MY NAME IS SCOTT FOY AND I PAID TO SEE MAX PAYNE

Let me summarize the month of January for you: stomach virus, root canal and wisdom tooth extraction, and a computer virus so nasty I had no alternative but to back-up my data and nuke my hard drive. Suffice to say, no Foybles this year. On the plus side, a new 80-minute Foycast is now available at Dread Central in which I rundown (and I do mean rundown) the ten worst direct-to-DVD horror movies of 2009. You can listen and download the 8th installment of the Foycast by CLICKING HERE.

As a matter of fact, diagnosing the virus and reloading the computer from scratch pretty took so long it pretty much killed my plans for this month's Foyeurism, as I never really got the time needed to write what I had in mind. Fortunately, as I have stated, I have numerous reviews on stand-by. This month's theme involves youth violence. One film is an action film about a pacifist who has to keep rival gangs from going to war by the killing the third-party trying to set them off. The other has a simple solution for dealing with violent punks - shoot them in the face. I definitely think we will start with the face shooting. Who doesn't like seeing deviant youths getting shot in the face?

 

DEATH TO SNOOKI

 

If there's a problem with HARRY BROWN it's that its a British movie. By that I mean this is a movie about an angry old geezer who goes around shooting troublemaking whippersnappers in the face, but because this is a British production, the filmmakers have to try and make it a classy piece of cinema about an angry old man shooting troublemaking whippersnappers in the face. Don't shoot for highbrow standards. Just shoot punks in the face, I say. By the time Charles Bronson was a thousand years old and still making DEATHWISH 4: THE CRACKDOWN did you see him having any pretension about making a sophisticated vigilante flick? I enjoyed HARRY BROWN because you can't go wrong with Michael Caine as an elderly gentlemen version of THE PUNISHER shooting twenty-year old sociopaths in the face. I just wish the film had been a little less stuffy. Brits, why must your films be as stiff as your upper lips?

Sir Michael Caine stars as Harry Brown in HARRY BROWN. Widowed in the opening ten minutes (his long ill wife finally succumbs to her disease); his friend is then murdered in the next ten minutes by local hooligans; what's an elderly ex-marine with no one left in his life to do but find the punks responsible and go all YE MERRY OLE DEATHWISH on them? The cops aren't going to do anything. This is England. They don't even carry guns. Not even to a full-scale riot. Somebody has to shoot these punks in the face and since Edward Woodward is dead and "The Equalizer" long since cancelled, what better brit to do so than Sir Michael Caine. The man once won an Oscar but was not allowed to attend the ceremony because he had to stay on location and finish filming JAWS: THE REVENGE. If anyone has earned the right to go on a killing spree it's Michael Caine. Prepare to be shot in the face - with eloquence.

The older I get the more I think Harry Brown was onto something. I still have a ways to go before reaching middle age and I'm already prepared to shoot some of the young punks I come across in the face. I know each generation tends to complain about the next generation to follow, but, damn, a lot of young people today are just douchebags that need to be shot in the face.

For example, have you seen that show "Jersey Shore". All I ever hear about - Jersey Shore, Jersey Shore, Jersey Shore... You have to watch Jersey Shore because it's the it show of the moment. I finally broke down and took in an episode of Jersey Shore and it took about two minutes before I was fully prepared to shoot every last one of these people in the face. Let me tell you something. I hail from South Mississippi. People on "Jersey Shore" behave like this down here they get rightfully referred to as trailer park trash. But if you live up north, call yourself a guido, talk like Vinnie Barbarino, or look like the big-breasted mutant munchkin that would be spawned if George Hamilton ever impregnated Smurfette you can behave like total white trash and be considered cool enough to get your own obnoxious MTV faux-reality program. Nothing should ever be named Snooki unless it's a stuffed animal or an anime character. Anything else bearing the name Snooki should be shot in the face out of principle.

I have gotten way off topic, haven't I? Yes, I have.

Anyway, Sir Michael Caine stars as Harry Brown, a fed up old man who goes around shooting young punks in the face for the betterment of mankind. If this movie is to be believed, not only does Britain have a problem with violent youths, there are apartment complexes so overrun with urban scum that one police raid is all it takes to turn the vicinity into a post-apocalyptic riot. A riot between police and punks at the end of the film started looking like a deleted scene from 28 DAYS LATER.

