Rage (1995) Poster

(1995)

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7/10
A Must See For Action Fans!
magilvilla26 February 2000
This movie is basically a non stop chase. Once it gets started, it never even stops to take a breath! One great action sequence after another! Car chases, shootouts, and fighting! What more could you ask for? The story isn't bad either. It keeps you interested during the brief gaps between the plentiful action.
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7/10
Well worth seeking out.
tarbosh220007 May 2012
Warning: Spoilers
Alex Thomas Gainer (Daniels) is a second grade teacher beloved by all his students. He also has a great home life with a loving wife and daughter. After leaving the house and saying "I'll be right back" (never a good sign), Gainer is carjacked and then kidnapped. He is taken to a secret lab trying to manufacture SuperSoldiers. Alex manages to escape and now he is on the run. With corrupt sheriffs, insane scientists, and tons of law enforcement after him, his story becomes a media frenzy. Even though some people died in one of the many melees, no one believes Alex's innocence - except reporter Johansen (Tigar) and his camerawoman Bobby T (McWhirter). Will Alex be able to clear his good name? It is impossible not to like Gary Daniels. He tops himself in likability here - as the good natured elementary school teacher and devoted father. PM and other companies must always use him because of this, as well as his stellar martial arts abilities. He's the perfect action star to root for. Rage is simply one big action set piece after another. It's truly non-stop stunts, explosions, shooting, and car chases (both Fruit Cart and otherwise). The angle of the experimental SuperSoldiers makes things a little different, as does the subplot about "media vultures" who convict people in the court of public opinion regardless of their guilt or innocence.

Only PM could include this social satire along with its classic style of blow-ups - and include references to the show Hard Copy, the OJ trial as well as Geraldo - and also include something they often use in their movies - transvestites. It's not known why. The actor David Powledge almost steals the movie as corrupt sheriff Sherman Kelly. But sadly he's not the main baddie. It's crazy - this guy has been a character actor since the early 80's but he is virtually unknown. Some people toil in the entertainment industry their whole careers and get little to no recognition, and are great (like Powledge), and some actors are hugely popular but are annoying and talentless. You can name your own example. It's a cryin' shame. Take Luis Beckford as Sgt. Beckford in the film. He's truly an American hero.

But back to the subject at hand, really the only flaw with Rage is that it needed a more prominent and more evil villain. Other than that, the movie is a wildly entertaining ride. The world of PM references itself a few times here: Last Man Standing's McWhirter appears as the camerawoman, Alex's last name, Gainer, is also Erik Estrada's last name in Night of the Wilding (1990), and in one of Rage's best scenes, there is a fight at a video store, and the store is decorated with nothing but posters from other PM movies! Now that's a store we would have loved to have visited. Apparently it was in the Long Beach mall (the whole mall scene is a standout) - although surely the local glassworkers were working overtime after these fights were over.

While Rage might not be on the level of the top PM's (Zero Tolerance (1994), Last Man Standing (1996), The Sweeper (1996) and Recoil, 1998) - it still is well worth seeking out.

For more action insanity, please visit: www.comeuppancereviews.com
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6/10
Action vehicle for Gary Daniels
Leofwine_draca6 September 2017
Warning: Spoilers
RAGE is a straight-up action flick from the guys at PM Entertainment. It stars British hard-man Gary Daniels who plays a mild-mannered school teacher who is kidnapped by a Mexican guy being chased by the members of a criminal outfit desperate to clone their own army. Daniels is experimented upon but manages to escape, at which point the film becomes a big manhunt as the bad guys try to catch him. As with many PM Entertainment movies, this film is replete with straight action scenes including plenty of fist fights and car chases. It's an easy watch for sure, but I was never quite as caught up in the story as I wanted to be, despite Daniels' best efforts to convince. Perhaps they needed some more convincing villains for this to succeed better.
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Another great action masterpiece from the PM Entertainment crew.
DragonFire9931 December 1999
Most discriminating fans will probably dismiss RAGE as just a standard action picture with better production values than most B-movies. However, amid the fireworks display of gunfire and exploding cars, RAGE is a rather caustic satire on the media. In any case, RAGE is an incredible motion picture. While the plot may be weird and convoluted, the action will have fans begging for more.

Alex Gainer (Gary Daniels) lived a simple, serene life as a mister nice guy-type schoolteacher. He lives in a splendid suburban home with a beautiful wife (Fiona Hutchison) and daughter. Until one moment...will have a tremendous impact for the rest of his life...

While driving home from work, Gainer is car-jacked by a menacing stranger. To be truthful, that is NOT the worst thing that could happen to him. The police arrive just in the nick of time to stop the car-jacking maniac, but instead of helping Mr. Gainer...they hold him at gunpoint. Talk about being an innocent man caught "at the wrong place at the wrong time."

When crooked cops and government agents decide to kidnap Gainer for use as a guinea pig in a malicious experiment to create a new breed of "super soldiers," boy, have they picked the wrong guy to mess with! Injected with a series of virulent chemicals, Gainer begins to go berserk. Eventually, Gainer escapes, but not before slaughtering a whole bunch of security guards and government agents. Gainer is labeled as a madman, and this once popular kindergarten teacher has become the cynosure for tabloid shows everywhere. Talk about having a bad day!

Only Action 12 News Reporter Harry Johansen (Kenneth Tigar) thinks that Gainer is an innocent man. With help from his camerawoman, Bobby T (Jillian McWhirter), Johansen is determined to help Gainer tell his side of the story so that there can be an end to the madness. However, how can one news reporter help save another man's life?

