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(1998) Director: Art Camacho With every person in the world, there are a few aspects of life that, while might not seem all that interesting to everybody, for some reason give that individual person a lot of interest. I don't know why I love movies so much that I am obsessive about learning seemingly insignificant details about them, such as how a movie as gawd-awful as Hot Chili got made the utterly inept way it was. (I finally learned the answers to that question in the book The Cannon Film Guide Volume II.) One part of society that has intrigued me to a significant degree since my childhood are gangsters - specifically the Mob, the Mafia, whatever you want to call them. There have been so many questions that have formed in my mind about these people over the years. Probably the biggest question I have regarding them is: Why on earth did they get into this "business" in the first place? Well, while I don't think I have come up with a firm answer despite my years of observation about them, my best guess is that it is either because you are born into the business - being a child of a mobster - or that the individual before his crime days was in a low position in society, and decided that getting involved in a life a crime would be the best way to get power and fortune. But that aforementioned question has not been the only mobster-related one I've had. I've been interested in how they do their business, especially in this modern day of ours when not only law enforcement is as powerful as ever, but there are now street gangs from various American inner cities who have slowly built great power, not to mention the cartels south of the American border. Though I am not quite sure how the Italian-American and Irish-American mobs are internally dealing with these matters, all the same I am not surprised when recent reports state that while the Italian-American and Irish-American mobs are still around, they have weakened greatly over the last few decades. While the Italian-American and Irish-American mobs are still around, they not only somewhat diminished, I am sure that a lot of their "classic" practices have been altered to some degree or another, and that others have been totally eliminated. I want to talk about one standard mobster trope that has been portrayed in fiction - movies, books, whatever - so much that I wonder how truthful it is, at least in this day and age. That being an innocent and non-criminal private individual - or law enforcer - hurting or killing a member of an Italian-American or Irish-American mobster's family, which immediately sparks the deceased's mobster family to try and kill that individual or law enforcer. Has that really happened in real life? From what I've learned, the answer isn't all that cut and dried. In the past, it certainly did happen on a number of occasions; the Italian-American mob and the Irish-American mob were stronger, private individuals had less avenues of escape, and keeping the law away was easier. But in this day and age? I've learned when it comes to killing law enforcers nowadays, the mob (at least the Italian-American and Irish-American mobs - cartels south of the border, and their affiliates in America, are much different beasts) would now be more reluctant to strike back, because the death of a law enforcer in this present day would bring the entire wrath of the police, the FBI, the ATF, or whoever. All the same, some American undercover law enforcers like undercover FBI agent Donnie Brasco have had to go into hiding after their work resulted in mass arrests of Italian-American mobsters, which lead to a bounty being put on Brasco's head. As for private individuals, they definitely can still be targeted. In 1980, the 12-year-old son of mob kingpin John Gotti, a.k.a. "The Teflon Don", was killed when a neighbor accidentally ran over him with a minibike. Four months later, that neighbor "disappeared" and was never seen again. Although it's never been proved 100%, it is generally assumed by both law enforcers and low-ranking members of the mob that Gotti ordered a hit on that neighbor, and Gotti ultimately never got legally punished for that act. Personally, I feel that incident did result in eventual
bad karma for Gotti when in 2018, the awful movie Gotti,
starring John Travolta as John Gotti, got released and was savaged by
critics for
a bad script and a very bad performance from Travolta. (Though personally, I
think Travolta might have
pulled it off with a better script and a more capable director.)
