as Van Dien and Bell avoid both the police and the hired killers while trying to reach the final disaster on the Thrill Seeker's itinerary, a catastrophic fire at an arena during a hockey game. (Some additional tension is added for Van Dien's character by placing his ex-wife and young son at the game.) I wont' tell you how it all turns out but I will say that THRILL SEEKERS kept my interest even though trying to keep up with the constant "timeline changes" and how they affected the characters did become a bit of a headache after a while. I'm sure that more hardcore sci-fi fans would find a lot to pick apart in THRILL SEEKERS, and I'm surprised that I liked it as much as I did, but for a buck I can't complain, can I? THRILL SEEKERS turned out to be an unexpected treat.
Review of Thrill Seekers
