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Skyscraper
USA 1996
produced by Joseph Merhi, Richard Pepin, Branimir Cikatić (associate), Charles M. Huber (associate), Anna Nicole Smith (associate) for PM Entertainment Group
directed by Raymond Martino
starring Anna Nicole Smith, Richard Steinmetz, Charles M. Huber, Jonathan Fuller, Branimir Cikatić, Calvin Levels, Lee de Broux, Deirdre Imershein, Deron McBee, Vincent DePalma, Alan Brooks, Gary Imhoff, Bob McCracken, Eugene Robert Glazer, Seth Isler, Michael Chinyamurindi, Clay Banks, Robert Kerbeck, Tina Arning, Paul Eiding, Michael Spound, Jefferson Wagner, Floyd Levine, Randall England, Christopher Boyer, Daniel Smith
written by William Applegate jr, Joseph John Barmettler, music by Jim Halfpenny
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
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Baddies Fairfax (Charles M. Huber) and Jacques (Jonathan Fuller) are
traveling around town to collect all the different parts for a satellite
tracking system that will somehow make them all powerful - and since
they're baddies, they have the bad habit to always kill those who supply
them with the parts. They travel around LA to collect them by helicopter,
and their pilot Carrie (Anna Nicole Smith), ignorant to their bad
business, is presently frustrated because her cop husband Gordon (Richard
Steinmetz), doesn't want to have kids with her. Presently, our baddies
have landed atop a highrise which their men have pretty much taken over
coming in from below. Now having the whole building under their control
and hostages on top of that, it should have been an easy in and out, but
things go slightly bad when their contact doesn't hand over the part of
the system as planned but takes off with it. Meanwhile Carrie, who was to
have waited in the helicopter, has walked into the building to phone her
home base since the baddies sabotaged her radio - and suddenly she comes
into possession of the part. She of course immediately understands the
gravity of the situation and does what anybody would do when totally
untrained for the situation, she expertly hides the part, saves the lives
of civilians and watchmen in over their head alike, easily outruns machine
gun fire, shoots her ways through many baddies, kills the guy (Deron
McBee) who tries to rape her, does her best to free the hostages, and
ultimately not only saves the day but also the life of hubby Gordon, who
has come in to save hers ... The concept of this film is very
obvious, it's Die Hard with Anna Nicole Smith filling in for Bruce
Willis - and frankly that's where the movie slips up the most. And I'm not
bashing Anna Nicole Smith here, but as the tough-as-nails chick she really
feels like a fish out of water, and a generic script that gives her little
to work with doesn't help much, either, nor do the many excuses for her to
bare her breasts, which might be a pretty sight but also totally detracts
from her character, especially seeing how oddly these scenes are placed.
Truth to be told though, without the novelty of Smith replacing Willis,
this film would have even less to go for, would feel even more generic -
and "generic" really describes the problem of this film the
best, as it isn't a genuinely "bad" film, Charles M. Huber, on a
by then very rare break from German crime show Der Alte/The
Old Fox, where he was a regular from 1986 to 1997, gives a
spirited performance as Shakespeare-quoting main baddie, the film, while
made on the fraction of the budget of Die Hard, does have
sufficient funds to achieve what it has set out to, with many action
setpieces that might not look inspired but at least well-crafted, and some
nice stuntwork, so the film is actually ... ok-ish I guess, just
absolutely nothing to write home about - and would be even less to write
home about without the weird casting choice for the lead.
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