lost-in-limbo
Terrible, but amusing nonsense starring low-grade, but hardy action star Lorenzo Lamas (known as soldier --- even his sister calls him that) going Rambo (as he was originally a member of an elite marine squad; Snake Eaters) on some backwoods inbred yokels (with names like Junior, Slim, Eli) that murdered his parents and kidnap his sister while on a houseboat holiday. This tears him up… but vengeance is oh so sweet. He's quite handy in constructing booby traps, but the guy doesn't seem much of elite solider as he struggles to dispose of these hillbillies.The film starts off quite strangely (you know some bonding time to get to know the cool, collected soldier - well kind of), as now he's a cop, an undercover one, a rouge, a ladies man who learns of the bad news (but before that he nails down some trouble in a botched drug bust and busts teeth in a bar brawl), so off south he goes encounters local old man who likes him, also rude locals, ugly locals that don't, shows them a picture, a lovely picture of his sis, dribble, nothing but profanity in response, soldier doesn't like that, trouble occurs, he inflicts pain, he receives pain, old man to the rescue, well not so, now old man's daughter to the rescue, takes soldier home, it hurts, lays down, rests, wakes up, gets rubbed, with oil, pretends sleeping, old man's daughter finds out, chats up old man's daughter, sleeps again, cries about his Harley, hey lets turn it into a jet ski, makes a bomb, uses the bomb, rides up the river, hit's a hillbilly snag, ends up in the river, hillbillies' yahooing, goes wandering, in the swamps, gets bored, becomes resourceful, makes traps, hides in the dark, hillbillies go a hunting, old man turns up, drunk, rambling, encounters unfriendly hicks, no a bear, really hicks, pretending to be a bear, now old man's daughter turns up, destroys soldier's awesome set-up, standoff occurs, insults fly, one hillbilly dead, traps work, oh no, captured, sorry its my fault, end up in sleeping bags, hanging from trees, left to die, dry up, one hillbilly returns, gets randy, tries to get it on, but stabs himself in the moment, No more hanging, what to do, is that the old man, dead, crying, sobbing, old man's daughter gets help, emotions run high, soldier finds his sister, hillbillies everywhere, shotgun blasts, tractor driving and one-one-one combat, someone's head goes squish, Soldier and sister are together again. In the end we know how it goes they live happily ever after. Oh lets not forget the interplay between Junior who just wants to get it on with soldier's sister, but something always gets in the way and there's a love triangle stirring with Junior's sister Sissy who doesn't like the competition. Quite riveting. … Well a soldier's work is never done, because for the last 5 mins he ends up taking on an arsonist. Quite unnecessary to everything that has gone before it, but very amusing nonetheless.Everything about it is cheap, tacky and daft but it remains constantly entertaining in its fundamental, if over-the-top nature. Lousy or eccentric acting (hey it's Ron Palillo), grungy setting and low-grade cartoon-like thrills aplenty. Some atmospheric scenes arrive from the night time sequences in the backwoods, but for most it's laughable and filled with padded out filler. "As dirty as Dirty Harry, as dangerous as Deliverance" Nice tag-line, but I think not.
Meredith Tanner
Now, I've seen a lot of bad movies. I like bad movies. Especially bad action movies. I've seen (and enjoyed) all of Jean-Claude Van Damme's movies, including the one where he's his own clone, both of the ones where he plays twins, and all three where he's a cyborg. I actually own the one where he plays a fashion designer and has a fight in a truck full of durians. (Hey, if nothing else, he's got a great ass and you almost always get to see it. With DVD, you can even pause and zoom in!) That's why you can trust me when I say that this movie is so bad, it makes Plan 9 look like Citizen Kane.Everything about Snake Eater is bad. The plot is bad. The script is bad. The sets are bad. The fights are bad. The stunts are bad. The FX are bad. The acting is spectacularly, earth-time-bendingly bad, very probably showcasing the worst performance of every so-called actor in the cast, including Lorenzo Lamas, and that's really saying something. And I'd be willing to bet everyone involved with this movie is lousy in bed, to boot. ESPECIALLY Lorenzo Lamas. It does manage to be unintentionally funny, so it's not a total loss. However, I recommend that you watch this movie only if you are either a congenital idiot or very, very stoned. I was able to sit through it myself because I needed to watch something to distract me from rinsing cat urine out of my laundry.It didn't help much, but it was better than nothing. One point for Ron Palillo's cameo as a gay arsonist.
