Interesting fact: this film was originally planned as a continuation of the action movie "Invasion of the USA" with Chuck Norris, but something changed and "Punishing Power" became an independent painting. I don’t know whether this is actually true, but it’s probably not without reason that the main characters in both films have the same names. And the film with Michael came out a year after "Invasions", which can also evoke certain thoughts. But considering that the film with Chuck received mostly negative criticism, it’s a little strange to shoot a direct sequel. Maybe it was this fact that played a decisive role in not making a direct sequel.
The film itself begins with the fact that we are shown two men (one of whom is seriously wounded) running through a swampy area from Jason Voorhees on minimum wage, who has a samurai saber instead of a machete as a murder weapon. Influence "Friday the 13th", not otherwise. In action, the famous cliche of the slashers of that time consists in the fact that the victim runs away as fast as he can, stumbles, gets up, runs again and only his heels sparkle, and the pursuer deliberately slowly follows his prey and still catches up. But here the killer is not alone. Hungting large prey in a group is much more interesting than hunting alone. It’s easy to guess that those escaping are just cannon fodder, and they are not destined to survive according to the script; this whole episode is needed, so to speak, as a primer.
The theme of hunting people for fun was not much touched on in films at that time, so it looked quite fresh. In this film, this hunt, for obvious reasons, does not look as solid as, for example, in the same "Hard Target", very budget and modest. I can’t say that episodes directly related to hunting look interesting now, and perhaps even at one time they didn’t look that way. And if the plot of the film had been entirely one big hunt for a person, filmed in the way it was filmed, it would hardly have gained such love among our viewers. Although maybe I'm wrong. This picture was released a year after the cult among our people "American Ninja". To confirm whether the painting has been found "Punishing Power" We don’t have cult status, but among the Yankees neither one nor the other film, either at the time of its release or now, enjoys special veneration, as far as I know. I may be wrong, but judging by the ratings on the largest film resources, this is so. Apparently "Ninja" nevertheless, it was more successful (rather, commercially), otherwise there would not have been so many sequels. I wonder what "Punishing Power" ends with a small hint of a sequel, which, as we know, did not happen.
Many people liked the reunion of the duo of the main actors from "American Ninja", - Michael and Steve, which undoubtedly played a positive role in relation to our viewer. The “chemistry” that arose between them in the previous film did not disappear anywhere, but successfully flowed into this one. It's just a pity that the character Steve James, spoiler, will go to the other world long before the finale, and Michael Dudikoff will sort everything out alone. So there will no longer be any faithful partner here. In general, I did not expect that the writers would be so merciless to the family of the hero Steve. If you had filmed something like this in modern realities, this would definitely not have been allowed.
Unfortunately, the combat scenes are not enough to please. The level of production is approximately the same as in "Ninja". I didn’t like any of the films in this series; here it’s the same story, although for its category it may not even be bad at all. The speeds are low, the editing is very disappointing at times, and some clumsiness and woodenness in the movements of the fighters is also noticeable. According to the classics, there is a final battle with the main boss. The action takes place in the mansion of Glavgad, where Michael’s hero appears right during a family feast, after he dealt with his like-minded people in the swamp. They fight not with their bare hands, but with the use of edged weapons, of which there were plenty in the house. But watching Dudikoff smack his grandfather every now and then is not very entertaining, because the opponent is not a match for him. And it would be okay if outwardly the grandfather looked strong and dangerous, but he not only looks old, but also moves accordingly. Take, for example, the painting "Survival game", which also touches on the topic of hunting people. Character Rutger Hauer - the leader of the hunters, is also not at all young, but he does not enter into an open battle with his opponent, despite the fact that the latter is less physically prepared than Michael’s hero in this film. Hauer's character understands that his enemy has killed all the members of his squad one by one and going one-on-one with him is more expensive for himself. In this film, Glavgad clearly does not shine with intelligence, he is too arrogant and stupid, and also old and frail. And of course, Dudikoff turns out to be too much for him. How could it be any other way? Michael will take revenge on everyone and punish with his strength!
There are also local shootouts, but the same clichés are typical when the bad guys don’t get point-blank and don’t shoot when the most favorable moment for murder comes. There is nothing special about them either. By the way, script errors include, for example, how the assassination attempt on James’ character took place. In real life, in order to remove someone, they hire a killer, or solve the problem with an explosive device. You can even act less rudely and more cunningly and not kill a person at all, but still achieve your goal. It is not surprising that the attempt ended unsuccessfully for the bandits. Regarding the acting, if by and large there are no complaints about the performers of the main roles, then some of the supporting actors sometimes behave in a pretentious manner, which is noticeable even to me, although I do not always understand where there is under-acting and where, on the contrary, over-acting. This was seen more than once, mostly in action scenes.
In my opinion, it’s for the best that this film did not become a continuation of the film with Chuck and we got a completely independent movie. Is that the sequel "Punishing force" didn’t happen and there’s nothing terrible, although the ending clearly hinted. Director Sam Firstenberg grabbed Michael and Steve and ran to film the second part "American Ninja", and they never returned to this film.
Sergey Volkolak
Especially for Fight-Films.info
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