Gladiator Cop (1995)

A museum tour is halted at its centerpiece, the sword of Alexander the Great, by Chris Kilos (George Touliatos), a weird, old man who is obsessed with the sword and its fabled ability to protect its wielder.  Using Machiavellian levels of deception (read: he gets a guard to fetch him something while he rigs the security system), Kilos’ muscle manage to steal the sword without a whit of subtlety but the loss of life of several people.  Not understanding the true nature of the sword (even though we’re supposed to think he does, because his knowledge of Alexander the Great is kind of part of the reason why he was fascinated by the weapon in the first place), Kilos uses the sword, as wielded by his henchman Jodar (Christopher Lee Clements), to make a mint in illegal, underground death matches.  Oh, psychic cop Andrew Garrett (Lorenzo Lamas) and museum curator Julie (Claire Stansfield) are tepid on Kilos’ trail, too.

Nick Rotundo’s Gladiator Cop is rather ambitious, on paper at least.  It’s set up as a story about destiny in line with something like The Sword in the Stone (or Matt Wagner’s Mage comic book series), replete with magic blade.  It has elements of reincarnation and revenge.  It has a psychic police officer, who you would think was an absolute boon to the department, but in reality is not so much.  It has blood sports aplenty, engaged in by colorful (yet somehow still bland) characters like The Angel of Death (Gary Goodridge), The Butcher (Howard Putterman), and (most importantly) Mongol (Garry Robbins).  Yet, it’s this last component in which the film has any real interest.  The movie feels like time killer scenes interspersed between scenes of gladiatorial combat (which are longer [or feel longer] and are handled with more care than the non-action scenes).    

Andrew is alerted to the museum break-in, not by his partner (or I assume it’s his partner, since they work together when it’s convenient for them to do so in a scene) Leo (Frank Anderson), but by Julie, whose relationship to Andrew we have absolutely zero information about (and at first, I assumed she was his partner).  Andrew appears to have absolutely no responsibilities around his precinct, and he dives into this investigation (despite some very light admonishment not to; and this doesn’t even come from his moderately tempered black captain, played by Eugene Clark) alongside Julie, which makes no sense in the slightest, seeing as how at this point there is no reason he needs to keep her near him and under guard, and she most likely wouldn’t know sweet fuck-all about how to maneuver around a crime scene (not to mention morgues typically make for bad dates).  Their love scene is completely unmotivated and abruptly inserted (no pun intended).  We simply cut to them sliding into bed together, but the worst part of it all is that the scene is entirely non-titillating.  All of this is filler until Andrew finally gets his hands on the sword and enters the arena/abandoned factory.  And even then, the film pays off none of what it promises in its plot segments.  I could get behind a hodgepodge of a film if the filmmakers at least try to link their plot points together.  But all Gladiator Cop leaves you with is the dots with no numbers and no pencil with which to connect them.  

Andrew is an incomplete man.  The first time we see him, it is in a dream where he sees himself being killed (or maybe just stabbed, though the implication is heavy on the former) on a very loosely decorated Ancient Greek set (it looks like something out of a Heart music video, circa 1985).  If the notion of Alexander the Great’s belief in reincarnation and our hero’s introductory scene don’t clue you in to what I’m sure the writers thought was a huge twist, you’ve probably not seen very many movies.  Still, I like the idea that Andrew is meant to be together with the sword, that he needs it.  In some ways, he embodies the duality of the warrior and the artist.  He keeps a dream journal, in which he draws what he remembers.  He’s also psychic, the implication being that he has a certain sensitivity, since when he reaches out with this power, he is affected on both a physical and an emotional level.  He even flashes back to his past life while fencing, an indication that he is a born blade wielder; he’s just stuck with the wrong blade (for now).  Of course, he also works as a police officer, a modern equivocation with the classic warrior ideal.  However, he needs Alexander’s sword specifically in order to sync these two sides up with each other, to become whole.  

