I Spit on Death

We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.

Snipers, Chuck Norris, mysteries, and guilty pleasure.

SNIPER: NO NATION (2026)

Sony keeps expanding the Sniper franchise, and I’m here for it. I think it’s great that we keep getting new entries in this series; cool little action movies hitting the direct-to-video market on a regular basis, just like in the good old days. Every time a new Sniper movie is released, and even though the sequels are always set in modern day, it takes me right back to the ‘90s – which is appropriate, given that the original film (the only one to receive a theatrical release) came out in 1993.

Sniper: No Nation is the twelfth film in the series, and while we have a new director at the helm (Trevor Calverley, who was the cinematographer on the previous film, Sniper: The Last Stand), the story is still building off of events that happened in previous installments. You see, there was “the Oliver Thompson trilogy,” where Thompson wrote Sniper: Assassin’s End and came back to write and direct Sniper: Rogue Mission and Sniper: G.R.I.T. - Global Response & Intelligence Team. The Thompson era came to an end and Sniper: The Last Stand was directed by Danishka Esterhazy from a screenplay by Sean Wathen, but the story Wathen came up with for that movie tied back to the beginning of Assassin’s End, showing us the consequences of an assassination that was carried out at the start of that movie. Also written by Wathen, Sniper: No Nation shows us that the ripple effects caused by that assassination are still spreading outward.

The target of that assassination was Bruno Diaz, the leader of a country called Costa Verde. As it turns out, Diaz’s brother rose to power after Bruno was killed... and he is not a good guy. There’s a chance that he could even push his country into a war with the neighboring Terra Nueva. Series hero Brandon Beckett (Chad Michael Collins), a former Marine sniper who now works for a black ops C.I.A. team called G.R.I.T., and his fellow agent Zero (Ryan Robbins), a returning character from the last several sequels, are trying to stop that from happening... but during the opening sequence, a mission fails spectacularly, resulting in Brandon fighting while “half dead and shooting blind.” The government orders that G.R.I.T. be dismantled and its agents have to go on the run.

Brandon and Zero end up hiding out in a defunct military base in Terra Nueva, kept company by Brandon’s father, veteran sniper and original franchise hero Thomas Beckett (Tom Berenger). They’re in contact with the Costa Verde freedom fighters they helped in the previous movie, a group called the Phoenix Rebellion... and things are not going well for them, as they’re up against a team of armored assassin called the Iron Legion, and Brandon isn’t there to help them. In fact, decisions Brandon makes might even accidentally cause more trouble for them.

Of course, our heroes don’t spend the whole movie hiding out in Terra Nueva. For the climactic action sequence, they do enter Costa Verde on a mission to rescue members of the Phoenix Rebellion from the Iron Legion. 

I won’t say how the battle goes, but I will say that I was very surprised by the final moments – and was left very hyped and hopeful for the future of the Sniper franchise.

Like The Last Stand, No Nation is a rather economical movie in that there are only a few locations, and a substantial portion of the running time is focused on characters talking to each other. But there’s an interesting story going on and a few action set-pieces that are very cool to see when they break out. I didn’t enjoy this continuation quite as much as its immediate predecessor, but it’s a fine addition to the franchise and I like fans who have followed the series will enjoy this one. Some might find the ending disappointing, but hopefully we won’t have to wait long to find out what happens next.

HERO AND THE TERROR (1988)

In 1982, the same year action hero Chuck Norris was seen fighting a Michael Myers type of maniac in the sci-fi action horror film Silent Rage, actor Michael Blodgett published his second novel, Hero and the Terror – and six years later, Norris and Blodgett teamed up to bring Hero and the Terror to the screen, giving Norris the chance to make another movie where he fights a maniac serial killer.

Directed by William Tannen from a script Blodgett wrote with Dennis Shryack, the Hero and the Terror film adaptation sees Norris take on the role of LAPD Detective Danny O'Brien, who is plagued by nightmares of his confrontation with serial killer Simon Moon, a.k.a. the Terror (Jack O'Halloran), who liked to murder women and store their bodies in an abandoned amusement park. Since their confrontation ended with the Terror being apprehended, the media has dubbed Danny a hero... but he doesn’t feel like one.

While Danny is focused on dealing with L.A. crime and co-habitating with his pregnant girlfriend Kay (Brynn Thayer) – who he met because she was his therapist during this ordeal – the Terror manages to escape from prison and take up residence in a hidden room inside a movie theatre. He starts killing people again, storing the corpses in his secret lair... and, of course, Danny is the cop who is able to deduce where the Terror is hiding these days, setting the stage for a climactic rematch.

