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The Ring of the Musketeers
Der Ring der Musketiere
USA / Germany 1992
produced by Brad Krevoy, Steven Stabler, Joel Surnow (executive) for Motion Picture Corporation of America/RTL
directed by John Paragon
starring David Hasselhoff, Thomas Gottschalk, Cheech Marin, Alison Doody, John Rhys-Davies, Corbin Bernsen, Russ Armstrong, Conrad Bachmann, Frances Buchsbaum, Richard E. Butler, George Christy, Erik Cord, Marklen Kennedy, Catherine E. Coulson, Brian Hayes Currie, Scott Dockstader, Christopher Doyle, Tony Ganios, Michael V. Gazzo, Kathe Osborne, Mark Haddock, Steve Haigh, Scott Jaeck, Loren Janes, Bradley Jenkel, Cecile Krevoy, Michael Ray Lee, Julius LeFlore, Chauncey Leopardi, Kathe Lepire, Tony Maggio, Marie Marshall, Mariana Morgan, Ed Mitchell, Trever O'Brien, John Paragon, Jill Pierce, Branscombe Richmond, Andy Romano, David Speaker, Timothy Stack, Brian Curry, Lynne Marie Stewart, Jim Wilkey, Autumn Winters, Yetta, Tito Larriva, Frank Pesce, Cassandra Peterson, Ricky Jay, Edie McClurg
written by John Paragon, Joel Surnow, music by Marcus Barone
TV miniseries Three Musketeers
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Bad man Pellito (Andy Romano) has kidnapped the son (Trevor O'Brien) of
Melody (Marie Marshall), just to make her brother Ross (Scott Jaeck), an
air traffic controller, make a plane crash that's supposed to fly Murdock
(Tony Maggio) a key witness in a trial against the Pellito organisation
into town. But the three (motorbike riding) Musketeers, D'Artagnon (David
Hasselhoff), Porthos (Thomas Gottschalk) and Athos (Alison Doody) are on
the case, and ultimately free the boy - by (no joke) staging an impromptu
David Hasselhoff concert. Now the Musketeers are all descendants of the
original Musketeers, still doing good - for some reason in the US by now -
in a secret organisation headed by Treville (John Rhys-Davies). But
somehow the organisation has lost track of the Aramis family ... until
Greg Aramis (Cheech Marin), a small-fry crook, pretty much pops up, and
for some reason Treville insists on letting him in. Back to the main
story though, since Murdock hasn't been killed in a plane crash, the
Musketeers are in charge of his security and deliver him to the
courthouse. This they successfully do, but as soon as the Feds take him
out of the Musketeers hands, he gets assassinated. Now despite Treville's
insistance on dropping the case, the Musketeers decide to have their
revenge on Pellito, but their plan fails because ... there wasn't much of
a plan, really. But they're soon in luck again thanks to Athos' ex Harry
(Corbin Bernsen), an undercover cop on Pellito's trail who fears he's been
found out and lured to a club to be assassinated. So the Musketeers get
jobs at the club to protect Harry undercover. Now this thing turns weird
when Harry kills his own hitman and makes an escape, and it turns out he's
actually in Pellito's employ. But of course he gets his just desserts for
having duped the Musketeers. And ultimately, the Musketeers get their
revenge on Pellito, too, when he's to make a diamond drop-off to one of
the mob bigwigs (Michael V. Gazzo), and they replace the diamonds for
junk, setting him up for a mob-style execution ... Now the cast
alone sounds quite interesting, especially taking into account that Thomas
Gottschalk (cast at German broadcaster RTL's insistance) was at the
time (and probably still is 30 years later) Germany's most popular game
show and talk show host (though his acting talents are limited). But
really, as a whole this miniseries deserves little more than curiosity
value, as it feels like just any other TV crime show, and lacks any really
interesting characters to keep things together, as basically the
Musketeers are just do-gooders with no real depth. And likewise their
cases are interchangable with any other TV show, as are the situations
they get in, their dialogue and anything else. So really, just a bland
piece of work that unsusrprisingly enough has created little in terms of
ripples upon release. Note: Ring of the Musketeers
exists as both a four part miniseries and a feature length condensed
version. This review is based on the condensed version as the whole series
is almost impossible to come by these days.
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