Truly Dreadful Film

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Woow, the early 90's.. Martial arts action films were more popular than ever and cinema and especially video was dominated by real macho action stars like Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal, Dolph Lundgren, Brandon Lee, Jeff Wincott, Lorenzo Lamas and Jeff Speakman. It was a great era and after the successful "Stone Cold" former NFL star Brian Bosworth starred in another excellent action film "One Tough Bastard" (aka One Man's Justice). With good fight scenes, an interesting story and well played characters we have a better than usual action film. Bosworth certainly has charisma like Van Damme and shows he really can act. A movie is as good as his villain and here we have MC Hammer (!!) AND Bruce Payne. Payne will always be known as the criminal mind Charles Rane in Wesley Snipes' "Passenger 57" but as Agent Karl Savak this is Payne at his best: Over the top arrogant and very entertaining to watch. Also look out for Robert La Sardo, at that time he played in similar films like "Hard To Kill, "Out For Justice" and "Last Man Standing" More recently, he made the horror film "Parlor". Too bad Bosworth only starred in 2 good films. "Black Out" was flawed and "Virus" and "Back In Business" were awful. But that's not his fault: after 1996 the martial arts era dried up. Van Damme and Seagal were forever doomed to star in cheaper home video releases and we never again saw classics like "Hard Target", "Under Siege", "TimeCop" or "Marked for Death". It even took 12 years before another "Die Hard" film saw the light of day.. Ooh, I really miss the good old days..

Bosworth shows us now, that he can act. He's very good here, putting a lot of heart into his performance. He plays Seargeant North who runs an army corp. Unfortunately for his little daughter and ex wife, they were in the wrong place in the wrong when they're witnesses to a shootout involving some bad guys, one being the ever villainous Kober of course. Bosworth comes a little too late, him taking a bullet too, but surviving. Only there's more dangerous people higher, corrupt DEA agents, led by the versatile Payne as Drew Savaak. Payne creates a real piece of work here, where killer Kober, a real piece of s..t here, is kept under his protection. Bosworth who finally has to pull the plug on his daughter's life support, where the wife'e was executed, starts asking questions and getting involved, as smelling the rats, where he exacts his own investigation and revenge. He forms a friendship with a black kid, Mikey, who helps him, while Bosworth may of found a new love, as he develops a soft spot for Mikey's mother, a social worker if memory serves me correct. Mikey has his own vendetta too, wanting to go after the guys who shot his friend. I loved the scene in the restaurant between the two, exchanging their resolutions on the killers, when they find 'em. Bosworth, a great role figure here, telling Mikey it's wrong to kill, warning him on the consequences. Mikey then asks Bosworth, "What are you gonna do, when you find em". Bosworth of course not stating the obvious, comes out with a safer answer "This is different". OTB is a solid actioner with heart too, you wouldn't expect the movie to be this good. Bosworth is a force to be reckoned with. I loved it when he was kicking a..e as you so much wanted him too. His acting, particularly at the start, really impressed. There's no denying, Payne's evil presence here is fantastic. He even brought some of his mob from Passenger 57 on board, a film I loved him in.

Being a fan of Kurt Wimmer, I decided that this movie was a must-see for me. Equilibrium is a genuinely great movie and Ultraviolet, though heavily flawed, had enough good action and heart to separate from similar movies. One Tough Bastard, however, is a bad 80's revenge movie made in the middle of the 90's. It would be a typical revenge flick, except it pretty much forgets this fact with some silly subplot involving experimental guns (actually Mini 14's with slight cosmetic modifications). These superguns are a letdown too, since they're only fired once during a test run.The fight scenes aren't very good, but they have their moments, where Wimmer shows his distinctive innovations.There aren't many interesting characters, except for corrupt agent Karl Savak. He is distinctively cheesy and entertaining, even though his quips are rather lame (as is most the dialogue). Aside from (don't laugh) MC Hammer's appearance as a villain, the movie does not have many interesting characters. An inner city black child whom Bosworth takes under his wing is particularly clichéd and uninteresting.It's almost hard to believe that Wimmer went on to make Equilibrium and Ultraviolet.

One of these '80s shoot-em-up flicks, where body piercings and tattoos still pointed to the bad guys. Brian Bosworth is upstanding and trustworthy, as the formulaic dad seeking revenge. The most real notes are struck by young DeJuan Guy, as a kid getting deeper into drugs and crime and not seeing a way out. Jeff Kober has some good lines, but his character is muddled. He seems so cold in the beginning of the film when he kills Brian B's wife and shoots his daughter, but he gets mushy when DeJuan gets into trouble. I do like his tattoo though.