Prey of the Jaguar [DVD] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

"Prey of the Jaguar" is a revenge/vigilante movie. Cop Derek Leigh's wife and kid are murdered by a drug lord who escaped from prison. He seeks out his old friend, a martial arts teacher, and trains to become "The Jaguar", to avenge their deaths.

The movie suffers from a low budget. But the low production values are redeemed by an entertaining script. The movie never gets boring (although they could have shortened the flashback sequences) and it has some good, fun action. Recommended to fans of low budget action movies and vigilante movies.

PREY OF THE JAGUAR (1996) is a rather silly straight-to-video martial arts film that stars Maxwell Caulfield as a former secret agent who, to revenge the murders of his wife and son, learns Kung Fu from an old master, after which he dons a strange superhero uniform that resembles the gear football players wear under their uniforms, and becomes...the JAGUAR!

If you've ever seen GETTYSBURG (1993), Caulfield has a minor role as Col. Strong Vincent. He appears twice during the Second Day: initially to tell Col. Joshua Chamberlain (Jeff Daniels) that his Maine regiment is the end of the Union line so they must hold their position "to the last," then later after an heroic stand against several Reb assaults to congratulate Chamberlain and inform him that the 2nd Maine has been reassigned to a new position, "safest place on the battlefield, smack dab in the middle," where ironically these exhausted and bloodied survivors, will, on the Third (and final) Day, help repulse Pickett's Charge.

As for "Jaguar," the less said, the better.
It currently has a well-deserved 3/6 out of 10 rating at IMDb.
A real stinker that gave both Stacy Keach and Linda Blair a chance at a paycheck.

I like B movies, superhero movies and revenge movies, so when I find a B movie superhero revenge flick, well that's some of the sweetest cream of all.

Unfortunately though, this cinematic cream is close to turning bad. It's not curdled yet, but it's starting to chunkify. It's more like cinematic Half and Half, half good movie and half not so good. It breaks down like this;

Derek Leigh is an undercover agent for the SOC, an agency so Top Secret that we never clearly learn what the acronym SOC means. He puts away the son of a huge drug lord, Bandera, and then drops into the Witness Relocation Program so that the drug lord can't get revenge on him.

The movie starts 8 years later. Bandera is locked up in a Federal pen, which is remarkably short of both federal employees and prisoners. I knew something was up with this movie when Bandera steps out of his cot wearing leopard skin print underwear. I know there is a prison in the Southwest where the warden makes the prisoners wear bright pink skivvies in order to make their stay less pleasant and them, therefore, less likely to return. But I don't know what kind of prison issues leopard skin underwear and I'm not sure I want to know.

Anyhow, Bandera's cartel breaks him out while the prison is transferring him to another facility. The cartel is well funded and organized and they manage to pull off the break out easily, although not without employing some inept martial arts. It was the same style martial art practiced by Gil Gerard and William Shatner and other middle-aged action heroes, a style with a name like Creaky Mantis or Winded Monkey. Luckily they were so inept they were funny.

Of course Bandera ices our hero's family and although that bit of violence happens off camera, we are there when he discovers their bodies and let me tell you he emits a "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" that would put Darth Vader to shame. Bandera tries to ice Derek at his job site (He's a roofer! Thanks alot Witness Protection Program!!!) But the metal wine flask he carries in his pocket saves Derek. "Whatever the vintage" says the cop who finds his unconscious body, this wine saved his life".

That cop is played by none other than Linda Blair. I have to warn you though that this is not the sultry, pouty, "I don't care if she's possessed because I would pork the devil out of her" Linda Blair from the woman in prison movies. This is the late 90's Edie McClurg in training Linda Blair.

She and her partner, a detective who looks like a statue of Dennis Franz sculpted from cottage cheese, end up trying to track Derek down once he becomes Jaguar.

