Army of One is a pretty low budget action movie… and you can tell. It’s so low budget, one of the main villains named Butch sports a large black tribal tattoo on his shoulder that is clearly drawn in with what looks like sharpie markers. I mean, you could see the streaks within the tattoo. The film’s IMDb also boasts a piece of trivia that one of the one shot fight scenes in the film only took the actors one hour to rehearse, and they “nailed it” on the first take. So yeah, this is about as low budget as it gets.
But I’m not here to knock around Army of One. While I could never recommend this movie to anyone that isn’t a total nut for bad action movies like myself (and this is a bad action movie, to be clear), there is still a sort of charm in it that makes it a lot of fun to watch for people like me. It’s the sort of movie you could create a drinking game around. It’s also the sort of movie that, for someone like myself, has you feverishly digging through the profiles of everyone involved to see who these people are, what other work have they done, and what could possibly of brought them all together to make this thing. That’s something you just don’t get with big budget action movies.
After a botched rescue mission leaves his partner dead, and him wounded, Dillon Baker (played by Matt Passmore) and his wife, Brenner (played by Ellen Hollman), decide to take a camping vacation in a remote Southern town. You know, the sort of town that don’t look too kindly upon strangers. As they drive in they are harassed on the road by some wild-eyed ape with a mohawk driving a beat up pickup truck. After he drives off the couple end up at a little diner run by Mama (played by Geraldine Singer). Everyone knows Mama, and calls her Mama. She’s the owner and the waitress at Mama’s Place. Mama carries so much weight in town, when the ape with the mohawk walks in with a group of buddies and begin to harass the couple once more, Mama shuts him down and he listens. She also makes him pay their bill.
Mama ain’t nobody to mess with.
Time passes, one thing leads to another, and the couple ends up breaking into a cabin to get out from the rain. They pass the time “doing the deed” and after stumble upon some suspiciousness within the cabin. Before they can leave, the couple is ambushed by Butch (played by Gary Kasper) and his gang. Dillon is killed, and Brenner is shot and left for dead. Big mistake!
The rest of the movie is your typical revenge story. No real plot to speak of. Turns out there’s more to Mama than meets the eye, and Brenner sets about dispatching Butch’s crew one by one, mostly with bullets. Turns out there’s more to Brenner than meets the eye, too.
Look, the action, acting, cinematography, it’s all pretty bad and unoriginal. But for the budget, it’s hard to fault the film for that. The fact this movie even exists is a triumph. There are seedlings of a good story here. Mama, as a crime lord leading a group of hillbillies in this podunk town, shows real shades of menace. The settings are effectively grimy. Butch, the standout henchmen, is a suitable baddie you root to see get what’s coming to him. Although I do question the timing of his comeuppance within the film given the amount of time we spend with him early on, and the fact that its his actions that set this whole ball rolling.
My biggest issues with Army of One is that there is a decent setup here that just never seems to be allowed to play out. How many of the locals are in on Mama’s empire? Do the local police know? There is a bit where the police chief gets involved, but it’s treated more of an afterthought and never really fleshed out. There’s also the problem with Brenner’s inability to actually save anyone other than herself. It’s established that one of Mama’s illegal operations is smuggling women, using them as indentured servants and sex slaves. These women have experienced horrible abuse at the hands of Mama and her men, and when Brenner begins her rampage, one would think this would be a great subplot to show Brenner as more than just a women scorned, but as a hero. But no, instead they’re all treated as casualties which put a real damper on my viewing experience.
As female power fantasies go, I think Army of One is effective enough in establishing Brenner as a viable ass-kicker, but her lack of heroism kept me from really wanting to root for her. Couple that with eliminating the most interesting bad guy early on, and a rather anti-climactic ending (which seems to promise that this is some sort of a start of a possible franchise), and what you’re left with is a fairly forgettable low budget action film with a lot of squandered promise. But I still give the filmmakers props for getting it made. At the very least, they have some decent footage for their sizzle reels.
If you’re still reading this, thank you. I’m J. Kern Radtke, the Reformed Movie Geek telling you that, if you’re a stranger in a strange land, best not go breaking into and poking around cabins when it rains. Just pack an umbrella.
No comments:
Post a Comment