The Shadow Men (1997)

***SPOILERS*** The movie has to do with a family the Wilsons Bob Dez and 12 year old son Andy, Eric Roberts Sherilyn Fenn & Brendon Ryan Barrett, who when driving home from a hiking trip in the mountains encounter a 100 foot UFO that forces them off the road and into a ditch. It's some two hours later that they find themselves back on the highway with the car or van in working order with no memory of the two hours of missing time. Strange things start to happen to the Wilson's when these strange men in black, black hats sunglasses pants suits shoes as well as socks, lead by this guy who calls himself Perkins, Andrew Prine, show up at the house asking them what happened to them as if they really care. It turns out that these Men in Black-MIB-are only interested in shutting the Wilsons up and keeping them from making public their encounter with the UFO, which Andy secretly video taped with his camcorder, even if they have to murder them in doing it! Bob Wilson now trying to get help gets in touch with top UFO investigator and author Stan Mills, Dean Stockwell, to fill him in about these strange MIB and what to do to get rid them if not with words, the local police aren't any help, or if necessary the use of force. Staying at Stan Mills bunker like home the Wilsons as well as Mills are soon confronted with some two dozen MIB in black driving of course, their favorite color, black SUV's trying to storm the place and, to keep them from talking, murder them.***SPOILERS*** The usual tame MIB's are a bit more aggressive here then you would expect them to be using military tactics to get things done thus messing up their neatly press black clothes by getting both gun and pellet, from shotgun, shots from Stan Mills and the Wilsons ripping them to shreds. We also get to see these what turned out to be half bred-human and aliens-for what they really are with black bug eyes, under their sunglasses, and this is really strange white soap suds like blood when their shot or battered. the film's star Eric Roberts dose some of his best acting in it by not being the usual psychotic personality that he seems to be playing in most of his movies but a normal well adjusted as well as, in the movies finial scenes, heroic person. One of the better UFO and alien from space movies with the MIB-Men in Black-taking center stage and showing themselves for the scary and dangerous and creepy persons that they really are.

Overall, I was impressed by a number of things. Good casting, pretty good writing, some fine acting from Fenn, Roberts and Stockwell. The lead MIB was well done indeed! Really captures the heart of MIB lore - these folks really did their research (a rarity with these kinds of films, as you know). It's just too bad that this kind of film doesent deserve a larger budget. I give it a solid B!

Saw this last night on Dutch TV and decided it is possibly as bad as the benchmark-bad Gridlocked (the david hasslehof one).This was really truly 'Ed Wood' dreadful in a way they shouldn't make them any more. Plot twist? If you take the sunglasses of the 'men in black' they turn out to be bug-eyed aliens (and noone ever noticed).Plot problem? Where do we start? Evil aliens are unable to use ( or even stop ) small handguns and 10 year old boys beating their fists against them going 'take your hands off my mom'.Least imagnitative plot device? Old man in petrol station saying "Dont go up them thar hills, there been strange comings and goings is all 'ahm saying"Really.... find it if you can.. and weep.

I thought Shadow Men was good, for a direct-to-video flick. Oh sure, the special effects weren't great and there were a few plot holes here and there, but otherwise, it was ok. There was a sort of creepiness about the whole thing. Afterall, would you really want to be chased by the MiB? (And I'm not talking about the light-hearted MiB of Jones and Smith).