Michael Caine shooting rage zombies in the face - that movie needs to be made yesterday. THE CIDER HOUSE OF THE DEAD RULES: why does this movie not exist yet?

Know what other recent Michael Caine movie would have really benefited from having him shoot the rest of the cast in the face? BEWITCHED. Though Nicole Kidman has had so much botox and collagen injected into her face it's probably bulletproof by now. I swear she's slowly turning into a real-life version of Sharon Stone's CATWOMAN villainess.

Before Harry Brown can even begin shooting young punks in the face he has to get his hands on a gun. Remember that this is Britain we are talking about. Getting a gun over there is not as easy as sending in three Chex Mix box tops like it is here. Harry Brown has to go deal with two young gun-dealing, heroin-addicted, pot-growing cretins just to acquire an illegal firearm. You know what the first thing he does when he gets that firearm? He takes that gun and shoots the two gun dealers in the face! Not exactly. He shoots one in the neck and then shoots the other in the gut, but then that guy collapses and then Harry Brown stands over him, exposes on how painful a gunshot to the gut is and why he shot him, and then shoots him in the face. And then he steals their entire sack of illegal firearms, splashes gasoline everywhere, and burns everything to the ground, but not before rescuing the young woman being used as a sex toy by the two scumbags who had been overdosing on heroin on the couch the whole time he was there haggling with them over a handgun. Let this be an important life lesson to everyone. When Harry Brown suggests you call an ambulance to save the life of a young lady you better do so unless you want to get shot in the face. If Harry Brown has to save her life, nobody is going to save yours. He doesn't ask twice. But he does shoot twice.

It's not even always young guys. This one seedy looking middle-aged dude picks up a young male prostitute and gets a little head in a parked car. BAM! A bullet straight through the windshield right between the eyes - no warning, no impunity. One second he was getting blown and the next he got blown away. It will turn out that guy was one of the biggest heroin dealers in the UK, a fact Harry Brown couldn't have possibly known when he chose to randomly shoot this guy in the face, so it's all good. Does Harry Brown hate gays or people that frequent prostitutes, too? Maybe. Maybe not. Just make sure you're not getting sucked off by a young punk that witnessed the murder of Harry Brown's friend when Michael Caine begins wishing death.

You think a bloody knife can scare me, you little wanker? I starred in THE SWARM for Christ's sake!

Only one thing stands in the way of Harry Brown and face-shooting retribution: emphysema. He's old. He has breathing issues. Things get too rigorous and Harry Brown goes down wheezing. Making others take their last breath tends to take his breath away. Rest assured though, he will check himself out of the hospital after a brief oxygen tank siesta and he will find you and when he does, HE WILL SHOOT YOU IN THE FACE! Or the neck. Someplace from the neck up. HEADSHOT HARRY should have been the title of this film.

HARRY BROWN would make a great video game. A third-person shooter in which you play as an angry elderly widower roaming around London with a gun in search of the youthful drug-using/dealing, citizen-terrorizing, violent malcontents responsible for the brutal murder of his best friend. You have an emphysema meter that causes you to lose energy and become weaker; picking up oxygen tanks around the city helps replenish your stamina. Get Rockstar Games on the phone ASAP!

No what else would be great? If Hollywood would hire John Woo to make a HARBOILED-styled big screen version of Barnaby Jones starring James Cromwell. We need more movie with young people shooting young people.

I can't wait to get old. Think of all the things you can get away with as a senior citizen that are frowned upon when you're young. A young person using profanity is considered rude, vulgar, and socially unskilled. Old people can't help but sprinkle in random obscenities; "geriatric profanity disorder" is what I believe "The Simpsons" once called it. Look how many movies have an old man or woman drop some major f-bombs and everyone in the audience laughs uproariously. It's adorable. Young people having premaritial sex is frowned upon. Just look at all the hanky panky going on in rest homes, retirement communities, and amongst the eldery in geriatric hot spots like Florida; does anyone go after them with the same vitriole for their promiscuity as young people get for it? Absolutely not. Why? Because if you live that long and can still get it on then you've earned it. No what else you can get away with when you get old? Shooting young punks in the face.

