Cold Fusion Video Reviews

• Written and directed by Serge Rodnunsky
• Starring
  • Roddy Piper
  • Tawny Kitaen
  • Trevor Goddard
  • Miles O’Keeffe
  • Juan Hernandez

“Branding” is a funny thing — a wonderful servant, a terrible master. When you’re an unknown actor, you really hope to develop a following, to become the lead, and generally to get to the point where your name actually appears on the front of the videobox. (Well, there’s also the hope for theatrical release and maybe even a major award, but let’s keep our feet on the ground.) Once you’ve become a brand name, you pretty much guarantee that a certain fan base will seek out your movies, or at least not object to watching them. That right there is a career, and the B-movie field is full of people who’ve achieved that: Don “The Dragon” Wilson, Julie Strain, Jeff Speakman, and yes, Roddy Piper.

But branding can be onerous after a point, because everyone yearns for something more in life, and as soon as an actor has achieved a modicum of success by defining himself, he immediately wishes not to be so rigidly defined. Unfortunately, the number of actors who escape their own shadows, especially in the genre field, is pretty slim. As in most other respects, Arnold Schwarzenegger is the success story here; he managed to branch out from formulaic action films to comedies for all ages (serious drama still eludes him, but that’s probably for the best). Other actors have had less success in the debranding process, which explains the last ten years of Stallone’s career, leaving a wake of cinematic bombs as be desperately and unsuccessfully tries not to be Rocky and Rambo. It also explains such things as Christopher Lambert playing a retarded man in Gideon (1999).

And I’m sure you can see the attending problem here. If I say, for example, that I want to go get a Bruce Lee movie, I’m probably not looking for Bruce’s lone foray into musical theater; I want to see Bruce Lee doing what he’s famous for, i.e. kicking copious quantities of ass. I don’t want to see Chuck Norris as a widower dealing with the loss of his beloved, unless automatic weapons are a significant factor in the grieving process. I don’t want to see a branded actor’s movie that departs from the brand. When I’m in the mood for fish ‘n’ chips, I don’t go to McDonald’s.

In that regard, Dead Tides is a less-than-painful effort on Roddy Piper’s part to escape the branding ghetto, mainly because it isn’t a complete break from his previous films, but an expansion of the territory. It’s a suspense thriller rather than an out-and-out action flick, but the two genres are nextdoor neighbors. It’s thus not a terrible leap for Piper, and it’s not a half-bad flick — but oddly enough, it’s unsuccessful roughly to the degree that it not the expected “Rowdy Roddy movie.”

Piper is Mick Leddy, who enjoys an idyllic sailing life as a charter captain in Marina Del Rey. Not your typical marina bum, though; this marina bum also happens to be a former member of the Coast Guard — and, we find out halfway through the movie, a Navy SEAL before that. Gee, do you think these skills might come in handy?

Not that he does much fighting, although he has opportunities. His girlfriend, Lori (Camilla More), is also the object of affection of Coast Guard officer Scott (Trevor Goddard), who also is a part-time psychotic Russell Crowe impersonator. He’s extremely possessive of Lori, to the point that he bodily throws her off Mick’s boat when she goes over to cook Mick dinner. (Don’t worry, she lands in the water — as does Mick. In fact, Mick gets his can tossed overboard about four times throughout the movie, though there’s no indication this was meant to be an intentional running gag.) And just so you don’t miss how psycho Scott is, he takes the occasion of Mick’s spill to then go into Micks’ houseboat with a baseball bat and get medieval.

It’s no wonder that Mick’s not to sad about leaving this triangle for a while when he’s hired to charter a sailboat to Mexico by Nola (Tawny Kitaen). There’ll only be him and Nola for the day or however long it takes, there’s good money in it, she’s an attractive woman… what could be wrong with that?

Well, for starters, we’ve already been shown that Nola is the wife of drug kingpin Juan Carlos (Juan Hernandez), who shot the boat’s previous captain for stealing drug money. (And presumably for boinking Nola, although it’s not mentioned.) Not only that, but the DEA, in the person of constipated-looking agent Stanovski (Miles O’Keeffe — all together now, “How much Keeffe?”), is investigating Carlos, trying to figure out how he’s getting his merchandise into the U.S. now that he’s not using planes. Gee, you don’t think…?

To Micks’ credit, he doesn’t start hammering the boss’s wife until the return voyage (and that’s after two episodes of applying her suntan lotion) — or rather, the boss’s wife’s body double. Given that we’ve already seen Lori as nude as possible with an R rating, it quickly becomes apparent which actress ranked high enough for the no-nudity clause; Kitaen never appears in a state of undress more risque than would be found in the pages of a Sears catalog. Anyway, they make like rabbits on the way back — and then on another voyage down and back. all of this under the watchful eye of the DEA and Psycho Coast Guard Boy, each with their own reasons.

Nevertheless, once Mick discovers the drugs on-board, it’s only a matter of time before Stanovski confronts him with one of those “Work for us or go to prison” ultimatums. (Ultimati? Whatever.) This despite the fact that they’ve still got absolutely no evidence that there’s drug running going on, much less that Mick is culpable. And this despite the fact that the DEA have apparently set up their local operation on two card tables in the middle of the upper level of a warehouse. Where, exactly, are my tax dollars disappearing to?

Naturally, once you get a character wearing a wire, you get that character discovered, and the whole weight of the “Does she feel about me as I feel about her?” thing comes down. Mick also gets a chance to use those old Navy SEAL skills (again, that part of his personal history was added, not to flesh out the character — it doesn’t — but apparently to explain how a single injured man without a weapon can wipe out a dozen of Carlos’ men.) And naturally, the finale brings together a whole bunch of people with overlapping grudges (including Scott, who by this time is pretty much pissed with everyone).

I won’t ruin for you the final resolution, except to tell you as a side note that Lori and Scott end up together — a situation which elicits from me an exclamation of, “What the hell?!” I mean, he’s already demonstrated that he’s an obsessive, controlling, anger-prone, paranoid psycho — yet when Lori tells Mick of Scott’s out-of-the-blue marriage proposal (in the middle of one of these multi-symptomatic episodes), she says, “Am I crazy for considering this?” His honest reply: “You’re crazy.” Her response: “Wrong answer.” Excuse me, girl, but that was apparently the dead-on correct answer.

In conclusion, have I actually said anything? The role of Mick is a bit of a departure for Piper, though not much of a stretch; he simply has to be easygoing instead of crusty. But the fact that it’s a non-fighting Piper movie simply leaves a void. I mean, how much suspense is there in a boat going to Mexico, back to California… back to Mexico… back to California… back to Mexico… back to California… Get my point? And the fact that Mick gets down and dirty in the end is an implicit admission that no, the attempts to build suspense earlier just don’t pay off the audience well enough without the additional bang.

If you do get really bored, though, you can easily play a game of “How many times will the cameraman’s shadow enter the shot?”

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 19
• breasts: 2
• explosions: 4
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 0