The Zone (1996) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

The Zone is probably not a movie you want to see. Spinning it positively, it is a modest third-tier international actioner which belongs in the hyphen world (straight-to-vid, or made-for-cable). It stars Robert "Captain Cable" Davi as some kind of renegade free-lance operative who has to be coerced by an unscrupulous CIA boss into taking each new mission, presumably because of some bad will generated by previous betrayals. The end of the movie seems to indicate that this film may have been the pilot for an ongoing series of films, something like a second-rate James Bond franchise. Whatever future plans the developers once had for ace fly-boy Rowdy Welles, they never materialized. There may have been many reasons for that, as you'll see later in these comments, but the major drawback to such a series can be summed up in five words: Robert Davi as James Bond.

Rowdy Welles (Davi) has exactly the same tempestuous love-hate relationship with his CIA boss (Ben Gazzara) that McCloud had with J.D. Cannon. Gazzara knows that Davi is a reckless cowboy who disregards the rules, but he gets the job done, dammit, and he's one hell of an American. In this case, the job involves some arms dealers in the newly-emerging country of Marvesh (played by Hungary) who are planning to deliver nuclear bombs to terrorists. Despite the fact that Marvesh is so corrupt that the head arms dealer (Alexander Godunov) really runs the country, Captain Cable has to stop the plan virtually unassisted, although he is fortunate to have an ally working undercover as the arms dealer's girlfriend.

Everything progresses as predictably as you might expect, but the film is not a total washout. I can tell you some vaguely interesting things about it.

• Alexander Godunov, the loose and limber classical dancer who became a stiff actor, plays the psychotic bad guy. Because Godunov seems like kind of a shy, handsome, quiet type, and is not too cocky, the casting adds a little flavor to the film. Although he was trim and athletic and not very old (46), Godunov died mysteriously just a few weeks after this movie was lensed, presumably as a result of a lifetime of very heavy Vodka consumption. If you watch this film, you can not only see his last public appearance as an actor, but you can also see the last time he danced in public, since he cavorts around in an impressive Hungarian (er ... Marveshian) folk dance with a gypsy entertainer. I'm not sure how logical it is to portray a peasant arms dealer as the possessor of this kind of dancing talent, or how sensible it is to insert a long musical number into a violent film about terrorists, but I guess those are the sorts of things you do when you are producing low budget films, and one of your stars happens to have been one of the greatest dancers in the world. Why waste it?

• The Zone was actually filmed in Hungary, the first half mostly in Budapest, the second half on a military base somewhere out in the countryside. The interiors are actual Budapest restaurants and shopping bazaars and the early action scenes are actually filmed on boats cruising the Danube, on actual local streetcars, at the Luna Park, and across a wide swath of city streets on both sides of the river. That may be interesting to you if you enjoy the travelogue aspect of Bondian films. I once lived in Pest, and had a girlfriend who lived in Buda. I miss my time and my friends in Hungary, so a lot of the film consisted of nostalgia for me.

• There are some pretty good aviation stunts, if you like that sort of thing. The film follows the Bond formula slavishly, and that means there is a spectacular opening sequence in which Davi's character shows off some some impressive aerial artistry.

• There are plenty of other homages to Bond, including a classic scene where the bad guy has Davi cornered on a bridge, and is about to kill him, when Davi times a precipitous jump perfectly to land on a passing boat. When the villain runs to the downriver side of the bridge, Davi is holding a champagne bottle and hoisting a glass upward in the direction of Mr. Baddie. Classic Bond moment, and probably the best two minutes of the film.

So much for the interesting things. On the negative side, you already know that the plot and characterizations consist of film clichés. Those problems are common to many movies which are still being shown now and then, and would not have been enough to cast this film into the utter oblivion which it has achieved. The reason why you don't see this on cable once in a while is that some of the film's dialogue, which seemed innocuous in 1996, now seems completely tasteless in a post 9-11 world. A very specific example is that Godunov is going to supply the terrorists with "enough explosives to destroy the World Trade Center."

Oops.

If not for the unfortunate prescience of such dialogue, you might have been able to catch The Zone on the telly now and again, but now? Well, that probably ain't gonna happen.

To tell you the truth, I don't know anything about the two females listed below in the nudity report. I looked up Lara Harris, and she has been in some good movies that I have seen, like The Fisher King, Demolition Man and Cameron Crowe's Singles. I don't remember her in any of those films. Of course, you'd have to have a helluva memory to recall her unforgettable performance in Demolition Man as "Taco Bell Customer", especially since that film takes place in a future time when ALL restaurants are Taco Bells.

Oh, yeah, now I remember her. She's the one who took the medium sauce and an extra napkin. Awesome!

Good roles or not, she was at least in some good films in the early 90s, but she has done almost nothing in the past five years.

As for Patricia Rive, she was also in Demolition Man. I guess these two women work as a team! In Ms. Rive's case, however, her Demo Man appearance as "police officer" was the highlight of her career, and she has not been seen on screen since her topless scene in The Zone.