NO CONTEST
A film review by Chuck Dowling
Copyright 1997 Chuck Dowling
No Contest (1994) ** out of ***** - Cast: Shannon Tweed, Robert Davi, Andrew Clay, Roddy Piper. Directed By: Paul Lynch. Running Time: 98 minutes.
"No Contest" is a VERY blatent rip-off of "Die Hard", just on a much lower level of intelligence, credibility, and creativity.
The film opens as Sharon (Shannon Tweed) is hosting some sort of silly beauty pagent. Ms. Galaxy, or something like that. We are told that Sharon is a famous action film star, and immediately all common sense is thrown out the window. A group of terrorists, led by the "Diceman" himself Andrew Clay, then takes over the hotel where the beauty pagent is being held. If there was any residual common sense left over, throw it out the window too, cause it's "Die Hard at a beauty pagent!!!" They apparently are trying to kidnap a congressman's daughter who is participating in the pagent.
Robert Davi, who was actually in "Die Hard", plays a private security agent assigned to the congressman's daughter. It's an odd bit of casting, making Davi a hero. But Tweed is supposed to be a kickboxing champ, so nothing matters at this point. Wrestler Roddy Piper has a brief, but menacing role as one of the terrorists. Basically, he's the Alexander Godunov character.
In a strange way, "No Contest" is almost fun. ALMOST. It's just so silly, you might just be entertained. Clay is subdued in his role, but he does a good job with it. Davi is interesting to see as the good guy, and Piper is always fun to watch no matter how bad his movies are. And Tweed? Well, she doesn't even get naked in this one, and really, 99% of the people who rent Shannon Tweed movies are only after that one thing. I seriously doubt anyone will care that Tweed (well, actually a horrible body double filmed as far away from the camera as possible) is kicking the bad guys in the groin. [R]
-- Chuck Dowling Visit Chuck's Movie Reviews at http://users.southeast.net/~chuckd21/ Over 1,600 movies rated and/or reviewed! Movie news, film related links, and reader's reviews.
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