Key Players

Shannon Whirry as Carrie the good twin turned frigid wife and Terrie the bad twin turned hooker who considers payment merely a side benefit to the job.

Luca Bercovici as Clete Dyker a sleazy and crooked cop who is married to Carrie although the two seem to have nothing, and I mean nothing, in common.

Tom Reilly as Jake a private eye and former partner of Clete’s who gets beat up and sleeps with the woman he is supposed to be following. Smooth.

Also featuring Kristine Kelly and Sara Suzanne Brown as a therapist and hooker respectively who each end up in bed with Shannon…. rawr. Read the rest of this entry »

Key Players

Steven Seagal as Gino Felino, which rhymes with hero.

William Forythe as Richie Madano, a crack-smoking thug with a death wish.

Jerry Orbach as Capt. Ronnie Donziger, who tacitly approves Gino’s plan to be judge, jury, and executioner.

Gina Gershon as Patti Madano, Richie’s foul mouthed sister and nightclub owner.

Joe Sparato as Bobby Lupo, corrupt cop who keeps a stash of coke, stacks of dollars, and pictures of him have sex with a mob mistress all in his desk drawer at work.

Shannon Whirry as Terry Malloy, in a weepy role as Bobby’s other girlfriend who tips off Gino to Bobby’s double life.

Also watch for Julie Strain, Julianna Margulies, John Leguizamo, and Dominic Chianese.

Overall Quality: (3 out of 5)

I had forgotten what a solid little action movie this is. It has the usual Steven Seagal pretentions. He plays Gino Felino, a tough, incorruptible Brooklyn cops, who cares for children and puppies, and also speaks Italian and Spanish. The plot is a bit hard to follow featuring an upstart wannabe mobster, a crooked cop, a tailored don, and a hardboiled police captain, but no matter. The core of the movie Seagal’s fight scenes, which are sharp, quick, and brutal. You get broken bones, cracked teeth, and fractured skulls, with a leavening of gunshot wounds and impalement by various objects. Not for the squeamish, but fun for action movie fans. The final fight scene is a real letdown, unfortunately. Gino shoots all of Richie’s crew, and then just beats Richie to a pulp in a sadistic, one-sided brawl. Blah.

Shannon’s Screentime: (1 out of 5)

This was Shannon Whirry’s first movie role. She plays Terry Malloy, a cocktail waitress who tips Gino to a crooked cop’s double life. She probably doesn’t have more than 5 minutes of screen time, but she makes an impression. Gino refers to her as “the one with the nipples you could dial a phone with.” Unfortunately, she spends much of her time on-screen weeping first at the death of Bobby and then at the shock of discovering another woman murdered. Also, even more unfortunately, Shannon affects a really bad Brooklyn accent, which mercifully fades out after a few moments.

Shannon’s Skin: (1 out of 5)

Just cleavage this time around. But she does get a great little scene when Gino escorts her out of the nightclub. She’s wearing a bustier top, which is absolutely incapable of containing her busom. Even though Gino is getting a divorced, he does not fall for Terry’s obvious charms. Combined with his pony tail and beret, it makes you think maybe Gino is gay.

Anyway, the only actual nudity in a movie that features cocktail waitresses, several prostitutes, and mob mistresses is a quick shot of Julie Strain in a polaroid. Whirry, Strain, and Gina Gershon all in the same movie and we get no skin. What a shame.

Rating: (4 out of 5)

Starring: Jewel Shepard, Pamella D’Pella, Susan Harvey, Chanel Akiko Hirai, Ed Crick, Vic Diaz, Ramon D’Salva, Bon Vibar, and Totoy Torres.

Directed By: Cirio H. Santiago

Ah yes, a tale of two directors. While Jonathan Demme used Caged Heat to move into mainstream pictures, Cirio H. Santiago has spent his whole life making exploitation movies. Santiago is, in fact, one of the great men of exploitation films, having directed and produced movies in the women-in-prison, blaxploitation, rape-revenge, forced-to-fight, martial arts, and post-apocalyptic genres. Maybe the B-Masters Cabal should do a retrospective of his work at some point.

This is an absurd movie in many ways, but also quite entertaining. It begins at what seems to be a cultural show in an Asian country. The king is sitting on a dais, watching a group of native dancers. On his left sits his daughter, dressed in traditional garb, on his right, a redheaded American, who everyone assumes is his mistress. In the middle of the performance, a group of spectators suddenly produces anti-American banners and begins to riot. The king watches this anxiously, but his security forces seem to be containing the demonstration. Suddenly, one of the performers pulls a gun and shoots the king. In the ensuing pandemonium, the king is whisked off in an ambulance with his mistress, while his daughter (Princess Marga, played by Chanel Akiko Hirai) is eventually captured by an angry mob. The ambulance drives directly to an American Air Force base, where we learn that the whole thing was just a charade, and that the “mistress” is really CIA agent Amanda Kelly (Jewel Shepard). As we learn later, the king was about to be overthrown, and the CIA planned the whole fake assassination to exfiltrate the king more easily. Marga is the only flaw in the plan. She’s been captured by the mob, and the new government wants to try her for treason in her father’s place. She is sent to the Rock, an island prison. It is now Amanda’s job to infiltrate the prison, and with the help of friendly guards get Marga out.

Strip searched!

Getting into the prison is the easy part. Amanda books a flight out of the country. At the airport, a drug-sniffing dog singles out her luggage. Naturally, the authorities find the drugs she placed in her suitcase. Unfortunately, another American, Lucy (Susan Harvey) happens to be talking to Amanda when all this goes down, and she get swept up by the authorities as well. It turns out that Lucy is transporting illicit pornography. (Hey, Lucy, ever hear of the internet? You don’t need to carry that stuff with you on planes anymore.) Both Lucy and Amanda soon find themselves incarcerated at Rock Island Penitentiary. Their first experience is chilling; they witness the guards beating the daylights out of an attempted escapee. Their second experience is not much better, as Amanda (and presumably Lucy too, although that isn’t shown) is strip-searched by the Warden Chen (Vic Diaz) and his captain of the guards. Read the rest of this entry »