Expect to Die (1997) User Reviews

You'll feel like you've seen it before

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 22 July 2020]

Another cheapjack thriller from director and star Jalal Merli, who never let lack of money get in the way of his filmmaking. This one flirts with the usual dated virtual reality premise we always saw in 1990s cinema, but that really comes second to the usual good guys-vs-bad plotline. Kidnapped wives, male bonding and plenty of mano-a-mano fight action keeps this bubbling along, even if it's no different at all from a hundred others you could randomly pick out.

Owwwww, this movie was SO BAD!

[Wizard-8 · 3 July 2000]

This was just as bad as Merhi's "Expect No Mercy" - maybe worse. Merhi's acting makes Chuck Norris deserving of an Academy Award, with not just being unable to show emotion, but with a thick accent that sometimes makes it impossible to figure out what he's saying. The computer graphics are utterly laughable, the production values make it look as crummy as a typical Canadian TV drama, the weather keeps changing from winter to summer and back again over several days, and Merhi gets in no fights in the first half of the movie! Yet another loser from Le Monde pictures.

The Matrix just got Beablier!

[moreginger · 1/10 · 12 January 2005]

In the wake of the matrix this travesty of a film with loose connections to VR has been reissued with the tag-line "The Matrix just got Deadler!", in a box with a very Matrix inspired cover (still called "Expect to Die" though). Due to the choice of font however the tag-line looks to all the world like it says "Beablier". Anyway.

To complete the transformation to Matrix wannabe they have mocked up a VR fight scene with a Morpheus-a-like on the back of the box. It may be important to know that this character DOES NOT FEATURE IN THE FILM.

Overall this film is a travesty on every level. Jalal Mehri is an awful actor and does not impress with his martial arts. However his partner Stone is played by Evan Lurie, who in this film is simply the worst actor I have ever seen. Clearly he was chosen to make Jalal look good in comparison. Worst film I have seen for a long long time.

The events in this film are all true.

[wheels128 · 2/10 · 10 August 2006]

They must be. I'll list them so that you can check them off one-by-one:

• Police regularly leave tens of millions of dollars of cash and drugs just lying around, because they don't have evidence facilities.

• When you get shot, you always grunt the same way, and fly back the same way, even though there's never a mark on your body.

• Police are not able to identify the sound of gun shots, and don't think anything is suspicious when an undercover policewoman's phone call during a high-level drug-and-money deal is cut shot by that gun shot.

• Bad guy gunmen can hit mannequins with one shot, but can't hit a big, bulky martial artist with 100.

• If you rocket launcher a car in a car park, the next three cars in a line will blow up evenly in 15 second intervals.

• Further to the last point, all the cheap cars are always parked next to each other.

• The smoke that is caused from the firing of the rocket launcher is much greater than the amount of smoke caused by four cars blowing up.

• Virtual reality games that are a long, long way ahead of anything any other gaming company can produce fit on five floppy disks.

• Virtual reality games that are a long, long way ahead of anything any other gaming company can produce have graphics that look like Windows 3.1 screen-savers.

• Floppy disks can be read even after they've been shot up.

• Semi-drunk guys in bars attentively watch the news when they're at the pub, and have a deep understanding of American modern military history, Agent Orange, and the family trees of high-ranking military officials. However, they're only able to articulate their points using dialogue that sounds silly coming from anyone over the age of seven.

• Even though fights appear to break out almost hourly in a bar, that bar has only one staff worker, who both pours the beers and handles security. Of course he knows martial arts.

• Gold medal Olympians regularly make the simple transition to corporate CEOs of software companies in a matter of years.

• A woman who works for a computer game company knows everything about how to beat a game she's never played, raves constantly about her competitor's great games, and can rattle off facts and figures regarding her company's rivals - but she didn't know that they overtook almost all the other companies in the field in large corporate mergers.

• Bad guys always die in slow motion. Always.

• Wives tell their husbands that they're pregnant by raving about their man's bravery in killing bad guys.

