Radical Jack (2000)

Starring: Billy Ray Cyrus

Plot Summary: Billy Ray Cyrus is an ex-CIA agent who must bring down the arms dealer that killed his family. Yes, that Billy Ray Cyrus.

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In between Achy Breaky Heart and his three year run as Doc Cassidy on the PAX series "Doc," Billy Ray Cyrus went to Hollywood. There he made one film: Radical Jack. In it he plays the titular Jack, former agent with the CIA and current long-haired drifter. During the opening sequence, Billy Ray viciously attacks the first three people that speak to him, indicating that he is a complicated man with a troubled past. We learn that the people are CIA agents working for Billy Ray's old commander Dex (action genre veteran Paul Schnabel). Dex tells Billy Ray that the arms dealer Riotti (Benny Nieves, previously best known as Big Guy #2 in The Devil's Advocate) is rumored to be setting up a deal in the nearby small town of Hope. Dex needs Billy Ray to track down Riotti because (a) Billy Ray is the only one to ever meet Riotti, and (b) Riotti double-crossed Billy Ray when he was working deep undercover, killing Billy Ray's wife and young daughter, thus allowing Billy Ray to seek bloody, bloody revenge.

Billy Ray reluctantly agrees to help Dex, and after a briefing montage sets off in his Jeep for Hope. He takes a job as a bartender from the quiet, well-meaning Ollie (Brian Smiar), and starts to settle down and get a feel for the town. At the same time, we start to learn more about his character. We learn at the laundromat that he can't look at a young child without having a sepia-tinged flashback of his own daughter. We learn after a brief carpentry montage that he was a former Navy Seal in the first Gulf War. And we learn from his fluffy mullet that you can take Billy Ray Cyrus out of the early-90s country scene, but you can't take the early-90s country scene out of Billy Ray Cyrus.

Meanwhile, we also meet the natives of Hope, 50% of whom are evil or closely affiliated with evil. At the head is Lloyd (George "Buck" Flower, finally given a chance to play sober after multiple roles with "Drunk" or "Bum" in the character's name), gruff elder statesman of the Buckworth crime family, who is orchestrating the arms deal. His son, Rolland (Noah Blake, son of Robert), wants to take over for his father after the exchange, but in the meantime amuses himself by leading a gang of local punks and beating his girlfriend, Kate (Dedee Pfeiffer of the Pfeiffer stable of actresses). She breaks up with him in the opening sequence, and then decides to hang around the same small town as her psychotically jealous ex-boyfriend while flirting with any new man that walks into the bar where she waitresses.

Kate throws herself at Billy Ray on his first night at work, which Billy Ray tries to use to make contact with the Buckworth crime family. Rolland obliges by starting a fight with him. As top local badass, he feels he is more than a match for a Navy Seal. The two go outside, followed by most of the adult population of Hope. Rolland and a friend try to team up on Billy Ray, but he quickly dispatches the nameless henchman. Now an ordinary film may follow this by having the villain pull a knife on the hero, but in Radical Jack, Rolland pulls a butterfly knife on Billy Ray. The butterfly knife, underutilized in film, takes the poetry of nunchuks (or for purists, nunchaku), but gives it a simple steel blade to make it less confusing and Asian. Billy Ray sends Rolland and his fancy knife packing. The town celebrates the victory, declaring Billy Ray to be the Seven Samurai, Magnificent Seven, and Three Amigos all rolled into one. Kate, proving that nothing turns on chicks more than senseless violence, immediately puts the moves on Billy Ray. Due to an unfortunate combination of Billy Ray still mourning his wife and Kate's inability to read body language, Kate makes out with Billy Ray's cheek for a good minute before sensing the awkwardness and relenting.

In keeping with the no-nonsense philosophy of the film, the plot's third and fourth acts are crammed down our throats to allow us time to savor the thrilling climax. In approximate order, Rolland runs Kate off the road in his Hummer (the official vehicle of evil) to reconcile with/threaten violence upon her. She moves in with co-waitress Becky (Cassie Branham in the second and final film of her short but bright career) for safety, company, and to double up on the eye candy. Becky informs Kate that she once dated Rolland, broke up with him when she realized he was insane, but kept it secret under fear of violence, going to show once again that all women want their best friends dead. Billy Ray wanders right into an ambush by Rolland and a dozen of his top thugs, which proves to be just enough men to savagely beat Billy Ray within an inch of his life. Kate checks him out of the hospital to hide him from Rolland, nurse him back to health, and try to get on him one more time. Rolland breaks into the house while Kate and Becky are at work, but Billy Ray is able to crash out of bed onto the floor, grunt loudly with pain, and slide under the bed where Rolland is unable to find him. Becky shamelessly throws herself at him again, and is again shot down by the troubled, and interested, but mostly troubled Billy Ray. He is rehabilitated just in time for the arms deal with Riotti, thus setting up the thrilling climax.

