Why This Title?

KILLER ELITE-2011-This is not a remake of the Sam Peckinpah movie (although it came out around the same time as the STRAW DOGS remake). It's based on a novel called "The Feather Man". 

Jason Statham is Danny, an ex-member of Great Britain's Elite Air Service who gets back into things when his mentor Hunter (Robert DeNiro) is kidnapped and held hostage by a military renegade (Clive Owen). To save Hunter's life he must kill three assassins. It's an overly complicated drawn out action outing that Statham is typically associated with and basically proves three time Oscar winner DeNiro will do mostly anything late in his career. Also with Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbajie (from TV's LOST),Dominic Purcell (also in the STRAW DOGS remake) and Yvonne Strahovski. This was Gary McKendry's first full length directorial effort.

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They Definately Live Up To Their Name!

THE EXPENDABLES-2010-Director and star Sylvester Stallone is Barney Ross who leads a mercenary group which includes Jet Li, Jason Stratham, Randy Couture and Terry Crews. Dolph Lundgren is also part of the team but gets kicked out. Ross wants Tool (Mickey Rourke) to take his place.

Despite the odd ball cast promotion most of the film is Stallone and Stratham trying to save the daughter (Giselle Itie’) of a dictator (David Zayas) who’s teamed with an ex-CIA agent (Eric Roberts, the only real actor in the group and he wasn't even featured in the ads!) who’s bodyguard is played by pro wrestler Steve Austin. Li gets to do some martial arts toward the end and the climax is an all out violent gun and hand to hand battle. The best fight occurs during this sequence. But Stallone isn’t a great director and there’s too much CGI effects. This was a real hyped up movie that fails to deliver anything that hasn’t been done already in countless direct to video movies!

As of this writing a sequel is planned to include Jean Claude Van Damme...

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Wincott, Lose Some

Jeff Wincott is a Canadian Tae Kwon Do martial artist who decided to become an actor. While he's made a lot of direct to video movies I'm not sure if he's an actor. His "action movies" are pretty much the same and usually ripped off from some current hit. In LAST MAN STANDING (1996) Wincott plays a police officier battling gangsters, crooked cops and bombs. He smokes a lot and sometimes narrates. Jonathan Banks plays his partner who's killed and shootouts and car chases take up a lot of time. His wife (Jill McWhirter) helps him out when he goes on the run after being framed. Unusually, that same year Walter Hill directed a different movie with the same name that was released in the theaters.

This LMS was directed, written and co-produced by Joseph Merhi, who for much of the '90's with his partner Richard Pepin released a lot of Martial Arts and/or Action movies on tape (Many of them with Don "The Dragon" Wilson). Merhi went on to co-produce the Rob Reiner directed bomb ALEX & EMMA.



You can also catch Mr. Wincott in the earlier TOTAL RECALL/DIE HARD ripoff from 1994 called THE KILLING MAN (aka KILLING MACHINE) where he stars as an ex-hitman betrayed by his employers and who is rescued from a firery death by CIA boss Michael Ironsides. He has amnesia, flashbacks and sex with his nurse. He narrates his story (while walking in slo-mo) and tells God "I deserve to die". He goes to NYC and meets Calista Carradine (who's head winds up in a hat box) in a topless bar and beats up a lot of people. He gets involved with a professor (Terri Hawks) working on an Aids cure. The finale is a chase/shootout in an office building.

Another John Woo wannabe strikes! In this case someone named David Mitchell. THE KILLING MAN was written and produced by Damien Lee, the man responsible for FOOD OF THE GODS 2 and other junk. I think both of these were filmed in Canada.



I also chanced upon THE TRANSPORTER (2002) starring David Statham, a Vin Diesel wannabe (if such a thing can exist) as a contract driver who will transport any kind of package no questions ask for a huge fee. Sounds interesting, huh?

In his latest escapade he breaks his cardinal rule by looking into the package he is to deliver and finds live human being...a female even (award winning Taiwanese actress Qi Shu). Thus begins their "amazing" adventure involving the smuggling of illegal immigrants, explosions, martial arts, guns, death, descruction and Statham trying to act and failing badly. Some of the fight scenes are rather badly executed. One fight when Statham covers himself in fuel oil seems to be influenced by The Three Stooges!

There was a THE TRANSPORTER 2 later on but I haven't seen it. I don't know what he transports in the sequel!

"The greatest man who ever lived was the man who invented sitting down"-Groucho Marx

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