Getting back to the topic at hand, the idea "Okay, okay," I hear you saying. "Recoil certainly does sound like it has its share of action. But is the action really as plentiful and high quality in that certain PM Entertainment way that you keep raving about?" Well, dear reader, the answer is... OH HELL, YES! The action immediately starts once the opening credits finish unfolding, and what follows for the next eighteen minutes or so is a non-stop display of gunfights, vehicle chases, explosions, and cars flipping over. Later in the movie, we are treated to such delights as cops inside a police precinct being gunned down... a rollercoaster of a vehicle chase sequence on a windy mountain road that doesn't let up until the end... martial arts sequences that are not only literally bone-crunching, but choreographed in a manner where they feel more realistic than usual, though still extremely exciting... a car that explodes on the street and rolls its fiery self over and over again along the street.... and a character running over the tops of cars in a traffic jam who simultaneously fires his gun at a vehicle whose participants are trying desperately to speed away in. But my favorite action sequence has to be the one where two people are fighting fisticuffs style... on top of a limousine... that is speeding through heavy Los Angeles traffic... and the limo driver attempting (but not always succeeding) to avoid hitting other cars. Not only does all that happen, but the climax of the scene (involving the sudden participation of a big rig) results in an unbelievable visual that must be seen to be believed! Believe me, if you want to see numerous great action sequences in a movie, Recoil delivers them in spades. Oh, and rest assured there is a lot of broken glass during the action - you can't have a great PM Entertainment movie without glass breaking. As great as the action is in Recoil, I will admit that it isn't always perfect. Take the opening bank robbery shootout outside the bank, for instance. While it certainly excited me, I couldn't help but notice that you never see the robbers and the cops in the same shot, save for one very brief moment when one of the robbers suddenly appears a step away from Ray. (Also, it's mentioned there are four bank robbers, but it actually seems to be at least six.) Later, when Ray and his family are being chased on the mountain road, the assassin is using... a pistol. Huh? Wouldn't a machine gun make more sense in this situation? (Also, the back of Ray's car eventually switches from being very damaged to not much after a couple of edits.) There are other little questionable moments in other action sequences, though fortunately they don't manage to spoil the otherwise excitement generated. It shouldn't be a surprise that director Art Camacho (Redemption) has made a career in the film industry for making and choreographing high quality action sequences. As it turned out, he also wrote the story for Recoil, though the final script was written by one Richard Preston Jr. (The Sender). Which leads me to the next topic to discuss about the movie, the script. I don't know what Camacho or Preston concocted for the movie, but there are some really dumb touches with the story, not just for the obvious fact that the L.A. police force doesn't do that much when their fellow boys in blue start to get knocked off, even when you consider that there is a secretly corrupt cop amongst them, whose identity you'll be able to guess long before Ray does. For example, it's not made clear how all the bank robbers planned to get away from the bank. When Marcus is later killed, Ray and the four other cops are alone, but then later a TV reporter shows video footage of a private citizen who gets extremely (and I mean extremely) close to the shooting of Marcus - yet the five cops never saw the citizen at the time! Later, when Lucas tells Ray that Ray's family is dead, Lucas immediately afterwards walks out of the room - what a nice partner/friend! When Ray finally starts using martial arts, not only did we have to wait two-thirds into the movie for this to start, there was absolutely no clue previously that Ray knew martial arts. The worst thing in the story, however, has to be when the last person (guess who) gets knocked off. When this happens, the movie just... abruptly ends, and the credits start rolling, leaving a lot of "What happened next, concerning _______?" questions unanswered, such as the fact that Ray's vigilante actions were seen to result indirectly to at least one innocent civilian killed. Also, I feel I should mention that there is some really
awful lines of dialogue here and there, one example being when
Vincent's wife Julie (Robin Curtis, Santa With Muscles)
says something like, "You have a heart eaten away from darkness!" to
her husband. At least from that, you might guess that mobster Vincent
must be a really nasty piece of work, but it turns out that this
character's portrayal is pretty disappointing. Actor Foronjy can't seem
to work up too much heat with his words (he takes the killings of his
family members much easier than you'd expect), and until near the end
of the movie, he just orders people to do his work rather than himself.
For that matter, the actors playing Vincent's sons and Mr. Brown range
from being bland to downright terrible. You'd think a line of dialogue like, "My
God, there were children in that [crashed] car!" would be spoken with
great passion, but wait until you hear it in this movie. With the
antagonists in Recoil
not being all that hot, it's left to actor Gary Daniels
to do what he can with the script and direction he's under. If you've
seen other Daniels movies, you will know that he's not a particularly
strong actor. He's nowhere Chuck Norris bad, but for the most part he just
speaks his lines in an average tone, despite what the situation may be.
However, he does manage to bring in some charisma that gives his
character an instant likability, so you'll follow his character with
interest from start to finish despite his character not revealing
personal information apart from him having a wife and kids. Also, he
does the physical demands of his role very well; he punches, kicks, and
leaps around in a compelling manner that as I mentioned before doesn't seem all that
choreographed. It's a perfect complement to the sheer action that Recoil
has to offer from start to end, and makes it a PM Entertainment
exercise that is one of the most entertaining offerings they brewed up
during their golden age. Mr. Joseph Merhi and Mr. Richard Pepin, please
reunite, get back to producing, and bring back that golden action
touch. How the cinematic world of today needs the two of you and your spectacular non-CGI style of action more than
ever. (Posted July 8, 2023)
Check for availability on Amazon (DVD) See also: Last Man Standing,
Rage, The
Sweeper |
of Italian-American or Irish-American mobsters in
this day of
ours targeting law enforcers does seem significantly unlikely. However,
I
don't mind this being depicted in movies, because it's very likely that
a lot of action will be drummed up, and who doesn't like action? That's
what the movie 
