Deathline [a.k.a. Redline, a.k.a. Armageddon] (1997)

This film is virtually a canonical example of how to market a not-very-good B-movie. It has the popular science fiction setting, lots of gratuitous violence, Rutger Hauer in a starring role and the all-important feature of multiple titles – including cheekily calling it “Armageddon” in an effort to steal some business off the big-asteroid movie released the same year.

Small-time crook John Anderson Wade (Rutger Hauer) is about to pull off a highly profitable operation with his partner-in-crime Merrick (Mark Dacascos). However, at the last minute, Merrick betrays his friend, shooting Wade and Wade's girlfriend and running off with the money. Fortunately the local Russian police force is determined to crack down on the local criminal gangs Merrick is associated with, so they use some technological gadgets to bring Wade back to life, and send him off on a mission to bring down the people who betrayed him. This inevitably involves lots of violence, gratuitous nudity, betrayals and plot twists.

Rutger Hauer is quite a decent actor, but he does have a tendency to appear in very bad films where he is usually the best thing in the film. This is another example, with Hauer turning in by far the best acting performance in the film – although his character doesn't have any great depth Hauer does manage to make him quite likeable, which makes the outcome of the plot more interesting. The rest of the acting is a bit mediocre, although thankfully the Canadian film-makers have gone with mostly European actors so the Russian accents aren't glaringly inauthentic. Dacascos is a great martial artist, and also quite a decent actor in the likes of “Drive” and “Brotherhood of the Wolf”, but he isn't that great here, not helped by being given the role of stereotypical bad guy.

The sets feel run-down and dystopian, which is a good atmosphere for such a thriller. Unfortunately the only science fiction elements here are to provide the resurrection plot device and there's no real depth to the story. The direction is as mediocre as the script, although it's still possible to follow what is going on and there are a couple of decent action scenes.

In summary, a typical B-movie thriller which is intensely mediocre in most respects, but made more interesting by a quite good performance from Rutger Hauer.

Rating : 5 / 10

DVD Review (Region 2)

The best feature of the DVD is that it is cheap. Picture Quality is mediocre and there are no extras to speak of.

DVD Rating : 4 / 10

Click here to buy the DVD at Amazon.co.uk

All content ©2003 William Marnoch.

Comments? Agree/Disagree with the Reviews? Suggestions? Random Ramblings? Whatever you might want to say, feel free to e-mail me at william@wmarnoch.freeserve.co.uk .