Set in an old airplane hangar, the arms are bought not with suitcases full of cash, but with a wire transfer. This more realistic exchange might have sacrificed some of the drama of the deal if not for the tense series of cellphone calls by Riotti to authorize the transfer and then by Rolland to confirm the transfer. Kate drives up to talk to Rolland, but it turns out to be a clever ruse to allow Billy Ray to sneak in and confront Riotti. Instead of carrying guns, Billy Ray holds a live grenade in each hand, threatening to take out Riotti with him, and refuting the critics who claimed Billy Ray couldn't play crazy.

In the confusion, Rolland is finally able to summon up the Oedipal courage to shoot his father and take over the business, as well as the more run-of-the-mill misogynistic courage to take Kate hostage. Billy Ray tosses the grenades, wiping out several henchmen from both sides of the deal, then pulls out a gun, finishing off several more, including what appears to be Jerry Garcia's stunt double from The Grateful Dead Movie. Then, in flagrant contradiction to Navy Seal training, Billy Ray stands out in the open for a while so he can be shot in the shoulder by Rolland. Then Rolland savors the moment out in the open long enough to be shot in the back by Kate, which is more understandable since he's an idiot. Riotti, still hiding amongst the crates of arms, snatches Kate and holds her at knifepoint, ten feet away from a Navy Seal with a gun. Billy Ray shoots Riotti in the head, but in deference to Kate's safety, he does so without closing his eyes first.

Dex and the CIA team storm onto the scene and inform Billy Ray that it was all a setup. Dex was behind the double-cross to cover the evidence of his crooked deals with Riotti. Now that the last links to his past have been cut, Dex orders Billy Ray and Kate executed and wanders off to revel in his evilness. Billy Ray's last request is to kiss Kate, and in the embrace he whispers that he has a gun stashed in his ass crack. She reaches down to his pants, grabs the gun, and takes out Dex's team with three shots. Billy Ray then uses himself as bait to lure Dex out into the open so Kate can finish him off too.

Having finally killed enough people to purge the demons of his wife and daughter's deaths, Billy Ray has healed enough to see that Kate has the decency, caring, hotness, and marksmanship that he can truly love. Together they drive out of the town of Hope, knowing that they've made life safe again for the dozen or so surviving residents. I would have to say that Radical Jack is the greatest movie I have ever seen.

Freejack (1992)

Starring:
Emilio Estevez
Mick Jagger
Rene Russo
Buster Poindexter
Anthony Hopkins

Plot summary: Emilio Estevez is trapped in the future and on the run from Mick Jagger. Luckily he has Buster Poindexter to protect him.

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Ringo Starr had the Magic Christian, John Denver had Oh God! You Devil, David Bowie had Labyrinth, but as of 1991 Mick Jagger had nothing. He was so big that Don McLean was convinced he was the devil, but Mick could not land a role in a major movie. Cruelly passed over for A Clockwork Orange, Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Amadeus, Sir Mick Jagger did not even receive so much as a cameo in Jumpin' Jack Flash. But in 1992 he finally earned his star turn, coincidentally with fellow future knight Sir Anthony Hopkins. Mick shares the screen with Buster Poindexter, and it's not even a musical. Rounding out the all-star cast are the simultaneously intimidating and alluring Rene Russo and Emilio Estevez, the thinking man's Charlie Sheen.

The premise to Freejack is that in the near future mankind has developed technology store the brains of recently deceased individuals in a supercomputer known as the Spiritual Switchboard and then download (or is it upload?) the contents of those brains into young healthy bodies, thus ensuring immortality for a price. Unfortunately, environmental decay has ruined the health of the general population, which as you may imagine promotes the development of technology to transport people from the past to supply the unsullied bodies. In order to both obtain the correct coordinates for the transfer and prevent chaos in the past, the future technicians locate people who died in spectacular and well-documented ways, and snatch them moments before their demise. As you might expect, 90% of these body donors are racecar drivers. This is bad news for Emilio Estevez's character Alex Furlong, a young F-1 racer who is doomed to be saved from a fiery death only to find himself pursued through a nightmarish futureworld by Mick Jagger.

Geoff Murphy (veteran of Young Guns II) tackles the directorial challenge of telling a time travel story by setting up both time frames simultaneously. He alternates shots between the present-day Long Island track where Emilio is setting up for his fateful race and the future Long Island where Mick Jagger's Victor Vacendak - a "bonejacker" in the parlance of the times - is driving a heavily armored convoy to collect the body. Geoff cuts back and forth every three seconds in order to maximize audience disorientation so as to allow us to empathize with Emilio's plight.

