BLAST

Directed by: Albert Pyun

Starring: Linden Ashby, Andrew Divoff, Kimberly Warren, Rutger Hauer, Tim Thomerson

Jack Bryant is a former Olympic athlete who injured his leg during the Moscow Olympics. Now working as a janitor at the Atlanta olympic swimming venue, he’s anxious about running into his ex-wife Diane, who’s now one of the coaches for the American Olympic swimming team. However, an awkward reunion soon becomes the least of his troubles, as a team of highly trained international terrorists take over the building and hold the swim team hostage. Now Jack is the only person standing  who can stop them…

Albert Pyun can be rather hit-and-miss as a director.  He's responsible for genre classics such as Cyborg, Nemesis and The Sword and The Sorcerer. As such, Blast has to be the biggest miss by a mile, even more so than Crazy Six (review to be published soon!).

Just about every aspect of this film fails. Linden Ashby does have a couple of half-decent fight scenes, which to be fair are filmed quite coherently, but most of the “action” is running up and down corridors which all look identical, or involve someone shooting at someone off-screen with no follow-up.

The cinematography is weak. Three quarters of the film is spent on close-ups of characters whose facial expressions hardly change, regardless of the situation. Everything is filmed way too close, you feel as if its invading your personal space.

Blast does have some familiar faces – Andrew Divoff was very good in Toy Soldiers, but here he’s as wooden as a post. Tim Thomerson unfortunately has very little to do but advise the mayor as the situation worsens.

And then there’s Rutger Hauer, one of the stalwarts of genre films, who can at least be relied upon to liven up any film he’s in. Well…he certainly makes you sit up and pay attention when he’s on screen, but not for the right reasons. Instead you’ll be asking yourself why an Interpol expert on international terrorists has long blonde hair which has been braided into pigtails with red ribbons interwoven into it! It’s the most bizarre thing I’ve seen in ages (as you can see from the below pic, it appears that he's supposed to be part American Indian).

I'd love to know who came up with this idea - whether it was in the original script, or whether Rutger Hauer did it as a dare...

It really says something when the best actors in the film are the female swim team, from whom you get a really palpable sense of terror.

Verdict:

I've enjoyed many of Albert Pyun's films, but this is definitely not one of them. Blast joins the ranks of Circle of Pain and Megashark Vs Giant Octopus as one of the worst films I’ve ever had to review. This is almost irredeemable in its inanity.

2 out of 10 (MikeOutWest)