• Wives do large amounts of their husband's police work; this might explain why she whines and complains so much every time he has to go to work. Although, it doesn't explain why she adores him so much every time he gets up in the morning and she can read about his murderous escapades.

• It's fairly typical for a police officer to be involved in kidnappings, kill tons of people on three separate occasions and stop a variety of multi-million dollar illegal deals in a week.

• When trying to lose a car that's following you, it's wise to continue driving under the speed limit. And if you're following a cop, subtlety is not important - you can tailgate him for miles, then park right next to him. He won't notice.

• All cops are experienced martial artists.

• It is possible to kick a guy four metres in distance.

• People scream or grunt in pain when they are punched or kick, yet when they have their arm broken, they don't make a sound.

• Bad guys clean their bloodied axes with their handkerchiefs, and then leave them in their pocket for many days.

• Pieces of wood, when swung with one sharp blow, shatter sturdy ladders in six or more places simultaneously.

• The photo, and listed special features on the back of the DVD case don't necessarily have to be on the DVD. The advertised interactive menus? Why not no menu at all! The advertised scene index? Why not have the whole thing as one scene/chapter, and not need an index! Likewise, it's OK to use The Matrix's font and title in the tag-line, and not be a rip-off in any way.

With all of this, I'm in shock that 12 out of the 15 top credited actors never acted again.

VERY bad movie

[iam23 · 1/10 · 23 June 2005]

My first question, is NOT about the horrible acting, NOT about the horrendous writing, it is the directing. The choices that were made about the cinematography are some of this worst decisions I have ever seen. Why does EVERY single bad guy have to die in slow motion? I was about to beat myself with a rubber hose. The camera shots make it so that you can't see whats going on. I was JUST about to turn the movie off because of Jalal Merhi's accent, when it made it to the sex scene, so I thought it might get better, well it did not. If you rate special effects on an A,B,C rating scale, I would have to put it around a W or so, and did I mention the acting? Wow, was it bad!!! And the WORST part of the entire "Expect to DIE" experience, is the blatant misuse of the phrase on the cover, which is: "THE MATRIX JUST GOT DEADLIER". comparing this movie to the Matrix is easily the WORST comparison I have EVER seen. If you haven't seen this movie, Don't, unless you are looking for a good reason to beat your head against the wall.

Even if your name is NOT Inigo Montoya...

[Micheaux · 2/10 · 14 April 2012]

...expect to die!

When I was younger, if you made a movie and had a good distributor, or a least a decent v-6, your movie would go to theaters. Before my time, there were A-movies and B-movies. There were no movies for TV. A movie like "Time Walker", had it been made two years ago, as opposed to the 1980's, would have gone straight to DVD or up on Netflix.

Such, however, is the case "Expect to Die", a movie on DVD a friend of mine lent to me and, not too surprisingly, did not want back. I won't go into the poor quality of the movie, which has been discussed at length, but I would like to hold up to the light a few choice lines.

1. "Expect to Die". What an interesting title. Can you name a single person reading this that does not expect to die someday? "The Princess Bride"'s Inigo Montoya at least had the sense to say, "Prepare to die", which would imply a hurried deadline. "Expect to die" is much like saying, "You're gonna breath. Real soon."

2, As the bad guy Dr. Vincent MacIntyre absconds with Sharon Blake, she yells out from the back of the car she is thrown into, "I'm not going anywhere with you, Psycho!" I love this line. What is the point of telling this man that he's nuts? Will he stop the car look back with sad recognition and say, "your language is crude, but you are right! I'm going to stop everything. Thank you. Thank you for a cold splash in the face of reality!"

