The Chaos Factor (2000)

Jack Poynt (Sabato Jr.) is a military man who specializes in 'demo excavation', in other words, sweeping mines out of Cambodia and saving the local villagers. Jack Poynt's life changes forever when he comes across an Army medic's diary that was written during the Vietnam War. It turns out that a fellow soldier named Maxwell Camden (Ward) committed all sorts of wartime atrocities. Now, in the present day, Camden is a big muckty-muck in the government and he will go to great lengths to stop the diary from going public - including sending his goons (one of which is Sean Kanan) out to torture and murder people. Along the way, Jack crosses paths with a ruthless, beautiful female assassin that seems like she belongs in another movie named Kim (Park). But the two will have to team up to defeat Camden and the baddies before a big arms deal goes down between China and Vietnam...and time is running out. Will Jack make his Poynt? Find out...The Chaos Factor is kind of a middle-of-the-road affair. On the one hand, it's a PM production, so there are plenty of car chases, explosions, shooting scenes, and a decent amount of action. It's also not overly junky in the production values department and there is some nice cinematography from Jacques Haitkin. On the other hand, it's supposed to be a serious-minded drama at other times - a governmental thriller with the haunting echoes of the Vietnam conflict infusing it all. Not that that would be a bad thing, of course, but all the drama is undercut somewhat by the odd choice to have footage from Seagal's Marked For Death (1990) all over the action scenes. Tip to filmmakers: if you're going for seriousness, don't resort to Seagal footage spliced into the movie.Adding insult to injury, the footage doesn't match very well. You don't have to be particularly eagle-eyed to know when we've whiplashed into suddenly watching a car chase from Marked For Death. Presumably, if you're watching the Chaos Factor, you've already seen Marked For Death - has anyone watched them the other way around? Regardless, this was the directorial debut of Terry Cunningham, so perhaps we should cut him a bit of slack, almost like you would for someone learning on the job. Thankfully, Cunningham had good people around him like Haitkin and Fred Ward who could dress things up significantly.We enjoyed most of the scenes with Susie Park, mainly because that's when the movie becomes out-and-out action. Sean Kanan strongly resembles James Spader, and fan favorite R. Lee Ermey is underutilized...but would you believe he was cast as an Army Colonel? I know, wonders never cease. That brings us to Sabato Jr., who is a solid leading man for these types of things...though it should be noted that (in this movie at least) he has a tramp stamp. We don't believe we've ever seen a male action hero with a lower-back tattoo before. Much like how the Seagal footage undercuts the seriousness of the movie, Sabato Jr.'s tramp stamp undercuts our confidence in him as an action hero. It starts off as Sweepers (1998), becomes Broken Arrow (1996), them becomes No Way Out (1987), then becomes Yes, Madam (1985), all with a dusting of a Steven Segal movie from ten years previous. If this sounds like something you're up for, well here it is. The DTV world in 2000 was a confusing place indeed.

Cambodia during the 1970's. Max Camden is responsible for a prison camp where human rights do not exist and experiments are ruthlessly carried out. When he is ordered to destroy the camp to avoid incriminating anyone in the US Government, he misses one soldier, who escapes but dies in the subsequent bombing of the area. Over 25 years later, Jack Poynt is leading a mission to clear the same area of landmines when he discovers the remains of the camp and discovers the journal of the escapee. However Camden is now one of the top men involved in the crisis with China and Poynt must face great odds to expose him.I expected nothing from this film as I knew it was a video thriller at best and was on a channel best known for scooping up cheap action movies just to fill the time slot. As such this film is so-so, in other words it doesn't excel itself in any way and has all the low standards that we have come to expect from this type of film. The plot is ok at the start but spins out of control from then onwards. The significant of the modern day plot with Camden is not fully explored, the reason for Kim is iffy other than having a love interest and a babe in the film and the final twist is such an absurd coincidence to pull out that it's a wonder they bothered to make it personal!The action scenes trundle along ok, but often feel like they are very cheaply done and looked to the A-Team for inspiration. The plot itself provides no great tension or drama so the action scenes at least distract from the business at hand and allow us to watch cars crash every now and again.Sabato is a very poor leading man. He is every bit as wooden as he looks and I never once got involved with his character. The presence of Fred Ward either means his standards have fallen drastically or he just bought a new car and needed to clear the payments. He does ok but you can see in his eyes that he is just hamming because he has no material to work with. Susie Park is a nice addition, true her character adds very little other than oriental style action scenes, but she is quite pretty – just a shame the script demands her to inexplicably fall for Poynt in a matter of moments!Overall this is not an awful film – it is an average video thriller. It doesn't do anything to make itself stand out and has a very weak plot. All the video clichés are there – love scene, conspiracy, bad guys who can't hit a brick wall with an automatic etc, but it just about manages to keep going. Passable if you're doing something else at the same time but probably vile if you're 100% focused on it and looking for it to entertain you.

This film appears to be a poor quality remake of 'The Odessa File', with fewer ideas. The main characters are unpleasant, you don't care about any of them, and what was the Chinese girl upto anyway. Not worth watching.

A total waste of time, car chase after car chase and unbelievable situations. This is a bummer. I gave it a 1 only because I could not give it a 0. In a class with Executive Power. I wish reviews were more honest. Fred Ward is growing old and Antonio Sabato, Jr. needs better material. What a waste of time.