The Phantom is overworked and overtired this week, so he’s going to try to keep the latest entries as brief as possible. Luckily, with such fitting Late Nite Landfill fare as the films being served up this weekend, the trailers for these epics really do speak for themselves. But I’ll do at least a little “speaking” on behalf of “Freedom Strike.”
For starters, how this screenplay assignment eluded my friend (and Landfill reader) William C. Martell I’ll never know. The b-movie action screenwriter extraordinaire has a passel of similarly-themed military thrillers including:
STEEL SHARKS (1996) – A Navy Seals saga taking place almost entirely on a submarine… and incredulously the producers forced him to write a sex scene for it (you can read the entertaining explanation behind that request on Bill’s blog).
CRASH DIVE (1997) – Navy Seals and a submarine again, with terrorists vying for the nuclear cargo aboard… starring Michael Dudikoff (or maybe we should call him “Michael Dejavu,” – you’ll see why soon)!
BLACK THUNDER (1998) – A jet fighter instead of a submarine this time, but still the same nagging terrorists… and the square-jawed Dudikoff to mete out two-fisted justice! This one was recently remade with other writers at the keyboards.
THE BASE (1999) – we’re on an army (airforce?) base now, dealing with drug traffickers and trading Dudikoff in for our ‘ol pal Mark Dacascos. This one was revised by two other writers, and Bill doesn’t get credit on it.
…and those are just his PRODUCED screenplays. He has other scripts loaded with military mayhem just waiting to be produced and unleashed upon an unsuspecting Netflix renter...
Seriously, I do have to give a tremendous plug to Bill. His articles, books and tips on screenwriting (which you can find at Bill’s “Script Secrets” site) are invaluable, and I’ve never read a more practical book on screenplays than “The Secrets of Action Screenwriting.” I believe it’s out of print now, but I would recommend that ANY aspiring screenwriter track it down – even if you have no intention of writing action movies. The advice in the book really can be applied to any genre in filmmaking.
Now, I mentioned we should change Michael Dudikoff’s name to “Michael Dejavu”… because the plot of “Freedom Strike” is as follows: “A strike force must stop terrorists who have taken over a nuclear reactor.” More specifically, “Elite American commandos launch a precision attack against terrorists who have seized a nuclear reactor in Iraq.” It’s Dudikoff vs. terrorists again, with the threat of mushroom clouds looming large! Does this owe a debt to Bill Martell or what?
In addition to Michael-man-of-action-Dudikoff, “Freedom Strike” takes a page out of the “we need a wise-cracking sidekick, maybe a personality known for TV roles or a musician or something.” We get rapper Tone Loc in this case.
The Phantom must pause here to make something absolutely clear: while it may appear that I have nothing but disdain for these “train wrecks masquerading as movies,” the fact is, I love cheese. Some of the flicks that end up on channel 7 in the wee hours are indeed so bad they’re good. Some are actually not even that bad, or even bad at all. And some of them are merely worth it for the unique talents that appear in them. Tone Loc is one such talent. I admit, Tone is a guilty pleasure of mine. How could you not love that deep raspy voice on those rap records of his, records which are not disposable garbage pop to me but actually brilliant parodies of the pretentious, bravura-filled offerings of his peers. Besides, any rapper who samples Van Halen’s “Jamie’s Crying” shows that he “gets it.” He’s throwing rocks from “inside” the glass house. Again, brilliant parody in my book.
This film also offers us one of the all-time great character actors. There’s a short list of guys any director would absolutely love to have in their low-budget film just to guarantee a level of professionalism and an engaging performance. Dick Miller is one such journeyman who comes to mind. Another is William Schallert. Yet another is James Karen, who plays the US president here. You’ve seen him hundreds of times before, in movies and on TV, in big-budget, well-known fare and bargain-basement cheapos, too. From “Poltergeist” to the “Return of the Living Dead” series, from the “Larry Sanders Show” (playing a television network executive) to “Apt Pupil” and countless others. Still, he will probably be most familiar to the majority of you as the “Pathmark” guy from the commercials:
There are tons of other folks in this who you’ll recognize. I’ve already waxed rhapsodic too much on this film to take time going into them, so feel free to check out imdb.com’s credit listing of this film for the others.
What was I saying about this being a brief entry? Oh well…
View the trailer here…
Or watch the entire movie on WABC-TV Channel 7 on Saturday, March 29th at 11:35 PM… if you dare!
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