Amazingly, Kilos has no interest in the sword as anything other than a means to make money (which, in turn, allows him to hire pricey hookers), especially since he claims to believe in the true power the sword has.  He doesn’t care who wields the sword for him, and we have no clue as to why Jodar was chosen as his champion in the first place.  On the other side, there is Parmenion (James Hong) who knows a lot more about the sword than anyone else, and has a close link to Andrew’s past (hint: you’ll never guess what it is from the flashback sequences).  About Kilos’ exercising the sword’s might, Parmenion says “He has the right sword but not the right man.”  And even here, Parmenion’s motivations aren’t displayed as being about the eternal struggle between good and evil.  They’re actually quite silly (considering the circumstances), and my mind boggles as to why he went to all this effort in order to reach this end.

Continuing with my harping, Andrew is an extremely passive protagonist.  He makes almost no major discoveries in the course of his investigation.  He doesn’t even take his job all that seriously.  One example of this is when Julie tells Andrew that she wants to go to the museum, but he says no because it’s too dangerous.  But after she suggests they look at more of Andrew’s dream journal instead, he says he’ll get Leo to drive her there (jocularity!).  As if Andrew has something better to do at this point in time (which we don’t see him doing, regardless).  Further, the next scene at the museum involves Julie and Kilos, with Leo (her supposed bodyguard) nowhere in sight.  This passivity is the film’s biggest detriment.  Andrew is just there.  He doesn’t partake in the plot.  He doesn’t move the story forward.  His sole purpose is to make it to the end fight, but by that point, I honestly couldn’t give a shit whether he lived or died.  Furthermore, there is no denouement after all this has been piled up in front of us.  There are no clarifications, no tying up of loose threads (of which there are plenty); just a cut to the end titles.  If filmmakers don’t care enough to give a viewer a complete film, I don’t think it’s too much to suggest that the viewer shouldn’t have to give them their full attention.  Maybe if you don’t, you’ll enjoy Gladiator Cop more than I did.

MVT:  The basic ideas in the film are solid, and there are a lot of intriguing ways they could have played out.  But they didn’t.

Make or Break:  The opening burglary scene was actually quite impressive, and it got my expectations falsely heightened for a good, little, low budget action film.  For a hook/inciting incident, it does its job admirably.  

Score:  5.5/10         

Legion Of Iron (1990)

Billy (Kevin T. Walsh), whom you wouldn’t have to ask to not be a hero in the first place, is a football star (read: glory hog) for some nameless college whose games are seemingly played at the local community park.  His main squeeze Alison (Camille Carrigan) is, unironically enough, a cheerleader.  She won’t, however put out until she’s married.  So, while the two are necking after “the big game,” they are summarily subdued and whisked away by helicopter to a clandestine complex in the desert.  At the insistence of the wicked Diana (Erika Nann), Billy is to become a killer for her underground gladiator fights.  Alison is redubbed Aphrodite, and turned into a harem girl to be used by the strongest of the fighters, in this case Rex (Stefanos Miltsakakis).  Fellow gladiator Lyle Wagner (Reggie De Morton) takes Billy under his wing to train him for Diana’s death matches.

Legion Of Iron is Yakov Bentsvi’s premier directorial effort (he is more prolific as a producer), and it is entirely predicated on the question “wouldn’t it be cool if….?”  There is nothing in this film which isn’t some puerile, eighteen-year-old boy’s fantasy.  There’s an underground fortress.  There’s a dominatrix eager to dole out equal parts pleasure and pain at a whim.  There are buff, oiled guys beating the shit out of each other for sport.  Selfsame guys are all dressed like stereotypes: soldier, barbarian, tribal chief, etcetera).  There are hot women whose sole purpose is to pleasure the men.  There’s a paramotorized ultralight aircraft.  Unfortunately, there’s also no depth whatsoever.  This film is the very definition of being a mile long and one inch deep.  Actually, come to think of it, it’s not even that deep.

