Fatal Conflict (1999) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski) and Tuna

This is another one in the series of sister films from Czechoslovakia. This film, Lethal Target and Last Stand are essentially a trilogy, in that they have the following items in common:
  • In each film, a woman with special abilities is taken from a hard labor penal colony and assigned a dangerous mission as a chance to redeem herself and gain her freedom. Earth's fate always hangs in the balance, or at least a big chunk of earth.
  • In each film, a character named Max is the puppet-master who arranges for the women to receive the assignments, keeps in touch with them from earth, and essentially narrating the film by giving us plot exposition as he gives progress reports to somebody else. The same actor plays Max in all three.

NUDITY REPORT

none!

there are plenty of women in t-shirts with nothing beneath, including Kari Wuhrer. Kari gets her shirt wet, so it is virtual nudity.

  • The first few minutes of the three films are identical or nearly identical, as the premise is being constructed.
  • The miniatures are very poor, like the Star Wars toys that little kids play with, and the "alien planet" backdrops are always painted.
  • There is only one location for all the action. Whether the action takes place in space, on earth, or on an alien planet, they are always in the same warehouse, and we see the same room and corridors again and again.
  • The "stars" are American actors and actresses, but all the extras are Czechs.
  • The titles, of course, are all in the format adjective+noun, where the adjective is a synonym for terminal.

I guess you've determined by now that these aren't exactly A material. I liked Lethal Target the best of the three. It was a cheap remake of Alien with sex scenes. I didn't much care for the other two. This one, Fatal Conflict, has no nudity at all despite the presence of Kari Wuhrer, so it doesn't really have much of a cheap thrill factor either, and I can't give you any motivation to see it except that Kari does run around in a wet t-shirt for a while.

If you are a fan of Jennifer Rubin, don't be tempted to see it. She looks ancient, is fully dressed, has very few lines, and shows no enthusiasm for the lines she has.

Strange that they didn't keep the series more consistent in terms of nudity. I was expecting this one to have the same key elements as Lethal Target, but the substantial sex and nudity in that other film was chopped down to "skimpy only" for this one.

DVD info from Amazon.

  • bare bones

Tuna's comments in yellow

Fatal Conflict (1999) gave me an immediate feeling of deja doodoo, or the sense that I had seen this shit before. Turns out I had, as the first few minutes, with women crawling around carrying buckets of styrofoam prop rocks, introduces the premise for a series of Czechoslovakian films that each have a woman released from a penal colony to perform some special mission. In this case it was Kari Wuhrer, who was selected to sneak onto a space freighter and crash it into the Earth before the evil guy who hijacked it crashes it into the Earth. There are two good points to this film, and both of them poke through Wuhrer's wet t-shirt for the second half of the film.
 

There is some plot device at the beginning where skimpily dressed women are handling emeralds, but there is no actual exposure. Give this film a wide berth. Not only is the plot lame, the sets amateurish, the scale models poor and the acting awful, but the photography is poor as well.

The Critics Vote

  • No reviews online

The People Vote ...

  • With their dollars ... made for video/DVD, I guess, and poorly marketed at that.
IMDb guideline: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence, about like three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, about like two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, about like two stars from the critics. Films under five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film, equivalent to about one and a half stars from the critics or less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Based on this description, this film is a D (both reviewers). Production values weak, plot trite, dialogue not very interesting. 

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