If you're old and thinking about serving as judge, jury, and executioner, remember the one rule of shooting violent punks in the face. You have to save the life of at least one police officer along the way. Preferably female, because they're much bigger pushovers than male cops to begin with. Your wife just died from a long illness, your best friend was terrorized and then murdered by violent punks, you have nobody left to play chess with, and you saved my life, which, admittedly, would not have been in danger in the first place had I not been actively pursuing your killing spree; sure, you can murder a half dozen people and I'll let you get away scot-free in the end. Sympathy votes are the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free cards. Amazed the film didn't end with the two having a spot of tea while reminiscing about the time he put a male prostitute in a leash in a shadowy tunnel and tricked his two homicidal friends into shooting him to death.

Like C.S. Lewis once wrote, "You can never get a cup of tea large enough or bullet wound big enough to suit me."

I was always kind of surprised that Jeff Speakman's action movie career never took off like it did. 1991's THE PERFECT WEAPON may not have been an all-time great martial arts movie or the instant action hero-making role Paramount probably hoped it would be, but, still, it was a pretty solid little action vehicle that I've always thought was superior to even some of Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme's films of the same time period. Speakman wasn't the most charismatic action hero to come along nor much of an actor either. He exuded more of a soft-spoken stoicism; think Chuck Norris by way of Richard Gere. He didn't have the self-congratulatory smarminess of a Jean-Claude Van Damme or the flippant smugness of a Steven Seagal. That's probably what doomed him from the outset. Well, that and he made movies like STREET KNIGHT.

Another reason could have been because his particular fighting style failed to excite audiences. I've no doubt that Kenpo karate is a highly effective form of hand-to-hand combat; after seeing Seagal flinging guys around and snapping limbs and Jean-Claude Van Damme bashing skulls in with dazzling mid-air spin kicks, it just wasn't quite as impressive to watch Jeff Speakman unleash a flurry of what sort of resembled full contact patty cake. Don't let Mr. Speakman or any Kenpo karate guys know I said that, by the way.

Speakman would return to the big screen for the last time after THE PERFECT WEAPON, now reduced to the doldrums of Cannon. This time period truly was the doldrums of Cannon; the company would fold following the release of STREET KNIGHT. Had I known at the time that this motion picture would be Cannon's swan song I might have been tempted to light a candle at the end of the movie. Probably for the best that I didn't since that might have set off the sprinkler system.

I watched STREET KNIGHT at the Surfside Cinema in Biloxi, MS; a theater that was pretty much a dump by then, practically a grindhouse. Broken seats. Entire rows of seats were missing. Seat cushions were torn and slashed. The shoddy speakers often crackled. Films breaking was nothing out of the ordinary for Surfside Cinema. Ah, the crap I watched in that place before it finally closed down for good in the mid-Nineties. LEPRECHAUN, WARLOCK, THE HITMAN, ALLAN QUATERMAIN & THE LOST CITY OF GOLD, EVE OF DESTRUCTION, and - the last film I ever saw there - TURBO: A POWER RANGERS MOVIE immediately spring to mind.

And STREET KNIGHT was indeed crap. A generic action thriller from the director of PURPLE RAIN that felt like it was crafted from a screenplay Chuck Norris probably passed on a decade earlier. Not even gratuitous beefcake naked butt shots in the moonlight could save Jeff Speakman's career from being reduced solely to the dregs of direct-to-videodom after this stinker came and went in the blink of an eye.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was merely a case of the world simply not needing two Thomas Ian Griffith's? I imagine that is the problem facing John Cena right now. The world keeps telling him we don't need two Channing Tatum's.

STREET KNIGHT cast Jeff Speakman as one of those movie cops who quits the force after a tragic incident only to be forced reluctantly back into action years later at the behest of a damsel in distress. Los Angeles cop Jake Barrett quits the police department and opts to live life as a guilt-ridden auto mechanic in the barrio after a madman killed an eight-year old girl right before his eyes during a hostage crisis. For some reason Jake blames himself even though when we see this tragedy unfold in a flashback it is quite clear any blame on his part was inadvertent at best. Regardless, Jake got really depressed, turned in his badge, and continues to be haunted by nightmares. Had someone just given him a prescription for Prozac there might not have been a movie at all.

