Third Society, The (2000)

Posted on May 30, 2001 under "Cold", Action-suspense |

Written and directed by “J.A. Steel” (Jacquelyn A. Ruffner)
Starring
- Jaqueline A. Ruffner
- Shannon Clay
- Russell Vann Brown
- Sonya Eddy
Produced by Jacquelyn A. Ruffner

I piss people off around here all the time. It’s not intentional (not very often, anyway). But I really don’t like pulling punches, so I manage to get on people’s bad sides. From David Wozney, the guy with (ahem) serious doubts about the existence of dinosaurs, to Gary Goddard, director of everyone’s favorite 90-minute toy commercial Masters of the Universe, I’ve racked up my fair share of enemies.

With this review, though, I’m breaking new ground. Because I’ve never pissed off a Muay Thai kickboxer before.

There is a boat. There is a fight on the boat. Therefore, it is inevitable that someone goes ass-over-teakettle into the drink.

Back in 1976, an American woman in Thailand gets shot by organized crime types, in full view of her daughter. To protect her and her sister, the local and U.S. law enforcement put them into the Witness Protection Program, complete with a name change: Cassandra Alexandra Reynolds becomes Cassandra Alexandra Jones, who grows to be a very fit young woman with a permanent scowl (Jacquelyn Ruffner) and simply goes by “Jones.” Her sister Erica (Shannon Clay) is some sort of finance person or something. She goes by “Erica.”

Apparently they left Jones in Asia to grow up (a time she apparently spent alone, running in mountains and boxing with trees) — after which she became an LAPD lieutenant. Let’s go over that, shall we? We’ll give the kid a new last name, but we’ll leave her in Asia, where white folks are still at least a little bit conspicuous; then, when she’s become some sort of anti-terrorist tactical expert (a fact that certainly qualifies as an Informed Attribute, since she doesn’t actually demonstrate any such expertise), we pull strings to get her assigned to a fairly high-profile job where she spends her time going after the very crime syndicates that she’s supposed to be protected from. This is Witness Protection?

So now she’s in LA, and Dragon (Khin Kyaw Maung), the gunman who shot her mother and runs a massive drug organization, is gunning for Jones because she organized a raid on their latest shipment and had her sister help transfer a billion dollars in assets out of his grasp. And apparently Dragon knows exactly who Jones is, though Jones’ own superior, Captain McGregor (Sonya Eddy), doesn’t. Then there’s a big fight where Jones fights, um, somebody, and Dragon has a nephew killed because he helped the police, and then sends his son Chan (Charles Shen) to grab Erica so she can transfer the funds back.

“Dude, lose the red convertible! You’re messing with our monochromatic vibe!”

All of this, and we’re only fourteen minutes into the flick. My brain cells are already pleading for relief, or a quick and painless release.

It’s almost impossible to give an accurate description from this point on, but here it goes. The next thing we see is Jones killing people on a boat. (We do figure out later that she lives on the boat, but at this point all we know is boat ‘n’ bullets.) The thugs were Dragon’s, but naturally she isn’t that easy to kill. Then Jones tries to rescue Erica as the bad guys fly her away, resulting in a game of chicken between Jones’ motorcycle and a plane, and a pointless firefight. (Apparently in LA, the cops have carte blanche to shoot suspects and blow off the paperwork. It’s only bodies, after all.) Then she gets together with an FBI agent (Russell Vann Brown) which whom she apparently has some sort of history — it’s mentioned at least that he also grew up in Southeast Asia; and he says that he’s read her file so he knows her history with Dragon; she’s also read his file. (So, let me get this straight; FBI agents have access to the files of people in the Witness Protection Program — which is actually administered by the U.S. Marshalls, not the FBI, so this guy would have no reason to have access to it — and LAPD officers have access to FBI personnel files?) And he has a creepy habit of showing up and watching her in the shower. (He does this twice.) Then she and FBI Boy go and beat up some guy in a bar, and get shot at by Dragon’s goons…

Meanwhile, Erica’s been handcuffed to a desk in front of a computer so she can transfer the funds back, and in an instance of hilariously bad editing, she’s apparently left there for about fourteen hours — at least, they cuff her, and then we get to see Jones do a whole bunch more stuff, and then they come back and check on Erica to see how she’s doing. (Damn, and I thought my modem was slow.)

Erica helpfully demonstrates the International “Dim Your Lights” Signal.

The whole thing ends when Dragon arranges to bring Erica back to Jones’ boat for an exchange, conveniently failing to think that anyone, having been warned ahead of time, would arrange for backup. (Boy, Jones’ tactical training did pay off after all!)

