Chad Mackintosh (Ben Wasden) is the "Man of Action" ... well,
he was until 5 years ago, when he got fired from the army for being too
excellent an operative and thus making the rest of the army look bad.
Since then, his life went on a downward spiral, also because Chad felt
unwanted and unneeded ... until his granny (Ben Wasden again) hets held up
and robbed in her own apartment, and not just by any robber but by
supercriminal Skullface (and again, Ben Wasden) - who ultimately leaves
with only a pathetic loot, but this traumatizes granny, and now Chad wants
revenge. First he tries to go through legal channels, but when Texas
Ranger Cletus (who would have thought, Ben Wasden yet again) stalls, Chad
starts investigating and finds out that Cletus is really the brother of
Skullface, and that he has the body of a dead woman in his bed, to have
his way with her. So Chad soon knows he doesn't only have Skullface but
also Texas Ranger Cletus to take care of to right a few wrongs ... Objectively
speaking, Man of Action is a bad film - and that's exactly what's
so good about it. Sure, the film was made on a shoestring (well, probably
less than that), entirely inside of writer/director/star Ben Wasden's
apartment (at least that's what is looks like) with Wasden playing all the
characters in front of a static camera. And his acting is a little wooden,
combined with contrived and stilted dialogue, there's little actual
"action" going on, and the guns used are very obviously just
cheap toys that come with their own ridiculous sound effects ... and all
of that is such a blast to watch, as the film is very unapologetic about
its cheapness, but obviously Wasden had the greatest of time making up his
bad dialogue (and worse songs), he apparently enjoys hamming it up in all
the roles he's playing, and he doesn't for one minute aim for
"realism" (so expect bad wigs and mustaches, lazy female
impersonations, odd death scenes and the like), pretty much putting a fun
house mirror in front of the movies he's aping. Now I will admit, movies
like this aren't everybody's cup of tea, but if you're in for a chunk of
genre-specific silliness, look no further.
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