I'm a big Mickey Rourke guy. He was always one of my favorite actors growing up ('Year of the Dragon' was so off the chain), and even after he became somewhat of a punchline for movie goers (there was a time when Mickey Rourke's name would get mentioned and people would bust out laughing spontaneously), he was still a cool brother in my book. I realize he's making a comeback as of late, and that inevitably involves distancing himself from bullshit like this that he made in the 90s. 'Point Blank' was one of those movies I missed, but I wasn't surprised that he made this, seeing as he co-starred as the head baddie in Jean Claude Van Dammes 'Double Team'around the same time.
This movie was a cringe-inducing shit-fest which I wanted to see solely for the Rourke factor. It sees a 'roided out Rourke as a guy named Rudy Ray, a guy who used to be in the Marine Corps, then quit the Texas Rangers, and now spends most of his time taking growth hormones and working in the hot sun of his ranch. Rudy's brother Joe(played by Kevin Gage), escapes from prison, and now he and a bunch of convicts go hog wild in a Forth Worth, Texas shopping mall. Rourke sneaks into the mall to save his brother before his antics get him hurt.
Rourke, perhaps the finest actor of the Reagan years, speaks maybe 20 lines the entire movie, spending most of his time silently dispensing of baddies like a wannabe John Matrix, complete with Commando vest and that knife that shoots the blade out. Mickey is one of those actors who can make even the poorest material interesting, and he always stands out. Not so here, it's almost as if he's embarrassed to be in this (and can you blame him?), and he doesn't say a lot or really do a whole lot, like he wanted to blend in with the background. In real life, he's a bonafide tough guy- a boxer and Chihuahua enthusiast. He's never came off like a true action hero to me though, and the material of 'Point Blank' doesn't leave him with much to work with except slit bad guys' throats and have completely inappropriate 10 minute emotional scenes with his shot brother in a sewer tunnel.
Because he doesn't do much, he ends up being upstaged in every way by the brilliant and hammy performance of Danny Trejo, who plays the maniacal rapist/murderer Wallace.
Trejo had all the best scenes: from the very beginning, when the convicts get to the Fort Worth shopping mall, he smacks this chick in the face with the butt of his shotgun for no reason; he's constantly sticking his face in blow, and comes up all powdery, like some bad comedy sketch. One of the hostages is this stripper chick who wants some coke, so they both retire to this shower area, and she's all dancing on this pole while Trejo gets all coked out and his nose is all white, all the while cheesy 80s sax/synthesizer music is in the background. When his fellow convicts are worried about the hostage situation, Trejo takes the now topless stripper chick, shouts at the cops, shoots her in the head, and throws her off a balcony. He shouts shit like "Hey! Where are you going with my bitch?!" and "Hey! Fats!" before blowing away this old fat lady hostage and she falls in the wishing fountain. He also has this great shootout with Mickey Rourke where he gets all covered with all kinds of paint, and he's all shirtless and stuff. He does all this while laughing maniacally and making evil faces the entire time (not to mention snorting an entire brick of cocaine), and the result is cinematic gold (for his scenes, at least).
The movie itself is a typical B, DTV, paint-by-numbers 'Die Hard'/'Con Air' rip-off, and the supporting characters and baddies are just as generic: it seems every convict here besides Trejo was in the wrong place at the wrong time; the Texas cops are stupid and a waste, even though one of them is named 'Hardwood.' The chick, Tracy (Nina Sawell) is pretty hot, but she doesn't hook up with anybody, and all she does is give Trejo's gun a blow job and bond emotionally with the wimpy thief convict. I'd say the production quality of this was just a little above that of 'Chained Heat 2,' and that's not saying much. Everything looked cheap, badly lit, and nobody except Trejo looked like they wanted to be there.
I can't really recommend this, but Danny Trejo was pretty hilarious, so you might wanna take a chance and put it on the Roku box for that. But otherwise, pass.
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