UNARMED AND DANGEROUS

by Mark'd Commode

1 out of 10

Release Date: 28th September 2009 (DVD Premiere)

Director: Xavier Leret 

Cast: Mat Fraser, Frank Harper, Helen Watkins, Faye Tozer, Dan Poole, Adam Saint, Forbes KB, Beau Baptist with Ewan Ross and Terry Stone

Writer: Xavier Leret

Trailer: UNARMED AND DANGEROUS

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Just like Dr. Dre publicly refusing to admit his involvement in the World Class Wreckin’ Cru’ before he joined NWA, pretty much everybody involved in, produced Jonathan Sothcott included,  Unarmed and Dangerous probably goes into a similarly embarrassed frenzy of denial whenever this film’s brought up. But here it is. Previously entitled Kung Fu Flid the movie is still widely available from all the usual sales portals to haunt everybody that thought they had shook this abortion off. Unarmed and Dangerous is a horrendous comedy bypass  that ends up sat on the top of ‘bad taste’ mountain and you’ll never see a bigger divide between what an audience wants and what a filmmaker/entertainer thinks you want. The only thing Unarmed and Dangerous has going for it was the idea to change the original title into something anonymous and generic – that way it may get missed amongst all the Jeff Wincott and Thomas Ian Griffith actioners the title reminds me of (or worse – picked up by accident!) Even its attempts at being a tribute to Blacksploitation movies of the late 60s and 70s are weak and may even be incidental.

Polymath Mat Fraser (INBRED) has turned his talents to acting, music, stand up comedy, public speaker and dance. He’s a beacon of ‘can-do’ for disabled people having excelled in many fields. Born with no lower arms and limited use of his hands he has carved a niche as an important spokesman for the disabled minority in the UK. Fraser himself describes Unarmed and Dangerous as a ‘criptsploitation’ movie and I’d be inclined to agree that this is an accurate description of what could be a legit genre – however this film is so bad, there’s no sign of wit, good writing, good performances or any reason to watch this.  Being a genre first doesn’t earn it enough good will. Mat Fraser is a good actor but despite all his misguided attempts to give a committed performance, he’s defeated by the sheer lack of quality across the board.

The plot is a simple revenge – seek and destroy plot – where Jimmy Loveit (MAT FRASER) faces off against Mr Big (FRANK HARPER – VICTIM) who kidnaps his daughter and wife after breaking into the wrong house. Also Mr Big’s son gets his balls shot off by Jimmy. So a balancing of the scales is needed.  Jimmy Loveit is not afraid as he is a kick-boxing menace with his own Rocky-style trainer (TERRY STONE – GET LUCKY). Will he beat the clock and save his family?

Several good action set pieces are ruined by bad choreography and terrible editing ensuring that any chances of this shit getting redeemed by some cool fights are quickly nixed. The tone is uneven as well. One moment we’re enduring a very, very long and unflinching torture scene  featuring some very slow and painful deaths then we’re watching a comedy death in which  a character gets acid tipped on their head  and melts cartoon style.  Elsewhere Mat Fraser is doing Tyrannosaurus Rex impressions half way through what seems to be a David Lynch tribute act – the next somebody is having their bullet holes probed with dirty fingers?  The whole thing  is a mess. And it should rightfully be buried beneath a mile of the stinkiest manure and landfill.  Un-PC issues in comedy need to be tackled by people with an ear for humour, intelligence and an ability to write good dialogue, and although everybody that was involved in this movie was in on the joke (what joke?), it ends up being an alienating and embarrassing, mess best avoided by your man on the street. Unarmed and Dangerous reeks of a private joke that should never have been shown to the public at large. Mat Fraser and co should have abandoned this at the post pub revelation stage. I’m not offended by a film calling itself ‘criptsploitation’, I’m just  put out by filmmakers thinking that this could ever have been a good idea in the first place.

1 out of 10 – A cheap and horrible attempt to launch Mat Fraser as an action star, but it falls into a lack-lustre bad taste comedy one minute and a blood soaked shocker the next.  Lumbering, slow, tired and a career worst for most people involved. When a movie is livened up by movie rent-a-plank, Ewan Ross (FALL OF THE ESSEX BOYS) you know you’ve got problems. Movie cholera. Avoid. A big UN-Thank you to everybody who made this.

Another terrible review below by Joe Pesci II aka Matt Usher

WHAT HAVE I SEEN THAT ACTOR IN BEFORE?

One thought on “UNARMED AND DANGEROUS”

  1. UNARMED BUT DANGEROUS – review by Joe Pesci II aka Matt Usher

    How interesting that it should be in the shallowest shallows of the British film industry (mostly populated by tax-dodgers, criminals and Simon Phillips) that we should at last find a genre movie with a disabled hero played by someone who’s disabled. Unfortunately that is the only even remotely positive thing that can be said about UNARMED BUT DANGEROUS, a film which comfortably rubs shoulders with repulsively poor detritus like STAGGER and PIMP. This one starts with ruthless / brutal / dumb / bald gangsters shooting the wrong people. Vengeance ensues. The twist: our avenger lacks fully developed upper limbs, but he’s not going to let that stand in his way.

