Point Blank [DVD] [1998] [US Import]

One good thing about this movie is that it helped me find religion. It was so bad that I actually wrote a prayer: Oh great and loving God, take mercy upon this, the lowliest of your creatures. Burn my brain, I beseech thee... yeah with fire, acid, turpentine, and super-hot hot sauce lay waste to the portion of my brain which remembers having viewed "Point Blank" with Mickey Rourke! Keep me safe and guide my steps far, far from future viewings, so that in thy mercy I might instead feast upon broken glass and burning hot lava, and smear my naked buttox with honey and lay me upon a hill of ants rather than ever see this film again. Amen.

Like many of you, I first came across this little gem while searching for the 1967 masterpiece of funkadelic nihilism starring Lee Marvin. Well, of course THAT'S not out of DVD yet, but since I'm a huge fan of Mickey Rourke (for reasons which, as his career progresses, I find more and more difficult to remember), I thought "Wow, Mickey Rourke just re-made one of the coolest movies of all time... might be worth watching." Boy, was THAT a mistake!

First of all, this IS NOT a remake of Lee Marvin/John Boorman's Point Blank. That's two strikes against Rourke, because he ALSO starred in "Bullet," a stupid piece of crap which had nothing to do with Steve McQueen's "Bullit," another of the great guy films of all time. It's about a bunch of escaped convicts who are really bad and blow some stuff up and are at a mall and Mickey Rourke Kills them. 'Nuff said re the plot.

One thing that really sticks out about this film is that Rourke, typically a pretty muscular dude, is positively STEROIDAL! I mean, he put on SO MUCH muscle for this role that his skin literally looks as if it's going to fissure and peel off! I don't know what he was on, but it must be something we normally use on farm animals!

Thanks to an 80's/90's childhood filled with lots of food, movies, and good times we learned it takes some very simple things in life to make us happy. Sitting on top of the list is one of the world's finest movie genres known as action B. It's brought us timeless classics like Death Ring, Money to Burn, and Delta Force 2 leaving us feeling very comfortable when we decided to move forward with Point Blank. By seeing Micky Rourke (at his most washed up acting stage)was headlining the event we figured at the very minimum there would be about 3 stars worth of laughs. However it turned into an easy 5 star event inspired by the same type of laughs Ninja Vengeance brought on. It's very rare to come across that special kind of action b that keeps you entertained the whole way through, but thanks to Mickey Rourke this one's a new classic in Sid's top 10.

The plot, that was probably whipped up in 35 minutes, centers around former mercenary Texas Ranger Rudy Ray (Rourke) and his con brother Joe Ray. Just fantastic names huh? As Joe Ray is being transferred upstate on of his rich con mates engineers a bus prison break. Now naturally the special ops force feels useless once the cons take a local mall hostage, and must approach the roided up Rudy Ray as he's digging a hole in the front yard. Being that he obviously has nothing better to do he decides to chip in and try to get his brother out of there. Which makes no sense but neither does any of the film. Once Rourke hits the mall he begins taking guy's out with neck snapping/gun blazing force. The laughs just don't stop once you discover one of the fellow cons is Chicano superstar Danny Trejo, who is to the Mexican acting community what Apache is to the Native Americans. Between the deranged cast, with the confusing dialogue, and horrific acting you just can't help but roll on the floor in sheer laughter for an 1hr and a half straight.

So when it comes to the fine B action of the 90's Point Blank will now hold a special place on Sid's all-time favorite list. Being that it's one of those rare films you can probably find at your local food store next to Bandidos for $3.99 it comes with the utmost recommendation from this side of the stocking. It's certainly something we would've stumbled upon in the 90's around 1:30 am on the Movie Channel forcing us to wake Santa up with wild laughter. It is mind-numbingly bad in the greatest way possible. There are more w.t.f moments packed into the entire feature that you almost can't believe what you're seeing. The finest segment of this may be when Rourke and Trejo battle to the death while seductive 90's love scene music plays for 2 minutes straight. Just a priceless film that will be receiving a Woody Award without questions, earning itself a closing with the Drive-In totals:

3 Rourke Roundhouse kicks, 1 sending his victim off a roof plummeting to his death
Uncanny Don Swayze riffle blast slow motion face
5 car explosions
Perverted Justice offender Trejo trying to make a hostage eat his Chorizo
1 Commando style town clearing gun
Playing of Silent Night, even though it wasn't Christmas, while one con get's wasted by barrage of bullets
3 Various action scenes plagued with love scene music, yet there were no love scenes
9 counts of Rourke-Fu
Makeshift zip line Rourke gunfire
and an ultimate finale while head con runs around screaming like a little girl while being chased by Rourke

"Point Blank" is the most offensively stupid movie out there. It boggles the mind knowing that when the makers put this movie together, they were actually being serious about their work.
The action sequences, the dialogue, and the overall plot of the movie is so shamelessly horrible, further words about it couldn't describe it.
The scriptwriter put the Marine Corps in way too many characters' background, probably just because he thought it would make the movie cooler. Pathetic.
You can't really blame the director or actors because they can only work with what was written in the first place. Still, they should be ashamed for even having their names associated with this film.
The only reason you should buy this movie is so you can BURN IT WITHOUT EVEN OPENING THE CASE!

If you really don't care if a movie makes any sense, and you prefer graphic violence to good acting...then this may be the DVD for you !!! Otherwise it is a complete piece of trash.

Opening scene: A prison bus full of the slimiest, most degenerate criminals in all of Texas (and that is saying a lot) is "rescued" by a gang of murderous henchmen with rockets and anti-tank weapons. Law enforcement officers are butchered and blown to pieces....the prisoners then travel to a Fort Worth shopping mall and take it over, slashing, blasting and pistol whipping innocent shoppers at will. Why they are going to the mall, rather than simply splitting up and completing their escape is never satisfactorily explained.

Soon they are surrounded by hundreds of law enforcement officers, who serve as easy targets as they wander around the parking lot while the convicts blast them with recoiless rifles and gatling guns mounted on the mall roof. In fact, all law enforcement figures in this movie, particularly the FBI, are depicted as complete idiots who are joyously blasted to smithereens by the convicts....it appears that the author of this wretched "screenplay" has a real problem with authority figures.

If all of this sounds like mindless nonsense, then save yourself some time and money and move on to better movies; otherwise, keep reading...it just gets worse.

Mickey Rourke appears on the scene. He has obviously been lifting weights for the last 10 years and guzzling steroids like M&M's....he is positively huge....as big as Arnold in "Conan the Barbarian", and every bit as amusing. Sweaty and greasy as usual, he is the brother of the convict leader (who orchestrated the escape). Apparently he intends to rescue his brother by sneaking into the mall and killing everyone he sees....how this will rescue his brother is not clear, and who really cares??? because it is a great excuse to sneak around and break people's necks with exotic karate moves and stab them with various sharp objects. If you want a meaningful plot, you should have heeded my warning and stopped reading long ago.

The balance of the movie features naked pole dancing, coke snorting that rivals Al Pacino in Scarface, simulated oral sex, multiple homicides, neck snappings, slow gut stabbings, miscellaneous throat slittings, and even a near-death by table saw. Sure....none of these charming events relate in any way to a meaningful plot, but obviously (since you are still reading this review) you could care less. This is a mindless gore-fest from the opening scene to the final, unsatisfying conclusion (which, as a bonus, features the longest, silliest dying scene since Monty Python and the Holy Grail).

If you enjoy such outrageous "entertainment" (and I must admit that I sometimes do) then this may be just what the doctor (definitely not a psychiatrist) ordered. Otherwise, it is pure, shameless trash that should be banned in all civilized countries (even Texas).

MICKEY ROURKE IS SO COOL IN THIS FILM!
THE CAST IS AWLSOME !
THIS MOVIE IS EVERYTHING YOU WANT A LATE 80S, EARLY 90S, KICK A$$ ACTION, HERO, MACHO FLICK TO BE !
I COULD'NT BELIVE I HAVE NEVER SEEN THIS MOVIE GROWING UP,..I WOULD HAVE LOVED IT !
GOOD ALL AROUND TOUCH GUY,.. MACHO MOVIE !
WHEN MEN STILL RULED!,....WHEN IT WAS SEXY TO HAVE MUSCLES,...THEN HAVE A SMOKE AFTER SHOOTING SOME BAD GUYS !
only draw back is it is in the old 4:3 aspect ratio...it would have been killer on wide screen or full screen,.. but great anyway !