We are able to establish the following: Emilio's love interest Julie Redlund (Rene) and Emilio's agent Brad Carter (Buster) are waiting for his big race, and Mick is escorting an armored cleanroom filled with Mylar-bunny-suit-clad bonejackers waiting for his big crash. The two timelines converge when Emilio locks tires with another car, launching his car up into an overpass and his body into Mick's armored cleanroom. The bonejackers attempt to prepare his body for the mind transfer by wrapping him in the world's largest piece of Saran Wrap and lobotomizing him with what appears to be an arc welder, but the convoy is ambushed by a local gang armed with rocket launchers, and in the chaos Emilio is able to escape.

On the run in a poorly lit, run down section of Manhattan wearing a blue and gold jumpsuit, Emilio finds himself in The Fugitive set in the original Batman movie at a Johnny Mnemonic technological level with a certain Escape From New York flavor. People refuse to help him, not want to risk being caught harboring a "freejack," or escaped body donor. Finally he breaks into a church where he meets a foulmouthed nun played by Amanda Plummer, who would parlay this role into Honey Bunny in Pulp Fiction three years later. She gives him non-neon-colored clothing, some food, a gun, and some needed exposition. Many of his friends are dead or missing, Rene if alive is unlisted, and only Buster can be found.

Emilio tracks down Buster, who lives in the bad part of nightmarish future New York. He finds an older, crazier, more heavily armed man than he remembered, but it's his agent all the same. Buster takes him into his apartment and supplies more exposition. This includes the whereabouts of Rene - an executive vice president at the McCandless Corporation, which by sinister coincidence is the same company that performs the mind transfer operations. More importantly to Emilio, Buster mentions that Rene is still single. Buster also complains that he was never able to collect on Emilio's insurance. The insurance company refused to pay out Emilio's policy because no body was found, presumably over concerns that Emilio was actually transported to the future moments before death for use by a recently deceased billionaire, which was not covered in Emilio's policy.

Buster goes on to advise Emilio to "look like him" in order to blend, but Emilio is too polite to ask for a shovel with which to beat himself in the face. Buster leads the way to a diner to grab some lunch and to turn Emilio in for the reward money. Emilio, bless his heart, is stunned to find out that his agent betrayed him for money. The cops are armed with weapons that combine the stun capability of a Taser with the look, firepower, and accuracy of the blasters used by the Empire in Star Wars. Luckily, the cops were not informed that there was an exit in the back of the diner, and Emilio eludes them in a motorcycle chase through several alleyways and buildings.

Rene meanwhile is negotiating a business deal with the Japanese alongside fellow executive Mark Michelette, played by Jonathan Banks, the bad guy from Beverly Hills Cop, Crocodile Dundee in LA, and Flipper. In this film he is allowed to stretch from mere evil caricature to morally ambiguous slimeball. Rene concludes the deal after some bickering with Mark, and is driven home in what appears to be the car from Sleeper. She finds Emilio standing in her high security apartment, and promptly suffers a nervous breakdown. Not because her dead ex-boyfriend has resurfaced looking the same age as twenty years ago, but because she believes him to have already received the mind transfer. He convinces her of his identity by recounting events from the precredits sequence, at which point she realizes that mayhaps a fugitive walking right into a high security building is a setup. She forces him out of the building moments before Mick shows up driving a candy apple red amphibious assault vehicle that might be made by the future equivalent of the Tonka Corporation. Emilio is able to hijack an equally comical champagne truck and begins the chase sequence of the incredibly awkward vehicles. Mick hacks into the champagne truck's navigational computer and uses it to heckle Emilio via the video monitor. But thanks to the surprisingly agile handling of the champagne truck and his years of racing experience, Emilio is able to evade Mick until he is forced to jump over the side of a bridge from the truck at 60 mph. Years of experience with auto crashes helps Emilio survive the entry into the water at terminal velocity.

Meanwhile, Mark is trying to track down Emilio as well. He drags the nun into his office and interrogates her. Unsatisfied with the details she was able to provide, he slaps her, presumably because there were no puppies on hand to eat. On her way out, the nun gives him a swift kick in the balls, which proves that no matter what the year, some things never change.

Rene tracks down Emilio and the two build some sexual tension. Rene says no, but the swelling jazz score says yes. Ordinarily, time travel movies cause difficulties for romance, but in this case Rene is still as hot as she was 20 years ago, foreshadowing her own movie career. She calls her boss, Ian McCandless (the always pleasant Anthony Hopkins) to try and sort out the mess. Some would say that Anthony is underused in the film, but I maintain that he was good enough to let this be Emilio and Mick's picture. Anthony empathizes, but the confidentiality agreements are so strict that not even he knows the mind that has purchased Emilio's body. He advises Rene to let go of Emilio since he has no legal standing.

