aka The Prophet

• Directed by Fred Olen Ray
• Written by Ron McKernan
• Starring
  • Don “The Dragon” Wilson
  • Barbara Steele
  • Ted Monte
  • “Alexander Keith” (Wendy Schumacher)
  • Rick Dean
• Produced by Ashok Amritrag and Andrew Stevens
• Executive Produced by Roger Corman

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I like Don “The Dragon” Wilson. He’s a slight and lithe action star, unlike most of the hulkier stars, which means he can often pull off those “everyman who kicks butt” roles that I love. Sure, he couldn’t act his way around a shower curtain, and sure, he needs voice lessons if he’s ever going to stop sounding like a teenager before he hits middle age (in other words, we’s got “Dean Cain voice”), but he kicks well, and still doesn’t look out of place in a suit.

And on an almost identical topic, I like Don “The Dragon” Wilson movies. Usually with Roger Corman calling the shots, these flicks are all direct-to-video action, with good if cheap production values and a storyline that practically demands you check your brain at the door, all of which is doubly true with Fred Olen Ray in the director’s chair. These movies epitomize “mindless entertainment,” and I’m almost always willing to give them the benefit of my suspension of disbelief, until the closing credits roll and my reawakened brain cells start ripping the plot to shreds like soggy toilet paper.

In the current outing, Wilson is CIA Agent Jarrid Maddox, introduced to us in a nifty if urrelevant little setpiece in which he and two other agents foil some spies in Washington by kicking ass and having little psychic premonitions (that’s Maddox’s trademark “gut feelings”), and ignoring the fact that the CIA spies on other countries; it’s the FBI or the NSA who would handle spies on U.S. soil. (I told you, as soon as the credits rolled…)

Into the real plot, then: Agent Maddox is assigned by higher-ups (including the improbable Barbara Steele as Agent Oakley — what are the odds foreign nationals would be ranking members of the U.S. intelligence community?) to help track down some members of an anti-government cult, the five leaders of which are all in California. (Again, why is the CIA even involved here?) With the excuse that “we don’t want another Waco on our hands” with a major raid, Maddox is sent alone to the West Coast to link up with a local agent and bring these five in quietly — alive if possible, dead if convenient.

That night, Maddox has dreams shot in black-and-white 8mm of several children in some kind of complex, being subjected to medical experiments. (To be fair, I should let you know that the entire opening credits were interspersed with similar footage, and a beginning legend: “1966.” Just in case we weren’t given enough clues.) He wakes up as his apartment is entered by some crazy guy with a syringe, who raves about what was done to “all of us,” and how he can fix it. Naturally, Maddox kicks his ass into unconsciousness, but not before he gets a a sample from the syringe which knocks him out. In the morning, he wakes, surrounded by fellow agents, including a top brass who explains that the assailant died (no fault of Maddox’s), and that, wonder of wonders, it was one of the five he was to track down! Gee, that’ll make his job 20% easier! (This is where red lights should be going off in Maddox’s head: “What’s this guy’s connection to me?” But there are no such lights.)

We get another setpiece on the plane, as Maddox unloads some whupass on two biker types who fondle and rough up the female and male flight attendants, respectively (and garners the female attendant’s phone number for his troubles).

And then he’s in L.A., meeting up with his partner (female, naturally), Agent Taylor. And since this is a Corman/Ray collaboration, and since we’ve got male and female teamed up, what are the odds that their initial meeting involves nudity? You got it; they meet at the mid-budget motel that is to be their temporary base, and Maddox catches Taylor in his room’s shower; see, her room wasn’t fixed up yet, so she borrowed his. (So, if she’s a local agent, doesn’t she have a bathroom of her own at home?)

Off they set, with their convenient FBI dossiers, to find the suspects. The first one turns out to be a small-time hustler in a seedy bar (with a “Turn in Guns and Knives” sign at the door); all that Maddox gets from him is the admission that he, like Maddox, has a brain that sometimes acts “like an old TV on the fritz,” and then Maddox has to fight every guy in the bar single-handedly. No sweat.

Maddox and Taylor follow him to his cabin place, where the guy commits “suicide by spook”. And finally the warning lights start going off in Maddox’s head: This loser couldn’t have been the co-leader of any anti-government cult. And neither could their next suspect — a pleasant suburban housewife who can tell without seeing that Maddox and Taylor are watching from the bushes. She too has “the gift,” what Maddox always called his “hunches” — some sort of psychic power. She agrees to come with them for questioning; however, when Maddox leaves to get the car, the housewife is shot by Taylor, who claims the housewife pulled a gun.

On top of this, Maddox is now getting untraceable e-mails on his laptop, taunting him about the apparent inconsistencies between his assigned mission and what he’s actually encountering. Oh yes, and Agent Oakley has also assigned another agent to rub Maddox out.

By this point of the movie (just past the halfway mark), it would be a slow view indeed who didn’t have the entire ending (including the “surprise twist”) figured out, but it’s still great entertainment. Maddox and Taylor track the last two suspects, looking for answers, while the Evil CIA Agent and his posse ineptly fail to surround them a number of times. (Nice training, guys.) There’s the obligatory love scene (and it’s probably a bad thing that I can recognize Fred Olen Ray’s directorial style most strongly in this scene), Rick Dean (the single most underrated actor working for Roger Corman) gets an important cameo, and there’s a massive shootout and tons of whupass, culminating in a chase and showdown on a moving train, the most unbelievable part of which being that at no point, despite ten minutes of automatic weapons fire, do the local police show up.

I haven’t even touched upon many of the inconsistencies and illogicalities which seem to be thrust into the script with alarming fervor. It seems that, in most paranoid movies, the conspiratorial organization must not be simply evil and fascist, but also ill-organized and lacking in tactical skills — otherwise, they’d easily mop up the hero, who spends most of his time trying to figure out what’s going on around him.

Now, I strongly suspect that, at this point, you’ve got a major question: After I just spent the entire review pointing out all the shortcomings and laziness that went into making this movie, how can I justify calling it “entertaining” and proposing that 90 minutes spent watching it are not wasted?

To which I reply: Shaddup.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 17
• breasts: 2
• explosions: 2
• dream sequences: 2
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 0