Revenge thrillers, action sequels and flying kicks from Scott Adkins and Michael Jai White.
It’s 25 straight-to-DVD movies worth your time.
Are you tired of big summer blockbusters ultimately just being an advert for the next instalment in the franchise?
Are you fed up with incomprehensible CGI action scenes and two hour plus runtimes?
films that come from limited budgets and apathetic producers.
Here are 25 DTV films worth tracking down.
Need we say more?
Unfortunately,Liberty Stands Stillwas the clear loser financially (maybe they should have renamed it Hot Dog Cart?
), but its worth seeing with a strong performance from Snipes and a worthy anti-gun message.
A starring vehicle for Vietnamese-American MMA fighter Cung Le, helmed by John Hyams of the amazingUniversal Soldiersequels.
Plus Peter Weller plays the bad guy.
Its as schmaltzy as hell it reminds me of Stallones heart-warming arm-wrestling movieOver The Top but somehow it works.
Backing him up in the obligatory character actor here for a paycheck role isJustifiedandDjango Unchaineds Walton Goggins.
The first of several appearances on this list of Midlands-born martial artist Scott Adkins.
El Gringois a pretty blatant copy of Robert RodriguezsMariachi/Desperadomovies.
Breaking the mould however is 2003sBelly Of The Beast,directed by Ching Siu-tung.
Dolph Lundgren started directing, and also built a nice sideline in weirder comedy parts.
Steven Seagal worked on expanding his waistline.
Yes, before you ask, there was aGreen Street 2,and it is absolutely terrible.
Its kind of insane.
Its basicallyThe Mighty Ducks,but with MMA football hooligans.
Plus theres a completely ludicrous twist at the end.
But theres something kind of wonderful about it its such a bizarre experience.
In a lot of waysOut For A Killsums up what can be wonderful about straight to video action.
Seagal stars as a Harvard professor (?)
who ends up in a Chinese prison with a member of the So Solid Crew.
Theres rampant use of green screens and stock footage, and scenes fade out midway though dialogue.
Gooding asks him if he could have five people killed, who would they be.
Cole drunkenly plays along and thinks nothing of it.
Plus Michael Rooker is in it, and everything is better with Michael Rooker.
One In The Chamberwas recently covered in our Mystery DVD Club series.
You might notice there are not many appearances from notorious schlock factory The Asylum on this list.
Thats because the titles and the covers of their movies are nearly always far more entertaining than the films.
Just knowing thatTransmorphersorSnakes On A Trainexist is more fun that watching them.
The outlier, however, is the studios cash-in on the Robert Downey Jr/Jude LawSherlock Holmesfilms.
If Sherlock Holmes versus dinosaurs doesnt make you want to watch it, I weep for your soul.
Okay, its a totally ludicrous set up that lacks the pathos of the previous film.
LOL, look theyre not famous any more!
But somehow,Universal Soldier Regenerationbecame a touchstone in the golden age of DTV action movies.
Ignoring the theatrically released sequelUniversal Soldier The Return,director John Hyams starts the film with a bang.
Its probably the finest moment of his career, and it doesnt involve any kicking.
Conveniently, the head of the traffickers is a gangster who killed Dolphs wife and kid back East.
So he heads back to Russia to save the girl and get revenge for his family.
The Mechanik is basically Dolph Lundgren doesCommandoorTaken, and is just as fun as that sounds.
Prison boxing movie with Ving Rhames and Wesley Snipes?
Dont worry, Ive never seen it either.
What matters is thatUndisputed 2is fantastic.
Its a simple, brutal variant on the standard boxing movie, and fabulously entertaining.
His wife is murdered and he has to go to Myanmar for revenge.
Needless to say Adkins is brutal and devastating in every scene.
Its brilliant, and you genuinely will never have seen anything like it.
That Michael Jai White isnt a superstar is one of the worlds great injustices.
Blood And Bonemight just be his masterpiece.
His flying kicks are incredible, and he seems to be able to defy gravity without breaking a sweat.
It seems like hes going to be the big bad who White kills in the final reel.
But thats not how it plays out.
Walker is revealed to be far from a simple 2D bad guy.
In one telling scene he looks out at the urban streets and laments, All of that is mine…
It all so dark and unsophisticated.
It is not where I want to be any more.
Walker is excellent is this scene, seething with both anger and shame throughout.
Plus it has Michael Jai White destroying Kimbo Slice in a prison brawl at the beginning.
