Gunblast Vodka

Rating:
Summary: Attraction is Angie Everhart
Review: Gunblast Vodka (2000) - Justice Straight, With a Chaser. Starring: Angie Everhart, Anja Kruse, Jurgen Prochnow and Mariusz Pujszo. A string of beautiful women turn up missing and end up dead. When the American consul's ex-wife is kidnapped, Abel Rothstein, New York's toughest cop, is sent to save the day - and her life. Teamed with an eccentric, girl-crazed inspector, the two lawmen use their unique styles to unravel a dark crime ring involving missing models, snuff films and the Russian mafia.

Rating:
Summary: Five Stars for the Great Title!
Review: So why should anyone rent this movie? For the great title, of course! I've seen the boxes of enough anime films to appreciate the fine art of mashing random words together to form titles, and "gunblast vodka" is at the very pinnacle of this rising artform. Sure, sure, there are the longer favorites such as "All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku-Nuku"(an actual title!), but what "gunblast vodka" loses in extended description, it gains back with not only conciseness but a sort of songlike catchiness that incites people to repeat "gunblast vodka" to themselves for hours on end. In fact, one of my friends has actually named his pet rat "gunblast" because of this movie.

What about the film itself? Oh, I'd say that it's probably the most sloppily made, incomprehensible wannabe picture I've ever seen. Now, I haven't seen any of the "classic" bad movies, such as Plan 9 from Outer Space, or Reefer Madness, but Gunblast Vodka can't possibly be too much better. I gave up on trying to follow the movie after about thirty minutes had elapsed because I had no reason to care about what would happen next. The characters were odd (especially a certain polish vice cop), but not in any entertaining or thought-provoking way. They were just annoying. At any rate, I wanted to see them all die before the film was over. Even (especially) the good guys.

Editing, cinematography, and directing decisions seemed almost completely arbitrary, though some scenes might be trying to ape Hong Kong action flicks. It definitely seems to be aspiring to a sort of "hip and edgy" action feel, but the amateurish execution and the sudden invasion of random "comedy" bits defeats that purpose completely. They experimented quite a bit in this movie as well, as if they couldn't center on one cohesive way of approaching their subject matter. Disorienting jump cuts, transitions from film to video, switching from color to b&w, unusual shots (views from *under* the barrel of a firing machine gun, sudden disorienting spins with the camera) and more all contributed nothing to the plot, emotional impact, or character development. On a positive note, however, the film does feature model Angie Everhardt, though she has no decent lines, or even a nude scene. Gunblast Vodka can't even give viewers nudity to keep them awake! It was a triumph of willpower (and a failure of good sense) that kept me watching all the way to the end. It doesn't get any better. And yet, one might still be able to derive a sort of perverse pleasure from watching such a bad movie, especially one graced with such a great name. Anyway, that's it for this review. Now go rent yourself a copy of Gunblast Vodka (available at blockbuster).

Rating:
Summary: Drink a lot of vodka before this movie
Review: This movie is a comedy about snuff films. That should be enough said, but I will elaborate further. The plot is terrible (you will gasp in disbelief as the motivations for the characters are revealed), the acting is awful (I never thought I'd say this, but Jean-Claude Van Damme would have been better in this movie in ANY role), the editing is miserable (it's impossible to follow the action), along with the whole standard array of [junk] (e.g., hero gets dragged along on a paved road by a car, and of course when he stands up his leather jacket is unmarred). Only see this movie if you want to see how bad films can really get, or you want to watch in smug satisfaction knowing the French have made another film far worse than the Hollywood studio films they routinely dismiss.

Rating:
Summary: Bad movie, bad DVD
Review: What a mess. The story, which deals with snuff films in Poland is treated as an action/comedy(!), it's impossible to follow and it's shot with the shakiest nausea-inducing hand held camera since Blair Witch. The editing mimics that of a bad rock video, and the result is an indecipherable bomb. On top of that, the DVD mastering is faulty, the picture plays back "squeezed" as if it had anamorphic processing, but it cannot be unsqueezed with any of the available settings in a DVD player. Hard to believe that nobody noticed this before the disc came out. Movie quality aside, this release is defective and should be recalled.

Rating:
Summary: Bad movie, bad DVD
Review: What a mess. The story, which deals with snuff films in Poland is treated as an action/comedy(!), it's impossible to follow and it's shot with the shakiest nausea-inducing hand held camera since Blair Witch. The editing mimics that of a bad rock video, and the result is an indecipherable bomb. On top of that, the DVD mastering is faulty, the picture plays back "squeezed" as if it had anamorphic processing, but it cannot be unsqueezed with any of the available settings in a DVD player. Hard to believe that nobody noticed this before the disc came out. Movie quality aside, this release is defective and should be recalled.