Michael "The Dude" Dudikoff certainly doesn't fall into the top tier of 80s Action stars. His body-of-work was overshadowed by the big names that
stared in
the decade's
biggest Action vehicles and defined the 1980s as the decade of the "Muscle Action" film. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stalone, Jean-Claude Van Damme and even Dolph Lundgren and Chuck Norris all grew into household names by ripping bad guys and ripping
their
shirts with the flexing of their ripped muscles, but Dudikoff, a bit smaller in stature than the others, grew more into the bad Action
film connoisseur's sort of hero, a regular in the old and immensely fun Cannon Group films like American Ninja and Platoon Leader
(two films
desperately in need of Blu-ray releases). He's a capable leading man with good looks and a penchant for playing up midlevel roles into a fine
combination
that's half serious, half cheese, and all fun. Dudikoff still found steady work in midlevel Action flicks even through the 1990s and was cast as the
leading man in Bounty Hunters, a bad 1996 direct-to-video flick replete with bland action and poor dialogue. The good news is that Dudikoff
does what he does
best,
hamming up a bad role and making a watchable movie out of subpar material.
Battered, bruised, and bloodied bounty hunters.
Jersey (Dudikoff) is a professional bounty hunter, a specialist in firearms and hand-to-hand combat, and he's very goods at his job. Things may not
always go according to plan, be he always snags his man. He's a bit of a klutz, too, not to mention a bit in debt, but he's a hard worker who takes
pride in completing his
tasks. He's rather paranoid, too; he's booby-trapped his house, and pretty much everything in it -- the television, a lamp -- is rigged with some kind
of unassuming bad guy
deterrent. He's also friends with his young neighbor, Word (Ashanti Williams), who keeps Jersey up-to-date on the ways of the world and,
sometimes, helps him piece together a few clues. For his latest mission, Jersey is forced to team up with a rival bounty hunter (or is it huntress?),
B.B. (Lisa Howard), in a tussle with the mob. Jersey and B.B. come into possession of a kidnapped prostitute who knows too much and is targeted
for
termination. The hunters protect her, but when the mob kidnaps someone close to Jersey, an already deadly mission turns dangerously personal.
Hookers, pornography, child abduction, aspiring Rap artists, criminals with flamethrowers, and plenty of good old fashioned fisticuffs and firearms fun
all
help to define Bounty Hunters (plural, because The Dude's got some help), one of the 1990's most inconsequential Action flicks that throws
everything possible into the film but does little with its assets beyond using them all to move the picture along towards its conclusion. It's a
hodgepodge of
nothing
and unimaginative plot devices that, in the hands of a lesser actor -- or an actor unsure of what to do with it -- would deteriorate into an
unwatchable
mess by the end of the first act. Dudikoff, the veteran B-level Action star, slips right into character and seems to be right at home in the role of a
silly
but
effective bounty hunter, juicing up the ridiculously simple and mindless script with his own brand of Action flick flavor. Here as elsewhere, Dudikoff
again proves a
master
of elevating bad material into a goofily entertaining romp through the world of rather tame cinema violence and thoughtless plot points. He shows
good chemistry with fellow lead Lisa Howard even as their interactions follow the basic bland Action film script that hits all of the "at odds but oddly
attracted" opposite sex pairing clichés along the way.
The film's technical merits are nothing really to brag on. The action constantly feels stale and slow and very much staged rather than organic. The
entire film, really, suffers from much of the same, never really finding any real sense of forward progress and instead coming across as terribly paced,
making a ninety-some-minute movie feel like it's at least thirty minutes longer. The picture does display an easy-breezy sense of humor. It never
takes itself even the slightest bit seriously, a real asset for a film that otherwise would have been much worse considering all the other negatives
going against it. Director George Erschbamer, whose background is in special effects work for Action films like First Blood, shows a basic point-and-shoot proficiency behind the camera
but never does anything to help jazz up an otherwise very slow picture. Fans of Michael Dudikoff and bad Action flicks might enjoy Bounty
Hunters, but it's pretty far down on the totem pole of genre excellence.
Bounty Hunters looks quite good on Blu-ray. The transfer isn't without its flaws, but the overall experience is highly positive, a real plus given
the rather barebones nature of the remainder of the disc, not to mention the cheap selling point. To be sure, those flaws are highly evident. There's a
fair bit of dirt over the opening titles, but it largely goes away afterwards, appearing only sporadically through the rest of the film. Blacks are a bit
inconsistent, showing a bit of crush here and looking a bit pale and noisy there. Otherwise, the transfer shows some real, honest strengths. Light grain
remains
and provides a natural film-like appearance. Details are crisp and consistently so. They're not so film-pure as the finest transfers, but it's hard to find
fault with the way the transfer reveals textured clothing and faces. There's a general sharpness to the image that impresses throughout; only rarely
does the image go soft, and even then usually only around the edges. Colors are balanced, not really strikingly brilliant but certainly in no way dull or
faded. Flesh tones show no major fluctuations away from normal. The image holds up rather nicely throughout; this is one of the finer Echo Bridge
catalogue releases to date.
Bounty Hunters arrives on Blu-ray with an uninspired and constantly lacking DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 soundtrack. Music plays lightly and
without all that much verve or muscle. Clarity is only so-so, spacing is but fair across the front, and there's a real lack of natural presence to it. Even a
Hip Hop dance club in chapter nine fails to find even a shred of energy; the music plays lightly and almost nonchalantly in the background without so
much as a hint of power (oddly, on a side note, the edited version of the song plays, removing the explicit lyrics, strange for a rated-R film). Some of the
sound effects are rather
well defined. Gunfire comes across well enough but also lacks power. The basic qualities of the sonic signature are there, but not the sort of thunderous
support such an effect demands. Ambient effects are also disappointing; there's a real lack of immersion, natural spacing, and vigor to the din of a police
station or the surrounding elements in that club scene mentioned above. Fortunately, dialogue is sufficiently crisp and focused in the front-middle
portion of the stage. This is a classic sort of no-frills track that gets listeners through the movie with little trouble but shows no real effort in or desire to
expand upon the experience.
Bounty Hunters is a fairly typical, no-thought-required direct-to-video Action flick. It's saved by Michael Dudikoff lightening the burden of the
poor script and slow action simply by performing as reliably as ever. He's a great fit in these sort of movies, the ultimate B-Action movie leading man.
Unfortunately, the film is technically unimpressive, quite slow, and its action scenes are remarkably dull. Nevertheless, it's a fair time killer that will earn
a few laughs
along the way, laughs both with and at the movie. Echo Bridge's featureless Blu-ray offers disappointingly mild sound but does feature
a
rather sharp and film-like transfer. Recommended to Dudikoff fans.
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