The South Central Blades (the black gang with a name worthy of a minor league hockey team) and the West Side Latin Lords (the Latino gang with a name that makes them sound like they could burst into song at any moment) are on the verge of ending their long-running LA street war. Tensions begin mounting again when members of both gangs turn up murdered and each side believes the other to be behind it. In actuality, a para-military outfit composed of highly decorated ex-cops is secretly working to escalate the violence between the rival gangs as a cover for the big diamond heist they're planning. I never really understood how one was supposed to help the other. Also anyone's guess, why the leaders of the respective black and latino street gangs are willing to listen to the pleas of a white ex-policeman like Jake as he tries to keep the peace by uncovering what's really going on, making himself a target of the real bad guys in the process.

Also the target of the real bad guys is Carlos, the gawky teenager that witnessed the scheming ex-cops in action and has since gone into hiding to stay alive. Every movie hero needs a love interest and Carlos happens to have an older sister named Rebecca (the actress gives a performance worthy of a Massengill commercial). A mutual friend recommends Rebecca talk to Jake since he used to be a cop, and though he initially declines her requests, God intervenes to show him the way. It had to have been God's will. What are the odds Jake would get mad about the state of his life and throw a screwdriver that just happens to impale itself on a bulletin board right next to a scrap of paper with Rebecca's phone number? Clearly this was the Lord's way of telling Jake Barrett that it was time for him to stop feeling sorry for himself, go save this young man's life, help clean up the streets, and get himself a little poontang while he was at it. God is great.

The plot mechanics of STREET KNIGHT are so mechanical the film even brings in the great actor Bernie Casey for no other reason than to play one of those movie characters that exists for what amounts to "No, I can't tell you that I've uncovered the true identity of the villains over the telephone because this is just too important. Why don't you meet me in a dark alleyway in an hour instead so I can tell you in person? Be there at 8:00 on the dot because I'll be dead by 8:01."

The real cops end up going after Jake after one of the bad cops dresses up in Speakman's signature shirt and jeans combo and murders one of the gang leaders. Never mind that this guy looked more like Ted Wass (AKA Blossom's dad) than Jeff Speakman. The cops want to arrest Speakman so bad they'll trace his phone calls, but when he shows up at a crime scene later on, walks right up and introduces himself to another officer and then asks that officer to give a note to the chief investigator, there will be no attempt to even so much as detain him. And to think people think a lot of people believe the cops in LA are all either corrupt or incompetent.

There's also the matter of how the gangbangers in this film all look, talk, and act exactly like gangbangers did in episodes of 80's TV cop shows, like "Hunter" or "Lady Blue". They've all got nicknames like 8-Ball, carry more switchblades and baseball bats than firearms, and are prone to marching along in unison like they've just walked straight out of Michael Jackson's "Beat It" video. You can tell this movie was made by very white people. I fear Jackie Chan may have watched STREET KNIGHT, got the mistaken impression that this was realistic portrayal of what urban gangs are like, and used them as the basis for the gang whose but he kicked in RUMBLE IN THE BRONX.

This film rides so far into the realm of clichédom that the finale even takes place at a train yard under cover of night. I guess they couldn't afford to rent an empty warehouse or abandoned steel mill. Jake is supposed to bring Carlos in exchange for the life of Rebecca, abducted earlier. Lest you think no cliché goes unturned, the once rival gangs suddenly band together to assist the outnumbered white knight who has helped show them the error of their ways. God is great. Whitey is greater.

The only thing out of the script's realm of clichédom is a brief excursion to a ranch in the California countryside where Speakman dons a trusty steed and gets chased by a pair of henchmen in a Range Rover. Like a scene out of any given episode of Walker, Texas Ranger that somehow found its way into a movie that was supposedly to be about the inner city. With a title like STREET KNIGHT and a scene involving our hero on a horseback, would it have killed the producers to at the very least had the chase end by him jousting a metal pole through the bad guy's windshield?

