Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

It is a warm fuzzy feeling one gets when ones rock bottom lowered expectations are rewarded with higher than expected results. You see I had just finished watching the Burt Reynolds alleged beach volleyball ‘comedy’ calling itself ‘Cloud 9’, which is a movie so uniformly terrible that if Klatu had watched it he would have incinerated the planet earth on the spot. So I run across this flick ‘Impact Point’, another Straight to DVD beach volleyball movie directed by Ms. Hayley Cloake whose last film I saw was the less than thrilling ‘House of Usher’ and with a largely unknown cast led by Brian Austin Green I actually said to myself ‘this is gonna suck’ before slipping it in the DVD player, something I almost never do. I don’t even know WHY I slipped it in the DVD player with that kind of negative attitude because we all know the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. Well perhaps because of my bad attitude, low expectations or the fact that ‘Impact Point’ might’ve actually been good… I enjoyed this little Beach Volleyball thriller, which has to be a genre all unto itself.

SPOILERS WILL FOLLOW – IT CANNOT BE HELPED!!! Our film opens in the middle of a hot competitive semi-final volleyball match between a team led by our heroine Kelly Reyes (Melissa Keller) and the team helmed by her arch nemesis Jen Crowe (Kayla Ewell). Unfortunately Melissa and them don’t have what it takes giving Jen and her partner - game, set and match with Jen, who is a total dick, getting up in Melissa’s grill letting her know how badly she sucks. At the after party following the game, Melissa’s partner informs her that she’s shutting it down for good and is going to focus her energies for the rest of the night on attempting to get laid and asks Melissa to wish her ‘good luck’. If women who look like this need ‘luck’ in finding a free floating penis, then apparently South Florida is the place where we all need to be. Also that night Melissa meets the smooth, Rico Suave style super famous sports reporter Holden Gregg (Green) who has taken an immediate liking to the girl, and she to him which will result in Melissa quickly giving up the poo. In retrospect, this probably wasn’t a good move.

Next thing you know Melissa’s bitchy arch enemy’s volleyball partner tragically dies in a hit and run car accident which forces Jen’s coach / fiancé Matt (Joe Mangienello) to ask the best available player to taker her place, which much to the bitchy Jen’s dismay is Melissa. Things get complicated when the police show up, led by grizzled veteran detective Adams (Linden Ashby) to ask Melissa about the suspicious hit and run death of the Jen’s volleyball partner and the missing sports reporter Holden Gregg. Yes, it turns out that whoever that dude that Melissa just gave free reign to her body is a psychopathic, stalking fake. She feels so dirty and violated about this she has to go take a shower. This is relevant because the fake Holden has wired her entire house with hidden cameras and is now proceeding to make our athletes life a living hell, promising to kill her in front of a nationally televised audience when she plays the biggest match of her life against a pair of the worlds tallest women. How in the world will he be able to do this, in addition to being able kick everybody’s ass with relative ease, has access to a host of complex weaponry, has surveillance skills that would makes Ethan Hunt say ‘damn’ and has the stealth abilities of a Ninja? How indeed…

So I place a movie in my DVD player, climb into my warm bed and if the movie can’t hold my attention I will fall asleep. I’m talking to you ‘Crash and Burn’. ‘Impact Point’ kept me awake and was about 78 minutes of time well spent. Without breaking any new ground Ms. Cloake directs a very tight knit, condense story, that while fully loaded with ridiculousness, never lags and never gets even remotely dull or uninteresting, plus the Volleyball actually looked realistic at points. Brian Austin Green made for a pretty darn good psycho, and I was about to say surprisingly so but then I realized I’ve never seen Mr. Green in jack. I never watched Beverly Hills 90210, I certainly never brought any of the man’s hip hop albums – good heavens – and I had long stopped watching Knots Landing when he showed up on it as a kid. So perhaps Mr. Green is a good actor for all I know. The only thing I do know about Mr. Green is that he runs through the hottest women in Hollywood like water which in itself has to be some kind of divine blessing.

The film certainly does have its issues in its brief running time. Melissa Keller really isn’t much of an actress though I have seen some of her work, such as when she played the Escalator Girl in ‘The Dog Problem’ or the Party Guest in ‘Something’s Gotta Give’. Considering that almost all sports reporters have their pictures next to their byline, how could this guy fake being somebody as famous as the dude he was pretending to be? And one would think that a top athlete with decent eyesight might notice the bright red blinking lights that these numerous ‘hidden’ cameras were illuminating her apartment with. One would think. And what kind of awesome sex machine is this cat who screwed this girl, put her to sleep so tough that he was able to wire her entire house with hidden cameras, microphones and hidden trap doors all while she was snoozing… He must’ve really put it on her.

But then it is only 78 minutes long and there simply wasn’t time to iron out those, and many more little niggling details. And we aren’t mad at them for it. I’m not saying that ‘Impact Point’ is the second coming of ‘Fatal Attraction’ but if you have a spare 80 or so minutes to waste, there are worse ways to waste that time than watching ‘Impact Point’.