    Mat Fraser plays our disabled fighter (abetted briefly by Terry Stone enjoying himself immensely as his trainer) who’s out for revenge after his wife is shot and daughter kidnapped by goons working for Frank Harper who have managed to mistake them for Ewan Ross’s wife and daughter. (We never see Ross’s wife and daughter, but we do – alas – get a cameo from Ewan Ross.) Unfortunately Fraser’s a bit rubbish at the vengeance game, and all he does for most of the film is beat up an irrelevant pimp, accidentally kill a couple of prostitutes, wander around covered in blood then get a free ride with a crazy comedy Christian cabbie. In the climactic fight he beats up a henchman. Meanwhile the main bad guy gets killed by a glorified extra in a Deus ex Machina moment of immense cheek. Most of the rest of the baddies get duffed up by Fraser’s wife despite the big bullet holes in her chest and the torture she endures at the hands of a tedious professional torturer (bald, Scottish, tattooed). If this film is meant to display Fraser as some sort of action star it fails by not actually giving him any action. What is the point of a hero in a revenge thriller if he doesn’t kill lots of people? Tsk, ridiculous. The film has so little interest in its own star that it wastes a generous portion of its brief running time on a ridiculously long and convoluted flashback sequence to explain the case of mistaken identity – actually it doesn’t explain how the identities were mistaken but it does explain why the bad guys were up to no good; either way the flashback brings Ewan Ross into the film, and there has never, ever been a decent excuse to put Ewan Ross into a film, and there never, ever will be – the man’s career is an insult to anyone who can actually act.

    But failing to give your star anything useful to do is not the least of this film’s problems. I have a question for writer-director-editor-producer Xavier Laret: what were you thinking? I assume that the little girl is your daughter? Your decision to cast her seems to be a strange amalgam of nepotism and abuse. She plays someone who (after interrupting parental private-time) witnesses (a) her mother being shot, and (b) her father shooting the assailant (in the groin). She is then kidnapped by sweary gangsters who openly discuss killing her, whilst the father is convinced she has been sold into prostitution. At the film’s climax one of the less agreeable characters intends to kill the daughter with acid but is hoist upon her own petard. (Advice to anyone wanting to show an acid-based death onscreen: don’t. If you haven’t the money for the effects it’ll look stupid, and if you do have the money spend it on something nicer instead like flowers for your mum.) And then the daughter stops a bullet. For this you cast your own daughter. Approximate age: seven (or three or ten – that sort of age). Are you insane? Do you really want to be paying for psychiatrists for the next twenty years? At what point did you think ‘hmmm, I know who would be ideal as the much abused victim, my very own little girl!’ Xavier Laret, you should be ashamed of yourself.

    Meanwhile we find Frank Harper, who must have really annoyed someone to be appearing in this garbage, as the somnolent boss whose gun shoots in different directions simultaneously. Harper does evil geezer perfectly adequately, but his heart is clearly not in it. His harridan wife is played by Faye Tozer, who apparently used to be a famous singer. What Harper lacks in enthusiasm she provides in brashness; they are well-matched but their material is variously lame, stupid or outrageously outlandish. (I was about to suggest that the film could have done with more outrageous outlandishness but then remembered that those bits are even worse than the boring bits.) Helen Watkins plays Fraser’s unfortunate wife, who despite being shot in the chest, tortured, and patched up by a friendly but doomed vet, still manages to do more damage than her hubby. Maybe the film is really about how marriage is really a partnership of equally good kickboxers? Perhaps surprisingly there is a bit of a decent performance from Adam Saint as one of the gangling gangster goons with a conscience – I’m not sure how that was allowed to happen.

    But poor Mat Fraser. The film sets him up as the star, with his own training montage and everything, but then doesn’t know what to do with him. (Unless this is meant to be a comment on how society deals hypocritically with disabled people? I doubt it somehow.) So he drives around looking mildly anguished and covered in blood whilst visiting pubs and vets. He gets a nice little speech at the end but spends most of the film in a taxi and does no detective work whatsoever (the bad guys even phone him up to tell him where they’re beating up his wife).

    UNARMED BUT DANGEROUS doesn’t know what it wants to be. It could have been a subversive black comedy, a straight gangster picture, or an attempt to do something ‘empowering’. It seems to want to be offensive in an adolescent ‘I didn’t mean it’ kind of way. But its gravest offence is the appalling storytelling. No, it’s the immense missed opportunities. No, it’s wasting Frank Harper’s time. Or possibly the script, maybe that was the worst thing. Or possibly Ewan Ross. Or the editing. Actually, take your pick, this is abysmal, down there with farragoes like BASEMENT and the non-epics of Richard Driscoll. This isn’t just a career-low for those who made it, it’s surely a leisure-low for all those who sit through it. At least I know that the next film I watch will be better than this.

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