Bad Movie Club: Fatal Deviation


1998 Irish kung-fu movie

Bad Movie Rating: 3/5 (Jeremy: no rating; Fred: 4/5; Libby: 4/5; Josh: 4/5; Tami: no rating)

Rating: 5/20

Plot: If I can remember the 4 or 5 kung-fu movies I've seen with almost identical plots, I'll let you know.

"You killed my son. Now, I'm going to kill you just like I killed your father."
"You killed my father. Now, I'm going to kill you just like I killed your son."

That dialogue might sound even worse with the Irish accents. That's right--we're watching an Irish kung-fu here. If there's an Irish kung-fu movie out there, you can guess that one of us--not me this time--is going to uncover the thing. It's a straight-to-video release starring some cat named James P. Bennett. Bennett's got legitimate kung-fu skills. I mean, you get to see a lot of tedious scenes with the guy training--protecting himself from a chubby monkish Gandalfian old kung-fu master cliche armed with a pair of sticks, kicking near a fire, Van-Damme-ing himself on a pair of ottomans, abusing trees. Bennett also wrote this, probably to get girls to notice him or have people buy him beers. And he was the assistant director. And cinematographer. And the producer. And part of the casting department. For the most part, it's all pretty straight. The bad-movie stand-out scenes involve a ridiculous motorcycle stunt where our hero shows off both his balance and his shooting skills and a shoot-'em-up raid on the bad guy compound (read: a trailer) at the end. Most of the issues with this movie involve a storyline that seems opposed to going anywhere that previous movies haven't gone before and awful pacing. Some scenes, especially a cheap-looking tournament that appears to take place in a church and never really matters all that much for our plot, seem to go on forever. And I'm not sure which is more disturbing--the yucky soundtrack or this:


As far as I can remember, this wasn't even a character in the movie. There's just a random scene where he climbs into that bathtub and then flees once the action begins.

We were lucky to learn about the dangers of romantic picnics though.

And no, I have no idea why this movie is called Fatal Deviation.


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