*SPOILER* 3. While in the virtual reality world of "Expect to Die" Sharon, who is inexplicably dressed as a belly dancer is trying to coach her husband Justin Blake, on how to defeat the game. For whatever reason, she is now calling him "Player". When they reach the mutual knowledge that they are both trapped, she says, "I'm trapped, too. And I don't...think..I like it!". Ladies and gentlemen, this woman is chained, after being kidnapped, in an unfamiliar environment with the threat of death looming over her and her husband. Where does "THINK" enter in to this equation!? Has being chained up and being threatened worked out happily for this woman? "I don't think I like it...not like the Cydonia Virtual Reality dungeon. Now THAT was a dungeon...good catering, custom-built chains and the maniac who ran it, WOW!"

Now, granted, this isn't Oscar-worthy territory, but the acting, which is not great gets even worse in the effects-laden bits, probably because it would have been more expensive to reshoot, so the line delivery more than likely suffered.

Do pass this movie up. If you want virtual reality, see "Tron: Legacy". If you want good martial arts fighting, watch, "Mad Monkey Kung Fu". If you have papers flying all over your house, buy this movie, don't unwrap it, and place it on top of the pile of papers.

I'm glad David Bradley stopped after this...

[fernyperez · 1/10 · 23 August 2008]

Wow, Jeez, I don't even know where to begin commenting on this thing they called a movie. I seriously don't know what the hell David Bradley began smoking after making Hard Justice, which in my opinion, was quite a good movie after the American Ninja features. I hadn't seen any of this guy's latter movies after Cyborg Cop. Lucky I saw them on Amazon for like 5 pounds each and I can safely say the following: if I had thrown down the drain the 5 pounds I spent on Total Reality, Crisis and Expect to Die, I would have ended up happier than having to sit through the 90 minutes that each of them lasted. My God, how the HECK can anybody label these as "movies" ??? And why do action/martial arts actors fall knee-deep into the smelliest horse-dung when they've like reached their peak?? I mean, David Bradley's no Oscar deserver but his first movies were pretty entertaining. Tough, cool guy with pretty good martial expertise who delivered corny lines but at least entertained action and martial arts fans to a certain extent. But I seriously would love to know what went through this guy's head after making Hard Justice. His final 3 movies have to frankly be the WORST I have ever had to sit through. As I mentioned before, I'd love to get my money back on the 3 DVDs I bought. Crisis was the epitome of sleepiness, Total Reality was harsh but this Expect to Die is just utter nonsense. I bet the director was either mega-stoned when he made this or he was just taking the pee out of every David Bradley fan who would sit through this heap of crap. The plot circles around a doctor (Bradley) who develops some type of Virtual Reality game in which he's just killing different people off one by one. Sorry but I just couldn't take this guy seriously playing a baddie with that posh hair-do, glasses and gray slacks and doing absolutely NO physical fighting whatsoever (frankly, his best asset). The film is even worse than any of those Saturday afternoon B-movies because the acting is laughable, the directing is horrendous and the few fights in the movie, well, what can I say... The actors look like they're training with their gym buddy. We get a dumb muscular cop who starts to show off his fighting stuff like one hour into the movie and fails heavily... a french hairy version of Van Damme who just can't fight, act or speak to save his freaking life and Bradley, the supposed protagonist, playing the evil doctor who I was really happy for when he stopped making this type of expendable rubbish. I even reckon he didn't throw a kick in this movie probably due to his heart condition already playing up on him. For a B-actor, I must admit I really liked this guy, his style, physique, fighting skills... But I'm really, really glad he stopped acting after this monstrosity because I honestly wouldn't have been able to sit through another ninety minutes of pee-taking material like this one. Avoid at all costs even if you're family of David Bradley, you'll be glad you did, word.

Jalal Merhi's best film to date!

[joey-58 · 23 April 1999]

Probably the best film to date that Jalal Merhi has produced. Although some of the performances were lacking, the fight scenes were great and the story was interesting. Favourite scene: Where Jalal discovers that his wife has been kidnapped. Great performance by Joseph Clark as the kidnapper who gets kicked across the room and delivers the ultimatum to Jalal. Lazar was a treat to see as I enjoyed his performance in Black Pearls.