BLACKOUT

Live Entertainment [CC]

This is Brian Bosworth’s version of The Long Kiss Goodnight, which was Geena Davis’ version of a Brian Bosworth film. Mild-mannered banker Bosworth (huh?) is hit by a car, loses his memory, then becomes haunted by flashbacks of a life much more violent than those of most—but not all—finance professionals. The mystery is fairly intriguing, with Brad Dourif attempting an unstereotypical spin as the evil gang leader. And Boz even attempts something fairly atypical—acting. And darn it, that’s also intriguing—until everything starts blowing up and we’re back in a Brian Bosworth movie. And the mystery? It’s explained in one long sentence by a guy who steps out of a helicopter at the very end. Close, but no exploding cigar. PAUSE.

VIRUS

Live Entertainment [CC]

In case you were wondering, yes, two Boz pictures does a blizzard make. This time, ex-football star Boz returns as an ex-football star turned Secret Service agent and personal bodyguard to the president. Apparently, blond highlights are regulation in this administration—not too surprising considering the strangely cozy relationship between the president and his evil top adviser, Eric: We keep catching them alone together, relaxing at night in some cabin in the woods. In fact, everyone’s in the woods, wandering around Ontario’s Algonquin Park and becoming infected with the deadly secret virus that the predictably rogue government-within-the-government has developed for unspecified purposes. Everyone except Boz. He coughs a bit, then shrugs off the bug and keeps on hiking and fighting. So either it’s not much of a virus, or Boz is even more super than he keeps telling us he is. The scene with the president joining hands in a cultish “One World!” chant is just plain odd, but Boz gets to tell him off to his face. Good move, Boz. Bad movie. EJECT.

TERMINAL VIRUS

New Horizons

This virus movie is so interminable it had me hoping someone like, say, Boz, would show up and save it. Instead, James Brolin smugly saunters around to no great effect. He’s irrelevant to the muddled story about life after a future war has made sex fatal. If you’re thinking parable, forget it. Here, men and women are engaged in a literal war of the sexes—bikini babes with machine guns ride muscle cars, and creepy Richard Lynch indulges, as he always does, in mindless destruction. It’s a familiar future because we’ve seen it so often in the past: It looks like The Road Warrior. Thankfully, curling irons survived WWIII, so the women look smashing in their Queen of Outer Space wardrobes. Sadly, logic and coherence perished completely. EJECT.

RIOT

PM Entertainment [CC]

Another ex-athlete, Sugar Ray Leonard, has been making a lot of poor decisions lately. You’d hope he’d have something else to fall back on other than the canvas, but don’t count on a film career. His death scene is particularly undignified. But why did anyone get involved in this hateful story of a “future” society run amok. The filmmakers offensively use footage from the L.A. riots for vérité. I don’t think so. After spending half the film showing dreadlocked black gangbangers manhandling blond models, they try to justify themselves by making the blacks lackeys in the conspiracy of the real bad guys: the IRA. “We mustn’t let color come between us,” says an actor in a lousy Irish accent, though the film has already given the lie to that sentiment. The ostensible star, martial arts mannequin Gary Daniels, can’t even manage a jaw clench to convey any kind of emotion, but I was moved to action when the film had the hypocritical gall to lecture me at the end. Take this: BULK ERASE.

DANGER ZONE

Live Entertainment

This is Billy Zane and Robert Downey Jr.’s version of the John Travolta/Christian Slater explodathon, Broken Arrow. While this film lacks Arrow’s bloated budget, it also lacks Christian Slater. Then again, it does have Downey Jr. with a hair extension and a pitiful Southern accent. But he dies. Twice. The real advantage of this flick is the sweeping African scenery. Co-producer Zane returns to Phantom territory—yes, another heroic white guy saving the natives, with an Evil Oriental thrown in—but the film’s real concern is high-spirited B-western action in picturesque locations. The train-ambush-on-horseback is fun. The script is not exactly rigorous, relying more on coincidence than cleverness, and the talk gets tedious, but the waterfalls are lovely. PLAY.

SEX AND THE OTHER MAN

A-Pix

Here’s an impotency cure: Tie your girlfriend’s lover to a chair and make him watch the two of you rekindle your passion. Then again, if your girlfriend is former MTV videotrix Kari Wuhrer and you still need to drag Big Night’s Stanley Tucci into your boudoir, you’ve got more problems than I want to know about. Credit Wuhrer with choosing material based on a play and not a music video—which means that the nudity is not gratuitous at all…and not extensive enough—but the action remains too talkily stage-bound, and the playlike quality is so far off-Broadway that I didn’t exactly feel strapped to the chair while I watched. FREEZE-FRAME.

SOUTH BEACH ACADEMY

Live Entertainment

Al Lewis stopped playing Grandpa Munster 31 years ago, so you can imagine the delight on the face of the beach bunny he gets to cuddle in this Baywatch-with-nudity inanity. Corey Feldman stopped being cute 10 years ago—and the ‘burns and goatee aren’t helping. But why does Corey get his picture and name on the box when he is so utterly extraneous to the plot? And to an extraneous plot at that. Though the setting is a near-nude beach, the filmmakers felt it necessary to add scenes at a strip club. Perhaps they were inspired after casting porn-star-turned-porn-director Ron Jeremy in a small role. From the way Corey acts during the final “love” scenes, he probably thought Ron was directing. Ick. EJECT.

—Dave Nuttycombe

NEXT MONTH: Whatever happened to Corbin Bernsen?