Of course, there are those who bemoan reactions like mine to films like this.  I know.  I suck all the fun out of watching dumb shit, and this is not to say that I don’t enjoy things like this myself, mind you.  But I believe there’s also a difference between giving a film a pass because it was never intended to be other than mindless fodder and giving a film a pass despite its utter incompetence.  To clarify, then, there are things I enjoyed about this film, and there are even some things going on which are kind of unusual for the genre (that is, after all, why I write these essays in the first place, or at least what I tell myself), but it is not well-made.  The fight choreography in the film is at or below the level of ten-year-olds grabassing at the playground.  Every action is stilted.  Every reaction is a flinch, which is especially humorous considering these guys are meant to be trained killers.  More’s the pity, since there are some nice desert landscape shots on the outside of complex, but aside from these, Legion Of Iron is amateur hour.  On to the more interesting aspects.

The character of Diana is one we’ve seen before many, many times.  Normally the archetype is a little more subtle than depicted here, though.  Some of the first lines of dialogue she has for Billy include these gems:  “What is reality?  Just what the strong think is right,” and “You will worship me like a queen.”  She is all about pain and pleasure, and she equates love with hate and vice versa.  The very first question that occurs to anyone watching this film is “why would these guys choose Billy for their little fight club in the first place?”  The second question is “what about this dipshit is so attractive to a woman like Diana who, even if she couldn’t attract a man (which she definitely could), could certainly afford to rent one?”  But Diana makes no bones about whipping a fighter in front of the others.  She bears no obloquy for her desire to give and receive pain.  She’s a hellcat, and aside from those who would shy away from the more afflictive facets of lovemaking with her, she’s what young men (and some young women) most often think they want from a woman.

Alison, on the other hand, embodies the Madonna-whore complex.  She’s a virgin.  She wants to remain a virgin.  She’ll go in for some foreplay and light groping, but that’s pretty much it.  Once she’s brought into Diana’s web, her virginity is given to Rex in an act of rape which is both sleazy and surprisingly bereft of meaning.  Alison is degraded and used as a sex tool, making her attractive (or as attractive as white lipstick and silver lamé can make one) in that she (involuntarily) puts out, whereas when she wanted to keep her chastity, she was less glamorized from the film’s point of view.  After Diana volunteers Alison to be gang raped by fifteen or twenty guards, Alison becomes enthusiastic about her new position (no pun intended).  We, of course, expect this to be a ruse to lure Diana into a false sense of security, but there is absolutely no indication this is the case.  Alison will still attempt to escape, but she also makes no attempt to avoid or protest her harem-ly duties.  Only after she is ritually sexualized and becomes desirous of sex can she become a true mate for Billy (or Rex, or anybody else for that matter).  It’s a pretty Neolithic view of women, but to the filmmakers’ credit, that they went as far as allowing their damsel in distress to undergo what she does is pretty ballsy.

Oddly enough, for how far the film goes with the levels of debasement the characters are forced to endure, they also carry little weight aside from motivating Billy to be filled with righteous indignation and rage.  We see Alison getting raped by Rex, and she’s crying, but somehow the movie manages to get us to not really care.  Add to that, she seems pretty okay with everything only a scene or two later, and you’re left with the notion that the filmmakers simply don’t give a damn.  They go through the motions, it’s true.  It’s difficult to not be amused by some of the wilder visuals (say, a skinny segarsi who wears a spangled Ziggy Stardust  outfit with hot pants when he’s supposed to be a badass), but I was completely uninvolved in Legion Or Iron.  I’ve seen Tex Avery cartoons that took their stories more seriously than this.  If you’re in an altered state of consciousness, you may find a lot to love in this movie.  Otherwise, I would suggest not.

MVT:  Diana is intriguing in that she really is the one in control of these men.  In that respect, she’s actually a strong female character.  On the flip side, however, her characterization is thin as cardboard, so any positives to her become simply rote Action villain tropes.

Make Or Break:  The training montages are tough to watch, not only because they’re awkwardly staged and scattered through the film at seemingly random points, but also because they don’t offer much in the way of progression.  The whole point of a training montage is for the character we’re focusing on to acquire some skill in order to overcome the upcoming obstacles.  So, even though Billy gets the drop on Wagner in training, his movements are still as bungling as they were when the two started.

Score:  5/10