MAXIMUM SECURITY 1997 and TIME UNDER FIRE 1996
A film review by Timothy Voon
Copyright 1998 Timothy Voon
MAXIMUM SECURITY 1997
Directed by Fred Olen Ray Cast Paul Michael Robinson, John Lazar, Landon Hall, Neil Delama, J.C. Johnson, Arthur Roberts Written by Sean O'Bannon
Misrepresenting the content of a film is an unpardonable mistake in my book of movie viewing. In this instance the crime is in reference to the movie capsule on the jacket of a video. The error in this case, is so obvious, that whoever wrote it, obviously did not watch the film. It states that five prisoners on death row have been placed in the latest state of the art penitentiary; they must survive against a group of terrorists who have taken over the complex. In actual fact, the death-row-in-mates are merely petty thieves, political extremists, fraudulent, a rapist and a cop wrongly convicted of a crime. The most annoying fact is that the highly publicised MAXIMUM SECURITY prison, is merely an empty block of offices. The security tower has multi-access from open corridors, making this the most insecure prison I have ever seen. Amusingly, the erotic sex scenes are also very badly timed ie A cop (Paul Michael Robinson) and female reporter (Landon Hall) are trying to escape the prison, with terrorists hot in their pursuit. A nuclear bomb is about to explode on timer, a rapist stands guard outside the kitchen, whilst the two ‘heroes' spend a good ten minutes of the viewer's time making salami in the kitchen!
TIME UNDER FIRE 1996
Cast Rick Batalla, Larry Poindexter
Since the success of TERMINATOR in 1982, there has been a-dime-a-dozen release of similar clones hitting the video shelf. Usually, they entail the presence of an indestructible machine/monster +\- the elements of time travel and changing futures. None to memory have been comparable. TIME UNDER FIRE, is such a movie. A submarine travelling through the Bermuda Triangle? Suddenly hits a time\water continuum and are conveniently transported into the future. The future is bleak and hostile place, and mankind is suffering under the evil totalitarian rule of a mad man. Sound familiar? So the mission is to basically get back to the past, murder the man responsible for the catastrophe and set the future right. The outstanding elements of this film was not how unoriginal it was, but how the blood on the dead men looked like spilt paint, and how the machine gun fire rattled unprofessionally like firecrackers.
Timothy Voon
e-mail: stirling@netlink.com.au
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