Now this is an interesting little angle. Derek's kid loved superheroes and he created his own little comic books. His favorite creation was Jaguar, a man who made his body and mind strong so he could fight crime. Derek patterns his crime fighting costume very closely after the costume his kid had designed, in order to honor his son. Wow, that's different, and probably the most interesting angle in the entire movie. Unfortunately the design of the costume doesn't work very well on film as Jaguar looks like one of the Village People of the Future come back through a wormhole in time.

I won't spoil the rest of the movie for you except to say Jaguar's revenge involves the liberal use of explosive tipped crossbow bolts.

This movie wanted to be Batman meets Out for Justice but didn't achieve that awesome synthesis because, in a word, it was half-ased. The writing, directing, acting and design were all done to a half measure. That's too bad because it had the potential to become a nice little low budget gem. Instead it's more of a zirconium. It's one of those movies that truly deserve a good remake.

One could be too rich on imagination to see nudity in this movie mixing Batman-style heroism with the South-Bronx-flick-style street-fighting. However, camera perpetually catches groins' profiles of practically all characters involved.

This film is an adult-oriented kid-story-tale of a builder - police associate taking revenge over by him dismantled mafia having killed his family in vendetta.

To look at the cover of this one's DVD and to know the reputation of director David DeCoteau (Creepozoids), you might think you're about to see a B-grade sci-fi horror flick involving a half-man/half-jaguar. As it turns out, the creature in the cover art is entirely metaphorical, because this is in fact a B-grade action outing about an original superhero calling himself the Jaguar. If that doesn't sound very interesting to you, it's because the film isn't either, thanks not only to a fairly lackluster story but also to some really questionable production decisions and mediocre action scenes.

The story: when the family of ex-CIA agent Derek Leigh (Max Caulfield, Grease 2) is murdered by an escaped drug dealer he put behind bars (Trevor Goddard, Mortal Kombat) and he himself is left for dead, he trains himself to become a vigilante capable of taking down the villains.

The Jaguar superhero in the movie is inspired by Derek's son (Devon Michael), who drew him up on paper before being killed - that's a fairly neat touch. However, everything else about the guy is forgettable. Supposedly he's a ninja-esque master of stealth, but only because the henchmen in this movie are blind and deaf morons (and only once is this used to intentionally humorous effect). He's also supposed to be a ninja-esque master of martial arts, but few of the fights are worth watching (more on that later). And worst of all, he looks like a tool in his superhero outfit, right up to his bangs stylishly protruding over his headband. Max Caulfield has led action movies before, but this is the first that feels like it's trying to make him into a legitimate action hero, and it just doesn't work. Superhero flicks by default are supposed to be filled with cool stuff, but "Prey of the Jaguar" is too down-to-earth and limited by its production means to even think about realistically competing against any other superhero movie, save perhaps Albert Pyun's Captain America.

Failing as a superhero movie doesn't mean this one also has to fail as an action movie, but it does that also. The adrenaline is limited to a couple shootouts and nine fistfights, the latter of which are generally as awkward as can be expected for karate brawls featuring a non-martial artist (this may be because our hero is trained by John Fujioka, who played a similar mentor role in the similarly awkward American Ninja). The fighting cast also includes Steven Leigh (Ring of Fire), whose fight with Caulfield is probably the best in the picture but that's not saying much. Drama-wise, things are inoffensive but limited in appeal. Caulfield is relatively unremarkable in his role, and while the late Trevor Goddard tended to be one of the most enjoyable action regulars, he doesn't get to do much after the first act of the film. Stacy Keach (The Bourne Legacy) and Linda Blair (The Exorcist) appear in supporting role but don't have any strong dramatic scenes.

In truth, "Jaguar" is neither downright awful nor particularly boring, since it maintains relative enthusiasm and a good pace, but making a case for anything higher than a two star rating is a task that's beyond me. Were it not for its R rating, I might have recommended this one to younger viewers who can still build on their superhero experience, but I can't think of too many folks who'd genuinely enjoy this one. Watch out.