ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Loui Blair It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

lasviega087 Warning: Spoilers! I remember first watching this movie not so many years after its release on VHS.Mickey Rourke in his career's best shape, along with Double Team (1997) was what struck me first. There's no doubt he'd been spending some time doing bench press and curls for this part. An impressive physique for somebody who otherwise had an average build. In his boxing days he didn't look anything like this. And I'm pretty sure he could've done the fighting scenes all by himself, had director Matt Earl Beesley given him a chance. Instead, it was wrongly decided he had to be some 'karate master'. Unsuccessful editing ahead, unfortunately. Part from that, he does not speak many lines throughout the movie, but his emotional scenes along with Kevin Gage are as real as can be.Paul Ben-Victor as the 'boss'. I loved him. A bad guy, with his witty comments and nonchalant attitude. Not to mention gay. One of those guys you just love to hate. Of course he gets what he deserves in the end.Michael Wright as one of the ex-military baddies who realizes he's finished. He's "sorry" for catching his wife in adultery, and stabbing the guy who screwed her 14 times and cutting his throat. An obsessive psycho, but I did feel sorry for him. Of course he goes out with guns blazing 'T2'-style. A harmony of closure and violence. Perfect.Werner Schreyer as the young kid who caught some bad luck and got his death sentence. I felt a bit sorry for him too, although not as sorry as I felt for Michael Wright's character. I'm not sure the party's over for this pretty boy or not. Although Danny Trejo said so. He's the perfect main bad guy. On drugs, lousy aim and immune to physical pain. Of course it takes Rourke on steroids to deal with him. The showdowns between, them mixed with the guitar solos have a special vibe to them. Music sets the mood more than you'd think, and could transcend otherwise average fight scenes (which really is the case here) into something you'll remember.Forget about the story, the plot and such. There is no such thing. You would not watch this movie for these things. Yes, it is a rip-off of certain movies which are a lot better. 'Leon' (1994), also mentioned by other users, being one example. Technically as a movie, it belongs in the low budget category, and I can very well understand why it was released direct-to-video.I still give it a 10 out of 10. Call it sentimental value.

movieman_kev Gay Howard, a prisoner convicted of white-collar crimes masterminds a prison break while his fellow prisoners are being transported. They succeed and hole up in a local mall where they take hostages and try to make demands of the police who surround the place. Unfortunately for the criminals a former mercenary and all-round tough guy, Rudy Ray (Mickey Rourke) is after them, in no small part because his brother is one of the escaped prisoners. Check your brain at the door for this one, folks. It's all about explosions and lots of gunfire. None of it makes much sense under scrutiny and the films ever so slightly homophobic (I referred to Howard as 'gay Howard' earlier in the review as the film makes it abundantly clear). The action is good, if utterly ridiculous and the film apes from MUCH better films (Die Hard, Leon, etcetera), but fans of Rourke or Danny Trejo (who is suitably over-the-top as the 'crazy' villain) will enjoy this flick. Just don't expect anything more than a fun little weightless diversion. It feels more like an '80's film than one for the late '90's though.My B-movie grade: B-

koeyjay You would have to be completely nuts not to be able to enjoy this movie. When Trejo asks "What did I do??" at the end, and you're not completely satisfied...you suckThe arch-villian is perfect, the mini-gun on the roof of that crappy mall is perfect, and that scene of rourkes brother all close up walking toward the light at the end of the movie is beyond perfect, it brings tears to my eyes.Beautiful villian heart to hearts, a real 'feel-good' flick if ive ever seen one. Says here i need at least ten lines, so ill try to sum it up as such, really really good, although it IS better is you're pretty drunk with your buddies, but i cant think of a single movie, or thing in general that isn't for that matter.

Eric Chapman May not be the sorriest I've ever seen, but it's very very close. It's certainly the worst I've watched in a good while, and keep in mind that I've seen "The Haunting". I am totally serious when I state that the title must be the filmmakers' admission that the film has no 'point', that it is literally an entertainment 'blank' or void.A bunch of hardened convicts break out of captivity and immediately take 8 or so hostages (business must be down) at a local mall? Then they hunker down and wait for their ruthless, business-guy ringleader to figure out what demands they're going to make as Local and Federal law enforcement surround the place? And one of the cons starts indiscriminately blowing away hostages as another con's former Marine (or something) brother shows up to dispatch the villains one by one Die Hard style? WHAT? HUH? WHAT? Who wrote this? Escaped cons would never do that. They would never ever ever do something like that. It is one of the most moronic concepts I've ever heard of. For starters, there would be like 40-50 points of access which they could not possibly guard. And why would they ever put their trust in someone (though he bankrolled their breakout) who they all despise and they know is stringing them along? Doesn't work. Can't do it. Better come up with something else, Mr. Screenwriter. He, like the ridiculous characters in this movie, boxes himself in and tries to blast his way out, with predictable results.Even given this premise's painful absurdity, the film could at least deliver on all of the routine but fairly dependable and mildly diverting staples of this genre, like say the way the ones starring Charles Bronson and I don't know, Michael Dudikoff do. But it fails badly when it even tries to do that little, as the action sequences are so gratuitously illogical and disconnected to narrative (what little there is) you will cry. And only two of the hostages are even given close-ups (a pretty girl in a mini-skirt and a slutty girl with a drug habit) so it seems like there's about 5 hostages or so, instead of the hundreds you'd think would be roaming the mall at the time of the takeover. Plus, there's lots of inertia in this movie, lots of standing around, as if the actors had to constantly be reminded that yes, they were taking part in the filming of a motion picture and that, don't worry, everything will come together in the editing room. (Uh, not quite.)As if that weren't bad enough; self-pitying, disinterested Mickey Rourke is the putative star. The film is quite unspeakably ghastly on its own, to be sure, but Rourke's involvement is very much like dropping a ten ton elephant on an already sinking ship. He gives another one of those deadening, lobotomized non-performances that he first patented with that "Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man" bomb about ten years ago. He shuffles and mutters his way through the debacle as if he'd lost some bet to the producers when drunk and had no choice. (Though he must've made them agree, I suppose wisely, that his participation was contingent on his not having to speak more than 50 words of dialogue.)Rourke is an actor who at some point evidently decided that the drama and spectacle of his own strange life far surpassed that of any movie he could possibly be in. Every movie like this he does seems like a cry for help, just another installment in his sorry, self-conscious saga of self- (and career) destruction. Amazing when you consider how surprisingly good and professional he is in a fine made for TNT movie he appeared in around this time called "Thicker Than Blood".Every film, no matter how bad, must have a central theme, and this one's seems to be that "It's bad to hurt innocent people". (At least, Rourke's character mentions something along those lines a few times.) Anyway, I think that's something we can all agree on.So why make this film?