The daughter of the President of the United
States (Tiffany Panhilason) is cruising with her security
detail through Kazakhstan. You may ask yourself… "Why is the
President's daughter driving through Kazakhstan, of all
places, on an empty, desert road?" But if you are an
experienced viewer of low budget action films… or quite
honestly any action film for that matter… you will not ask
this silly question because questions like these simply get
in the way. And in this movie 'Mercenaries', from our good
friends at The Asylum, accessing higher brain functions will
certainly get in your way while watching this film. Not
surprisingly, the first daughter is ambushed and taken
captive by the brutal warlord Ulrica (Bridgette Neilson) who
will gladly give the first daughter back in exchange for a
few weapons. Like nukes and stuff.
Well, we don't negotiate with terrorist my friends so CIA
operative Miss Mona (Cynthia Rothrock) has a plan. Along
with purple streaks in her hair. That seems a bit
unprofessional to me, considering she's a high ranking
government official, but I guess it's just hair so no big
deal. Mona's right hand man Mr. Bobby (Gerald Webb) knows
that a rescue mission is off the table… just wish he'd told
me why... but Mona is like 'We gotta think outside the box…
or more accurately, inside the box'. Now knowing that this
movie is about female commandos, and with the statement
'inside the box' I'm wondering what the hell does that mean
and I'm getting a little uncomfortable here, but fortunately
Mona is just making the point that her potential commandos
are in jail. That was a relief. We could ask why get jailed
female commandos, as opposed to regular old free commandos,
male or female… but we've pointed out the folly of the
lunacy of asking silly questions already.
So Mona and Bobby go to these respective prisons to retrieve
their soldiers of fortune. All of whom gladly agree to come
along, but that doesn't stop them from tazing them into
unconsciousness. What the hell? But back to our soldiers,
who are the joy of this movie, we have the hardcore and
loyal Cassandra (Zoe Bell) who we can surmise went to jail
for righting some wrong or something. Then there's the
statuesque sniper expert Kat (Kristanna Loken), munitions
expert Mei-Ling (Nicole Bilderback) and finally the
defrocked and sassy CIA assassin Raven (Vivica Fox).
The mission, of course, is to infiltrate enemy
territory and get the First Daughter back. From my viewing
standpoint, as this mission gets started, it looks to be the
worst plan for a mission ever. If I were to base an actual
First Daughter rescue mission on what I saw in this movie,
Malia Obama better hope she never gets kidnapped by aging
warlords because she's totally dead. That doesn't mean this
mission won't be a success though, despite some double
crosses, some tragedy, and of course Ulrica trying to put
the moves on… But our ladies are going to find a way to save
this woman… who was driving through Kazakhstan for some
reason… no matter what.
As you might know, 'Mercenaries' is The Asylum's response to
the Expendables series of movies, and I can safely say that
I at least enjoyed this movie more than I enjoyed
'Expendables 3', despite the fact I'm certain the entire
budget of this movie was probably half of whatever Terry
Crews got paid to lay in a hospital bed for most of that
movie.
So what does 'Mercenaries' have working for it? For starters
director Christopher Ray does have a reasonably accomplished
cast of seasoned vets to work with. We mention their
maturity because at the tender age of 36, Kristanna Loken is
the youngest of the lot. But, gosh darn, we even have
Cynthia Rothrock in this movie! Hell, I didn't even know
that the original Mistress of Mayhem was still alive, let
alone working, but here she is. She didn't get to do much
ass kicking but the woman is almost sixty. Which further
calls into question the purple streaks in her hair. We have
Zoe Bell headlining this thing, who popped out of her
mother's womb being awesome, and of course the legendary
Bridgette Nielson… legendary despite 'Flavor of Love'… who
seemed to have a great time being the baddie in this
nonsense. Vivica Fox, who twenty years ago was in the top
ten of the hottest women on the planet Earth, and who can
play sassy about as well as anybody, Kristanna Loken, who is
about as well put together as any woman ever, and one with a
history of playing female badasses, and when she an
Bridgitte square off, that's like twelve feet worth of woman
doing battle, and of course Nicole Bilderback. We have no
idea who this woman is. She's pretty hot though. And we have
to give a shout out to actor Tim Abell, playing some kind of
Khazak strongman, who is actually a pretty solid actor who
has the misfortune of only showing up in movies like these.
I mean I'm happy to see him in these movies, but I don't
know if he's happy to always be in them.
The story we are given is braindead simple, and the
filmmakers didn't do anything to try to trick this story
out, and we appreciate this. The action is plentiful, and
while some of this action is admittedly suspect, there is
still a lot of it and we appreciate this as well. And since
this is an action movie with a simple narrative, there may
be the occasional plot point or character action that will
not compute, but these inanities at least keep this one
hurtling forward. A few notes… Future Warlords, don't give
strange women with guns free reign to your compound. Also,
don't trust your information from Wikipedia. Also, when
shooting somebody dead, make sure the bullets actually hit
them before making that declaration. And don't play poker
with Sassy Sista's with guns. And if you're a lesbian, make
sure the person you are putting the moves on is one too.
Just some random notes for future warlords.
'Mercenaries', while still not legitimately a good movie,
can't really can't call it that, but I can say that it met…
and maybe even exceeded my expectations for it. We will
gladly take that and call it a day.