The leader of the ex-cops turned jewel thieves is played by a lesser known character actor name Christopher Neame, a guy I can never watch in a movie without immediately thinking of his turn as the wimpiest hellspawn ever to grace a movie screen, the one Chuck Norris wallops back to the underworld in the atrocious HELLBOUND. He's not much of a villain here either as the lead dirty ex-cop, like a more testosterone driven version of David Hyde Pierce.

Neame's well-versed villain will lead to the the big bon mot at the end when Speakman counters the Shakespeare-quoting bad guy by blowing him away and responding with... See for yourself.

A cute homage, but by having him toss out a quote-worthy line from someone much further up the action hero totem pole it also further cemented Jeff Speakman's status as a second-rate action star.

That one-liner also seemed out of place given the humorless nature of Speakman's character. His dialogue is otherwise devoid of zingers. Heck, otherwise devoid of any signs of life in general. Lacking a sense of humor was quite the misstep for an action hero during this time period. Instead STREET KNIGHT tries and fails to paint Speakman as an old school movie tough guy, such as when he sternly warns a henchman sent to kill him, "You're not that big. Think about it." Sage advice considering that the guy attacking him was, in fact, not that big. I'm thinking that line might have worked better had they cast a henchman who looked to be significantly physically larger than Speakman and not just half a foot taller.

Another mistake: forgetting to include the action in an action movie. Most of the action is relegated to the last half hour. This is unacceptable. Jeff Speakman is not an actor. Who told this man he could act? Speakman only shows off his Kenpo skills twice in the whole film and only once in any great length. That's even more unacceptable. Mostly, Jeff Speakman goes around asking people questions and pleading for calm in a constant monotone voice. STREET KNIGHT should have been titled STREET ARBITRATOR or STREET CONCILIATOR or STREET MEDIATOR. I want to see broken bones, not brokered peace accords.

Better yet, WHITE KNIGHT should have been the title.

Instead of the brooding asskicker he was in THE PERFECT WEAPON, the Jeff Speakman of STREET KNIGHT is a most imperfect weapon of political correctness. Infused with a healthy dose of early Clinton Era "Don't Stop Dreaming about Tomorrow"-ness, the movie totally glosses over the fact that these SoCal gangs are the ones responsible for much of the drugs and violence in their respected hoods and barrios, opting to treat them as two racially different groups that just need to overlook their prejudice in order to learn to live in harmony with one another, and who better to help spread that harmony than a white ex-policeman? Who needs Kenpo karate when you can soothe raging gangbangers with such bumper sticker quality sentiments as "Nobody benefits from war" and "A gun doesn't get you respect." There were times when STREET KNIGHT came across less like an action movie and more like an inspirational Afterschool Special that every now and then tossed aside its "increase the peace" messaging in favor of a stiff beatdown.

Just before the closing credits roll we're treated to a well-meaning but wholly laughable on-screen graphic:

THIS FILM IS DEDICATED TO THE UNITED KENPO FAMILY AND FOR GANG TRUCE EVERYWHERE

Your lesson for today, kids:

Gangs are bad.

Increase the peace.

Unless it involves being a member of the United Kenpo Family and learning a discipline by which to better beat the snot out of another human being, in which case, cool.

Post-STREET KNIGHT Jeff Speakman was destined to never be anything more than the direct-to-video Kenpo master lovechild of Roddy Piper and Jeff Fahey. His next film would at least have a noteworthy hook to it: 1995's THE EXPERT had Speakman going all DEATH WISH as a guy who breaks into a prison in order to kill the guy who murdered his sister and got off with a light sentence. For real. Jeff Speakman forsakes his liberal STREET KNIGHT give-peace-a-chance opining in favor of some old fashioned right-wing retribution. Liberal do-gooders that believe in rehabilitating murderous scum prevent the serial killer that slaughtered Speakman's sister from getting the electric chair by reason of a legal technicality, so Jeff Speakman breaks into the maximum security prison in order to personally execute his sister's killer, and if any other lawbreakers serving time for their own misdeeds get in his way he might just free up some more space in America's overcrowded prisons.

It just dawned on me. Why the heck didn't I review that movie instead of this lamer one? Another Foyeurism for another day.

MY NAME IS SCOTT FOY AND I PAID TO SEE THE HITMAN