The plot description by itself may look pretty bad. But that’s not that half of it; the devil is in the details. We’ve got whole scenes of poorly-shot hand-to-hand fighting strung together with a hoity-toity narration that goes back and gives us plot events (because we were too busy watching the fighting to see the actual plot unfold, you know). The narration, it eventually turns out, is by McGregor, but since we don’t even meet her for half an hour, it’s kind of a mystery for that first chunk as to who it is that’s talking. It’s nice that McGregor has something else to do, though, because other than the narration she just does that thing that superior officers always do in the movies, namely, impotently wagging her finger at the “loose cannon” cop who endangered civilians, shoots people all over the city, and ignores direct orders.

We’ve also got dialogue that ranges from lackluster to self-consciously clever to completely inept. A couple of gems: Jones dodges bullets and tells Chan, “They say it’s the one you don’t see that kills you.” Aside from the fact that what they actually says is it’s the one you don’t hear that kills you, it’s ironic that she would call attention to the fact that you rarely do see the shots fired here; there are so few muzzle flashes that one can only assume they were trying to save money on blanks.

Another choice exchange, at the climactic boat scene:
Thug to FBI Boy: “Put your gun down!”
FBI Boy to Thug: “Drop it!”
Thug to FBI Boy: “Put your gun down now!”
FBI Boy to Thug: “Drop it!”
[Loop about twenty times.]

Watch out, I think that banyan tree to your right is sneaking up.

In between all of this, we’ve got plenty of scenes that were shot in the stylistic tradition of music videos or especially stylish car commercials, and more musical montages than I’ve seen in any movie since HorrorVision. Plus tons of footage of Jones training and exercising, both in the present and in flashback in Asia — and, naturally, the footage of Mom catching a bullet over and over (including, apparently, every time Jones showers). Mom, by the way, was played by an actress with the unlikely name of Debi D. Beebe. I have no further comment on that.

Put it all together with verveless editing, and you’ve got a hopeless, incoherent mess that simply chews on your nerve endings right up the the “WTF?” ending.

This movie is a perfect example of why filmmaking is, and really should be, a collaborative art. Jacquelyn A. Ruffner, aka J.A. Steel, wore most of the important hats here: Writer, director, producer, star, and even co-editor. The great danger of having so much authority in one pair of hands is that there’s no one else around who can give an alternate viewpoint — who can say, “I know you think this bit works, but I disagree” — and make it stick. (Immediate family members don’t count.) It’s uncommon to find anyone who can do any two of those jobs concurrently and do them well; it’s much rarer to find someone who can do three at a time. For someone to go on an ego trip and wear four and a half hats is a receipt for disaster; there’s no one left to curb enthusiasm and ego, to veto bad ideas which fall in the hat-wearer’s blind spot. And for a first-time filmmaker to do it, when each and every one of those skills is nascent and unproven… Damn. Just plain damn.

“I had to do it! You don’t understand! There aren’t that many parts for brawny Asian thugs these days!”

And now that I’ve thoroughly pissed off a woman who could hand me my ass in a heartbeat, I can only say: I’m sorry. I really feel bad about giving out scathing reviews of screeners I receive. Why? Because screeners are often for movies that have just been completed and are looking for distribution. There are all these debts out there, and the suspended self-esteem of everyone who worked on the project, and you really want to get a good review, both to show to potential distributors and to send to Aunt Martha so she won’t think you’re a wastrel who should have gone into real estate like your cousin. If I give a crummy review to a video that’s already in Blockbuster — especially if it’s not a new release — who cares? The deal’s been made; the money’s already been delivered. The filmmakers have moved on to other projects, and their egos aren’t so sensitive. (Of course, there are always exceptions.)

Now, an open plea to filmmakers (which I will reproduce elsewhere on the site for easy access): When you send me a screener, please don’t ask me to go easy on you because of budget, or because you’re new, or because your family really loves you. (This is not a comment for this movie alone; I’ve gotten several of them.) I don’t grade on budget, and the only time I’ll bring it up negatively is if you’ve attempted to make a movie that so outstrips your resources that it’s like trying to mix your two quarts of Kool-Aid in a thimble. (Case in point.) And even then, what I’ll criticize is not the dollars themselves, but your poor judgement in what you thought you could do with them. And you’re not going to be able to show your grandmother to every eventual viewer and say, “Be gentle, for her sake”; your intended audience is going to judge the movie based on the movie alone, so it’s unfair to expect me to judge by other criteria. No, pleas for clemency accompanying a screener only accomplish two things:

A) It makes me feel guilty if I do write a bad review. I’m not going to pull punches, but yes, I’ll feel bad, and we’ve already got enough unhappiness in the world.

B) It starts me thinking, even before I see the movie, that maybe you already know that what you’re sending me isn’t too hot. And that’s not the first impression you want to give me.