Gunblast Vodka (2000) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski) |
Somebody has kidnapped some supermodels in Poland. Quick, send in the US marines. Despite what some people say, Americans don't really want to police the entire world, but there are some things that are sacred to America: the basic rights of man, cheap oil, and supermodels. If any of those are threatened, the American President is morally obligated to send in the troops, or at least Arnold Schwarzenegger. Unfortunately, Arnold wasn't available for this film. Dolf Lundgren is the second-string Arnold, but he passed as well, so the assignment went to the third-string Arnold, Gotz Otto, who looks like a muscled-up evil twin version of Quentin Tarantino. Since Gotz doesn't speak any Polish, he needed local help, and his investigation was aided by a completely loopy local police officer named Marek Brzeczyszczykiewicz, which is a tough name to pronounce, even by Polish standards. But pronouncing it is a helluva lot easier than spelling it! Marek is obviously completely nuts, and completely horny, although his concept of foreplay is to do a marionette show for his lover. (He's an amateur puppeteer.) The rest of the police department in the Polish city of Wroclaw (Vroots-wauf) seems to consist of cigar-smoking lesbians. |
If you are a film school professor, I suggest you own a copy of this for teaching purposes. I'm pretty sure it illustrates every mistake one could possibly make in creating a movie. |
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The action plays out like
an unholy matrimony of Pulp Fiction and Wild Wild West, tongue deep in
cheek. Otto's favorite killing technique is to make the blind
behind-the-back shot while his opponent sneaks up on him, but he has
various other circus sharpshooter tricks as well, like shooting his
two guns at baddies 180 degrees apart, perched on ledges above
him. Oh, that Polish sense of humor. I did laugh at the fact that the Chinese food in Poland all includes very long links of kielbasa, and is served by people with names like Chen Ho Kryszczpryszczbryszczkowski. I'm sad to report that this film is totally unwatchable. The basic elements weren't that strong to begin with, except the Polish policeman, who was kind of memorably daffy. (That guy also wrote the movie, and demonstrated a glaring lack of sanity in both roles.) But plot and characterization were actually the film's strong points. They chose to further muck it up by shooting the entire film in some kind of ultra-hip technique with a techno-pop score. They employed zillions of fast cuts, filled our eyes with the dreaded fisheye lens and other psychedelic shots, added color filters, and often turned the camera slightly askew, in the hopes of recreating the memorable artistic achievements of the TV Batman series. Imagine if the Adam West Batman series had been produced by MTV and co-directed by Dennis Hopper and David Lynch, and imagine further that Hopper was allowed unlimited access to recreational pharmaceuticals. That will give you the general feel of the movie. Sometimes the camera just darts wildly about, going back-and-forth for no apparent purpose. If all that isn't silly enough, it also features guys wearing silly hawk-nose masks, and two women who look exactly alike, although the film doesn't explain until the last few minutes that they are two separate women. |
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Did I mention that the bad guy was kidnapping supermodels so he could star them in snuff films? So this film is actually a flippant, cavalier comedy about the snuff film industry. It's actually a French movie shot on location in Poland with a mostly Polish cast, mostly in English, sprinkled with some international names (Angie Everhart, Jurgen Prochnow). It's a mess, in more ways than one. One of the poorest films I've ever seen. |
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