Hero and the Terror doesn’t have quite as much horror edge to it as Silent Rage did, although the scenes of Terror attacking people and snapping their necks are pure horror scenes. That other “Norris vs. a serial killer” movie took more time than necessary to get to the slashing action after the opening sequence, and this one has similar pacing issues. While there are a couple of typical ‘80s cop movie action moments, the majority of the 96 minute running time is taken up by dialogue scenes. Terror isn’t claiming enough victims and Danny isn’t kicking enough asses, but there's plenty of talking going on.

The best thing about Hero and the Terror is the cast. One of Danny’s friends/co-workers is played by Cannon Films regular Steve James, the Mayor is played by Ron O’Neal, Jeffrey Kramer from Jaws is around, Branscombe Richmond shows up as a random criminal, and Billy Drago shows up as the Terror’s doctor.

STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL (2024)

A glance at the Rotten Tomatoes or Wikipedia pages for the 2024 thriller Strictly Confidential will let you know that only 10% of the film’s reviews had a positive slant, with most of them writing it off, saying it’s reminiscent of the cheesy, straight-to-cable erotic thrillers of the ‘90s; that it’s a clunky, convoluted, and preposterous mess; that it has an illogical plot and stilted scenes. And yes, it’s all true. The movie is awful – but that’s exactly why it’s worth watching. This is a “so bad, it’s good” gem!

As reviews also point out, it has “enough unintentional laughs to make it a guilty pleasure,” along with “the novelty of a son exploiting the sex appeal of his mom.”

Strictly Confidential was written and directed by Damian Hurley, the (at the time of filming) 20-year-old son of actress/model Elizabeth Hurley, who not only produced the movie but also has a prominent acting role in it – and the younger Hurley took every opportunity to show off his mom’s rockin’ body, even going so far as to give her a lesbian love scene with one of her much-younger co-stars. This is quite uncomfortable to see, up there with Dario Argento giving his daughter Asia nude scenes in some of his movies.

Elizabeth Hurley plays Lily, who’s mourning the death of her husband and the suicide of her daughter Rebecca (Lauren McQueen)... and also hooking up with Rebecca’s friend, Natasha (Pear Chiravara). Natasha is one of a group of friends who have been invited to Lily’s oceanside mansion to commemorate Rebecca on the anniversary of her death – and another member of that group is our heroine, Georgia Lock as Mia, who decides to spend her time at Rebecca’s home trying to figure why exactly her friend would have killed herself.

Also in the cast are Freddie Thorp, Genevieve Gaunt, Llyrio Boateng, Agi Nanjosi, Centia Corbie, and Max Parker. Damian Hurley gave them some odd situations to act their way through and some lame dialogue to speak, resulting in laughable moments from some of the cast members. The story takes some wild twists and turns, and in the end the movie feels like a blend of old erotic thrillers and bad soap operas.

If you enjoy watching poorly made, amusingly bad guilty pleasures like I do, Strictly Confidential is a must-see.

RUN AWAY (2026)

Last year, I watched the 2018 limited series Safe, which was created by crime author Harlan Coben and primarily written by Danny Brocklehurst. I found that show to be so fascinating, I was eager to see more Coben-based stories brought to the screen – which must be a common reaction to such shows, because a whole lot of Harlan Coben series have been made in recent years. Run Away is the second one I’ve watched through... and even though it was based on a Coben novel instead of being created for the screen like Safe was, I didn’t find this one to be as interesting.

James Nesbitt stars in Run Away as investment banker Simon Greene, and my interest in the show took an immediate hit as soon as he appeared on screen. The man has decades of credits to his name and has earned a lot of accolades, but I was instantly put off by his performance and screen presence. It’s difficult to get invested in a show when you can’t stand the lead character. But at least there’s an interesting mystery built around him.

Simon is looking for his troubled daughter Paige (Ellie de Lange), the runaway of the title, and that search will put his life in danger on more than one occasion – and even gets his wife Ingrid severely injured. Minnie Driver plays Ingrid, but the role primarily required her to act like she was unconscious in a hospital bed.

Ruth Jones is the most intriguing character; private investigator Elena Ravenscroft. The character has so much going on and is so unique, I thought for sure that the people behind the show (like developer Danny Brocklehurst) were setting Ravenscroft up for her own spin-off, but then things took a turn that I didn’t expect. I was also interested in the story of young couple Ash (Jon Pointing) and DeeDee (a terrifically unhinged Maeve Courtier-Lilley), who go around killing people for reasons, other than DeeDee’s insanity, that aren’t immediately clear.

So, I didn’t like watching the lead character, but there were enough interesting elements beyond Simon Greene that I found the eight episode run of Run Away to be a good watch.