Final Impact (1992)

FINAL IMPACT is one of many duds from the PM Entertainment group, a cheap riff on KICKBOXER that fails to ignite either in the ring or outside of it. The plot sees B-movie staple Lorenzo Lamas playing a seasoned fighter who takes on a young apprentice and trains him up to battle some brawling muscle dudes. Michael Worth is the nominal lead and has no redeeming values in this film whatsoever, while Lamas is on autopilot. The story is a mix of melodrama and repetitive fight scenes in the arena, but there's never any sense of menace or suspense, just tedium. Watch out for the statuesque Mimi Lesseos and Gary Daniels in a bit part as a fighter.

In my search to catch up on all the PM Entertainment movies that have somehow eluded me over the years, I finally checked out 'Final Impact' today. And I have to say that I enjoyed it.I was a little disappointed by the lack of action, but genuinely surprised by the amount of drama.Llamas plays Nick, a former champion kickboxer who can't handle the realities of life after losing to over-the-top bad guy Jake Gerrard, succumbing to alcoholism and depression. Nick finds a way to turn it all around by training a young Michael Worth (who delivers a good performance) to take on Jake and exact his revenge in the ring, fist-to-fist.It's no 'Rocky,' though it tries to be. The fight scenes are decent and shot pretty well (the foley work is laughably cheese at times). But the performances are all around solid and the music is enjoyable. Vegas made for a beautiful backdrop to the film as well.'Final Impact' reminded me greatly of another PM classic, 'Deadly Bet.' Though, 'Deadly Bet' has slightly better action so I give that one the advantage.If you like PM Entertainment films, or a little drama with your kickboxing, you really can't do any better than 'Final Impact.'

Released in 1992, Final Impact has Kathleen Kinmont getting the starring credit even though she wasn't the film's lead character. Nevertheless it was still wonderful to see such a credit for her. Here she plays Maggie and coincidentally her Fraternity Vacation co-star Barbara Crampton would play a character by that name a few years later in The Bold and The Beautiful. It was delightful that Kathleen made her entrance here in a colourful one-piece swimsuit. Of course I prefer the bikini that she wore in Fraternity Vacation. In fact in another scene she wore a pink bikini and Barbara Crampton wore a pink bikini when they appeared together in Fraternity Vacation. Makes me wonder how Barbara would have looked in the red-white striped bikini that Kathleen wore in Fraternity Vacation. In this movie about boxing including the recruitment of a protégé, Kathleen was lovely in what she was given here including going through a certain tragedy of this movie.

Very entertaining martial arts film, starring Lorenzo Lamas as a washed up fighter. The cast includes Kathleen Kinmont (Lamas' wife at the time) as his girlfriend and a very young Michael Worth as Lama's protégé, a skilled fighter heading to Las Vegas for the World Kickboxing championship. The filmmakers waste no time in setting the tone, B film nonsense, by opening the film with bikini clad models covered in oil entertaining bar patrons. This film is notable for the entertaining storyline (seen a hundred times before, but always fun), the nice fight scenes, and the very good performances (as far as B films go). Jeff Langton as the evil kickboxing character Jake is the type of villain that makes these films so much fun.Both Lamas and Worth headed up their own MA films, but there are a few faces in Final Impact that did as well, starring as ring fighters are Gary Daniels and Art Camacho (who would go on to direct many MA films himself). And Mimi Lesseos, who was the lead in several MA films, has a small role as Jake's girlfriend. Joseph Merhi (himself an MA star) co-directs here, with Richard Pepin serving as cinematographer. Both men went on to form the now famous (and defunct) PM Entertainment.