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Striking Range

Striking Range (2006)

June. 01,2006
|
3.9
|
R
| Adventure Drama Action Thriller

When millionaire businessman Ted Billings (Glenn Morshower) double-crosses his partners in a weapons deal, he decides to hire some protection. Billings enlists Eugene "Vash" Vasher (Lou Diamond Phillips) a mercenary-for-hire and soon, Vash is fighting off assaults on his boss from all sides, but on top of that, he doesn't even like Billings who has a hidden agenda. Among the shoot-outs and chases, Vash forms a bond with Emily (Yancy Butler) Billings' chief-of-security and Vash's former flame who's not all that she appears to be.

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Reviews

Comeuppance Reviews
2006/06/01

"Striking Range" is a entertaining action-filled movie. The plot: "Vash" (Phillips) is a mercenary, who is asked to guard Ted Billings (Glenn Morshower) because he has a hi-tech WMD. "Vash" doesn't like the guy, but then he gets his money's worth because criminals from all sides are after him.What's interesting about this movie is that it takes the time to flesh out some character development. Phillips is very good in the role. Yancy Butler plays his ex-girlfriend. She gets her time to shine. Jeff Speakman plays one of the villains and gets to utilize his martial arts ability. Speakman is a big guy and he moves fast. The whole movie is one big action sequence. The beginning is little lame, but once that gets out of the way, It's B-movie fun till the end.In the end: If you like L.D.P., you'll enjoy this. Non-fans will also like the non-stop action.For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

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winner55
2006/06/02

When his career began, Lou Diamond Phillips promised so much as an actor, that I have continued to see his films hoping that this promise would be fulfilled. But, while Phillips' acting is as good as ever, he has just made one bad film after another, so, until he or his agent learn what to look for in a script, I'm afraid "Striking Range" is the last time I'll be seeing Phillips for a while.This is an action film, and the actions scenes are OK. But the script really reeks. line by line the dialog is OK, but the story is a real mess. The idea of tossing a psycho-killer into the mix of a conflict between two mercenary groups might have seemed good on paper, but it's a bad strategy: psycho-killers have to be explained at some point in a film, because otherwise their motivations come off as silly. I know that sounds bizarre, but what I mean is that the explanation helps the audience suspend their disbelief in why anybody would want to kill people simply because they work at some office or attend some school or stopped at the wrong restaurant for dinner. This disbelief is essential to our sense of morality - it is why the violence of real psycho-killers, like the Columbine boys, is so horrifying and why we take such strong measures to counter it: we simply cannot believe anyone could be that vile.Since the writer of this film has left himself little time to develop the psycho-killer aspect of the plot, he has to resort to cheap tricks, stereotypes, and cliché to make the whole thing work somehow. The psycho-killer comes across as a parody.Meanwhile a plot twist seems to resolve the mercenary conflict - except that it doesn't, it's so wholly unprepared and obviously artificial. We want clues to this sort of thing, so we can look back on the film to say "I should have seen that coming," but we can't do this here, no one could have seen it coming, it doesn't make sense.And what is the thematic connection between the mercenary conflicts and the psycho-killer's? Even Sigmund Freud couldn't tell you; I don't think there is any.the writer here needs psychoanalysis for coming up with this hodgepodge, and Phillips needs it to try to figure out how he could throw away his mature career on such hooey.Four stars for the action scenes, the rest gets - blah!

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dex_sf
2006/06/03

What's the point of having a movie on DVD? It has to be entertaining enough to let you want to watch it more than just two or three times. Thanks to the amazing creativity and enthusiasm of Director Daniel Millican and the whole cast and crew Striking Range definitely has all the necessary ingredients: outstanding performances of Troy Baker, Glenn Morshower and Yancy Butler, Lou Diamond Phillips and Tom Wright managing it perfectly to pull the audience on their sides, an intriguing plot with surprising twists, long, thrilling sequences, fast-paced action, hard, fast and straight fight scenes, dry jokes, great video and soundtrack, a brilliant sound design and what I call "some ideas" aka something unusual, like in this case for instance all the cool high-quality F/X goodies, which I had never seen in a low-budget independent production before.When you start watching Striking Range, it will capture you within a few minutes and won't let you go until the closing credits start rolling. Striking Range is an excellent action thriller to enjoy together with friends, thankfully the DVD finally hit the stores ... and my player.

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Cadhorn
2006/06/04

great actors (Lou Diamond Philips, Glenn Morshower) and good actors (Yancy Butler), mixed with good action, a stolid if mediocre and predictable plot, and an obviously low budget = something kind of sad. While there are no major disappointments in this flick, and there are several glimmers of something beyond the typical B movie actioner... it just doesn't quite manage to make it over the fence from B movie to A movie. Halfway through it you feel like you don't need to see the rest 'cuz you know exactly what's going to happen, though the cast does a great job with the thin material they've been given. Lou Diamond Philips seems to be one of those great actors that's terminally unable to distinguish good projects from bad, he just keeps cropping up in these roles (and movies) that are far below his talents.

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