No Contest (1995)

The description of this movie made it sound like it was in the Die Hard mold. But it not only falls far short of those intelligent, elaborate movies. It does not even measure up to copies like Sudden Death, with Van Damme. Even a 1994 film called Crackerjack -- with Thomas Ian Griffith as a cop and Christopher Plummer as a neo-Nazi, clashing at a mountain resort over a complicated plan to steal millions in mob diamonds and to cover it up -- which is also hampered by lame writing and acting, manages to be a better low-budget knockoff than No Contest.No Contest is about a big-shot bad guy taking over by force of arms the penthouse of a hotel that hosts a beauty pageant in which a Senator's daughter is a contestant, setting bombs all over the entrances, and then demanding millions in diamonds. The villain is "Bryce," Andrew Dice Clay. He talks tough and piles up bodies as the man who had been in charge of the corrupt Senator's Florida transport company. That operation had been in bed with Colombian drug-lords and was sold out to the DEA, after which Bryce supposedly died in a firefight.The heroine is Shannon Tweed, talking tough and packing Uzis as the former pageant winner who went on to star in martial arts films (it is interesting to see Tweed in more of a straight role than her usual soft-porn fare). She spouts limp lines like "I'll eat a tub of Ben & Jerry's Jerry Garcia ice cream" and, after beating in the head of wrestler Roddy Piper (as bad-guy "Ice") with a satchel of ice cubes, "I iced Ice." On the outskirts is a hapless Robert Davi as a gimp-legged former State Department embassy security specialist who was hired and fired by the Senator after his daughter was taken hostage and who, naturally, in addition to talking big throughout the movie, manages to hang underneath a scenic elevator, horn in on the rooftop action, and get wounded near the end. John Colicos plays the cliché, all-bad Senator. Computer and bomb wizardry is thrown in as well, of course.The large-scale, high-stakes plot, some cheesy elements, and some recognizable actors create some interest and nudge the movie above one star. But none of this is an excuse for the glib, sloppy "reviews" that give the movie an easy pass, saying, "come on, guys, this is supposed to be bad." That kind of shallow assessment, and the lazy, unintelligent flicking of the "not helpful" button on any review that refuses to settle for it, does nothing but contribute to the impression that moviegoers are suckers. The many other reviews have it right that the writing and acting in this movie are half-baked and half-hearted. As a result, the movie does not even manage to be bad in a fun-to-watch way. Instead, it ends up feeling like a thin, overblown, incompetent disappointment.

Just look at the cast for this film; Andrew Dice Clay as main villain, Robert Davi as mystical bodyguard, Roddy Piper as a henchmen... do I need to go on? Yes, the stage is definitely set for a cheesy, campy and thoroughly corny action-film... but it falls short. The dialog is cheesy, but not cheesy enough... there are too few one-liners, and some of them are a little lame as well(which they shouldn't be; they should be bad-ass and deadpan, instead they are tame and poorly delivered). The plot is pretty good, but it's too obvious a rip-off of Die Hard(arguably the best of this action sub-genre; the important-people-trapped-in-building-with-hero sub-genre) and the pacing is not very good. The film just doesn't have enough campy qualities to keep it entertaining, and you're left with mediocre action and poor one-liners. The acting isn't great, but that's, of course, not the point; this is clear for anyone who knows the names I dropped in the first line of this review. However, it's not good in it's own way, either. The characters are (purposefully, of course) clichés and stereotypes; however, they don't work as well as you'd expect, in a purposefully campy film... they just seem flat and empty. All in all, the only real reason for watching this film is if you're interested in seeing the failed experiment at making a campy action-flick that it is. It's fun to see the various B-list actors, recognizing them from either cameos from big productions(like Dice Clay in One Night At McCool's) or big roles in other small productions(like Piper in They Live) or even small roles from other small productions(like Davi in various flicks), but that's it. I recommend it only to big fans of campy movies, and/or of the actors. Otherwise, just skip this one. 2/10

******SPOILERS****** Andew Dice Clay, Brice, is far more funnier trying to be an over the top evil villain in "No Contest" then in any of the stand up comedy acts that he does on stage and on cable TV in this laughable action drama. The film is about Brice and his cohorts taking over a beauty contest, the Galaxy, and holding the six finalists as well as the host and former Galaxy contest winner Sharon Bell, Shannon Tweed, hostage. In order to let them go Brice wants a ransom of ten million dollars in diamonds. Brice rewards the Galaxy contest winner Miss France, Julie Armstrong, with a bullet in the head just as the shocked crowd was expecting him to crown her. Brice and his gang then effectively wiped out the security guards as well as the TV crew who were broadcasting the event on live TV. A sub-plot soon develops about this whole crazy venture when it's revealed that one of the finalists Miss USA Candy Wilson, Polly Shannon, is the daughter of US Senator Donald Wilson, John Colicos. we are told that Wilson was involved with Brice in a Columbian drug ring and that he had Brice double-crossed and thought that he was killed by the drug dealers. Somehow Brice managed to survived and is now back for revenge. There is also another sub-plot involving one of the finalists Miss Germany, Chandra West, also being in on the hostage taking as well as being Brice's girlfriend. The gang that Brice has in this adventure is one of the biggest bunch of mixed nuts ever put together in crime movie history with the overly macho Victor, Nicholas Campball, and obnoxious former professional wrestler Roddy Piper, Ice. Ice was so unintentionally funny that he spoiled the little tension that was still left in the movie when he tried to be bad and evil. Instead Ice came across like a cross between the Honeymooners Jacky Gleason and Saturday Night Lives Chevy Chase slipping and falling all over the place. Even though Robert Davi,Sgt. Crane, is the top star in the movie he was completely overshadowed by the very physical and free-swinging and kicking Shannon Tweed who did all the work dispatching the gang of kidnappers. Davi just limped, he was a disabled Secret Service Agent in the film, along for the ride. The movie moved toward it's inevitable climax as Sharon almost single handedly kung-fu'ed the Brice gang out of the movie leaving just him left to have it out with her on an hotel elevator for the films dramatic ending. It was next to a miracle that Sharon was able to stand up by then after the pounding that she took, as well as gave, during the movie up to that point. Shannon Tweed was very exciting and nice to watch in the action scenes as well as in the sexy clothes that she wore. She in fact never took her clothes off during in the movie. Andrew Dice Clay showed what a "Ham Actor" he really is if he was just given the chance like the movie "No Contest" gave him. Robert Davi was the invisible man by going through the entire movie almost unnoticed and the girls held hostage were anything but sympathetic with their unconvincing acting. showing almost no fear at all of their captors, no matter how hard they tried. The character who I think was the real villain and most believable person in the film was Senator Wilson, John Colicos. Senator Wilson showed what we see in the news every day that if your in power and keep getting re-elected you can get away with anything even murder.

This movie had no readily apparent redeeming qualities. I watched it for a quite a while and did not manage to endure the entire thing. I hung on for as long as I did simply to try to put a name to some of the actors on screen :John Calicos and Andrew Dice Clay.The only positive thing I could say about the movie was that it had some nice exterior shots of buildings.That's about all.S.