At the last minute Anthony relents, offering Emilio his boat for an escape. Emilio buys it, even though Anthony still has residual evil dripping from his teeth after his role in Silence of the Lambs. Rene drops him off, but refuses to go with him. Emilio has difficulty wrapping his head around the 18-years-passing thing, but eventually gives up. Rene gives him the same good luck charm she handed him before his would-have-been-fatal car crash, and sends him to the boat, where he is promptly ambushed by Mick's bonejackers, who in turn are ambushed by a group of heavily armed winos with no clear political affiliation.

In the confusion Emilio hides out in a warehouse and enters a deadly game of cat and mouse with Mick. Suddenly one of the winos charges Mick, but Emilio picks him off. Mick removes his helmet and asks Emilio why he saved his life. Emilio has his gun trained on Mick and begins interrogating him about who bought his body. Mick refuses to answer, and Emilio immediately gives up. Overcome by the decency of a man who came from a much, much simpler time, Mick changes his mind about the bonejacker-client privilege and reveals that Anthony himself holds the reservation for Emilio's body. Then, in gratitude for being spared by Emilio, Mick gives him a five minute headstart, covers his eyes, and begins counting Mississippis. Emilio is understandably confused that an Englishman would count Mississippis rather than something like hippopotamus, but runs offscreen before the fourth Mississippi.

Emilio makes it outside only to find another Tonka Assault Vehicle bearing down on him. In a clever nod to the Dragnet remake from five years' prior, the hatch opens and Rene pops out. Emilio hops in, calls up Mark, and pretends to take Rene hostage. Mark promises him safe passage to his office to negotiate. Emilio buys it, but in his defense, there was no reason for him not to trust the second in command for the man who wants to steal his body at the corporation that specializes in stealing people's bodies.

While Mick's team traces the call and begins pursuit, Emilio and Rene enter the McCandless Building and after a very tense escalator-riding sequence, find themselves facing twenty heavily armed security guards wearing bright blue jumpsuits. The future appears to be very big on primary colors. They allow him into the elevator to meet Mark, who immediately insists that they drop the "absurd pantomime." Emilio is initially stunned by the depth of Mark's vocabulary, but realizes that Mark has access to the file footage of Rene and him together at the race track.

At this stage Mark cements his role as chief villain by launching into an exhaustive description of his role in the plot. Anthony has been dead for three days, his mind uploaded (or is it downloaded?) into the Spiritual Switchboard. He has been communicating with Rene from beyond the grave for the duration of the film, proving once again that a dead Anthony Hopkins is superior to most living actors. Mark plans on denying a new body to Anthony so that he can take over the company after Anthony's signal degrades past recoverability. He was behind the convoy attack in the first act, as well as the ambush by Team Wino. Professing no ill will towards Emilio, he asks them both to simply leave the city and never return.

As they leave, he fires Rene. She, forgetting the twenty heavily armed security guards waiting for them in the lobby, slaps him. Emilio, also forgetting the guards, laughs at him. Mark promptly orders their death. The elevator opens to a firing squad in neon blue, but Rene and Emilio are saved by a deus ex Jagger, whose team of bonejackers surprise the guards from behind. The elevator door slams shut and forces them both up into the top floor of the building and the Spiritual Switchboard. A series of computer animations with a "2001: Space Odyssey in an office building" kind of feel takes them to Anthony, who explains in a heartfelt speech that he has always loved Rene and decided taking Emilio's body was the only way to make her love him. It's sweet in a John Hinckley Jr. sort of way.

After messing with Emilio's head to stall for time, Mick arrives and forces Emilio onto a machine that appears to be built from a Van de Graaff generator, a giant anemometer, the shard from the Dark Crystal, and the Quantum Leap accelerator. Small bolts of lightning start firing from the machine and Anthony's mind starts to transfer to Emilio's body. A series of tight face shots of both actors are interspersed with a montage of clips from the movie, but before the process finishes, Mark storms into the room. In the confusion Rene grabs a gun and destroys the Dark Crystal shard. Mark tries to fire Mick, but Emilio stands up and claims to be Anthony. Mick decides to settle the issue by asking for Anthony's PIN, which only Mick knows. Emilio thinks and thinks and says as dramatically as possible: "6." Mick says he's right, and then tells him to continue, launching into a death game of Price is Right. Emilio gets through the numbers, Mick is convinced, and shoots Mark for attempted preemptive murder.

We close on a shot of Emilio and Rene hopping into Anthony's company car and driving off. Mick is waiting for them at a roadblock, and informs Emilio that Anthony couldn't drive and he should be more careful. With a smile that could only be described as impish, he reveals that he lied about the PIN, which just goes to that it's not a hard choice between shooting Emilio Estevez or the bad guy from Flipper.

As Rene and Emilio drive off into the pollution-enhanced sunset, the stirring chords of "Hit Between the Eyes" by the Scorpions take over and we fade out on a future made less nightmarish thanks to the future Sir Mick Jagger.

I would have to say that this is the greatest movie I have ever seen.