Full Impact

Rating:
Summary: This video is only $19.95
Review: Action Star Gary Daniels is back in the sequal to the American Streetfighter. This film is NOT available in Canada. If you have questions please call the films producer and distributor at 1-800-906-4749. ~Screen Pix Home Video

Rating:
Summary: GARY AND THE HAIR CLUB
Review: I found this in Virgin Megastore's "clearance" section and believed I had gottten a deal. Wrong!

That's kung fu actor Gary Daniels on the cover giving it his standard petulant macho So what? stare, looking like the little boy lost version of Clint Eastwood. But throughout the film he's got Fabio's golden tresses marcelled with Louis XV curls that drift before his eyes and flutter hither tither (whether in action or still)--reminded me of the coiff reserved only for abused good girls in movies by flesh merchant Andy Sidaris. Credit the production company's hairdresser for providing some, if annoying, distraction from this sad bad movie.

In a kung fu movie the story and acting are less important. "Full Impact" is true to form with its second rate story and third rate acting. Acting? All the women are good looking and well-built--after all, the movie is set in LA. Except for Gary Daniels the male actors could have been drinking buddies (one actor playing a nerd in this movie reprises his role, but with 'ludes, in "Cold Harvest") of the producer and I bet the guy who plays the police captain is someone's brother-in-law--he demonstrates just how difficult it can be to read a line before a camera. When he, as police captain in his own office, yells "Quiet. Quiet" no one responds, but maybe they forgot he is playing the commanding officer. The director and co-producer of "Full Impact", Jimmy Huey, can learn a lot from Andy Sidaris who knows how to package a film with challenged acting and potted script--he concentrates on production value and the fleshy aspects of his best-looking mannekins.

But a good kung fu movie delivers fast-paced, balletic or gymnastic action. "Full Impact" fails there too despite, incredibly, being choreographed by Gary Daniels himself. The fights look pre-WWF when fans of the 3 Stooges could have defended themselves with the semifore hand-to-nose maneuver. The final drag-out fisticuffs required that Gary be bested 6 times so that the bad guy could run away to another cheap set (actually a parking lot and then different areas of a warehouse) and most of this happened after the bad guy had been hit hard by Gary--not with his fist, but with an old car! And that is another problem with the fighting. Gary has got this guy completely outclassed, but has to use a car and a torch when the bad guy is limited to using his hands. Maybe Gary forgot the Bruce Lee code. Maybe it was Gary's way of demonstrating how pissed off he was. Maybe he is the opposite of Samson--this part of the story having been cut by the inept editor Steve Austin--that the longer Gary's hair grows the weaker he is.

Low production values added to the drudgery. Not only was the DVD grainy as a videotape, but in a one scene the set swayed unintentionally behind the actors (camera looked handheld while walking). Perhaps "Full Impact" was produced for sale to hotels for their adult channels. I read that the major hotel chains are the biggest purveyors of adult movies and that the average viewing time is 15 minutes. I am not sure which I regret more: having spent $5 to buy the movie or having spent more than 15 minutes watching it.