RAGE is a stylish and stylized action film in all its glory. It features some of the most daring stunts ever pulled such as Daniels utilizing a merry-go-round to elude the bad guys. The car crashes too are so sweet! Definitely one of the most memorable scenes in this movie was when Daniels tried to flee both the police and government agents by driving a gigantic tanker. Also, you will not believe your eyes when you watch our protagonist stand on top of this truck and then leap out of the "danger zone" as soon as this same truck collides with a rampaging school bus. The chases and action scenes are quite extensive and exhaustive, with at least two sequences lasting over 15 minutes. RAGE is an action thriller on speed.

In addition to the breathless action which should make RAGE a top choice for thrill seeking movie fans, the biting satire on the media and tabloid reports help make it stand out as a fine motion picture. Often in society, people become obsessed with sensationalism. Take for example, the scenario of the main character, Alex Gainer. Tabloid shows everywhere try to sensationalize the whole issue, labeling Gainer as either: A murderer, a homicidal maniac, or one of those "good people who have gone haywire for no apparent reason." The message that can be learned from RAGE is that people should not always follow sensationalism because that is not always the truth. Some reporters have a bad habit of manipulating the truth, making the truth become something "outrageous" so that they can satisfy their own desires. As noted, reporters have a tendency to tell the news from a biased point of view and in some cases, it can be extremely detrimental to the people affected by the news. People sensationalize for many reasons whether to entertain or to tarnish a person's reputation. However, as exemplified with reporter Harry Johansen, an admirable person with real strength and courage is one who does not whimsically take everybody else's words and agrees with them. Instead he or she follows his or her own heart and instincts, and searches for the real truth.

The hero himself is also very noble. He stays strong because he knows that he is fighting for a worthy cause: His own freedom to exist. He fights for the right to live. The main character himself is also very sympathetic. He is a person who cares for the welfare of his family and despite the chaos he is going through, he still puts the safety of his loved ones even before himself.

As much as I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, there are some foibles that must be pointed out. First, some of the editing is out of tune. In one instance, the bad guys try to grab the camera away from the reporter. In the next scene, the viewer suddenly sees the reporter and his assistant simply wave "good-bye!" What's going on here? Inept editing I suppose. Also, many of the plot elements in this movie are unbelievable. For one, how did this guy, Gainer suddenly learn martial arts? Or, how did he learn to use a machine gun for that matter? Or...where did these bad guys learn how to shoot? They cannot put a single bullet into the main hero! I also doubt that a person can survive a plunge of several feet into the inside of a building... There are other irrelevant plot mistakes which are only too common in movies of this character.

Let's face it, nobody watches these movies in order to discover any interesting character revelations. They just want action. Well, RAGE delivers action all right, in a blazing full-throttle style. Never mind that this movie's plot is out of proportions. RAGE is a movie made simply for your enjoyment. The violence in this movie is insane, but hey, it's all in good fun. This satire on media sensationalism is guaranteed to make your day.

RATING: *** out of ****.
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2/10
Are they serious ?
F1ame18 February 2000
I could not believe the director thought he was doing a good job. Much of the character interaction seemed forced. I had terrible trouble working out the accent of the lead. It seemed to be Australian at one point then a sentence came out in East London talk. Moving on to the action part, as it is an action movie. I think terrible unrealistic would be the most fitting. I am not against enhanced reality but a car driving towards an artic and magically flying 80 yards through the air by itself.... mmmmm. I guess it was the expensive stunt as we got 6 different slow motion views of it. However on the plus side you may keep watching to see how the bizarre story line will work everything out for the lead. To sum up, it was unintentionally hilarious
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2/10
Empty. Pointless. Decent stunts, shot terribly.
toxicpilgrim12 July 2020
Yikes I haven't been this frustrated with a movie in a while. Even bad movies. I watched this with a friend, and I found almost nothing to stay engaged with in this film. There are some interesting scenarios and stunts, but the way they're shot and edited are schizophrenic. Even when something interesting happens, the camera can't stay focused on it for more than half a second before flipping away to some other pointless flowing motion. It's like watching a spray of effuse from a hose trying to catch glimpses of recognizable shapes in the patterns as they splash upon a wall. The plot itself is even worse. A brief moment of something interesting leading to ab.so.lute.ly nothing.
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10/10
Gary Daniels = Prince Among Thieves
VincentVega19877 January 2005
'He can run, and he can hide, but he cant escape.... what they put inside him!' After seeing a trailer with THAT line in it I could hardly contain my excitement. My only regret about watching Rage is that now I am constantly plagued by the thought that I will never see that movie for the first time again, yes it is that good!

The tag line says 'Somewhere between sanity and madness there is Rage' and only a true genius could have made this film. As Elliot Carver says, 'the difference between genius and insanity is measured only by success,'and if this is true then Joseph Merhi is the worlds greatest genius. After hitting old school with Shotgun in the late 80s and having a few misfires in the 90s, Coldfire and To Be The Best spring to mind, PM Entertainment really had found themselves by 1995, as in this year they made To The Limit AND in the incomparable Rage.

Alex Gainer, a mild mannered kindergarten teacher with a great singing voice, is kidnapped by masked lunatics and injected with a drug... Rage. This turns him into a mindless killer. Sweet. However he still has a heart, after the police are onto him all he wants is to help his family! Everyone could do with taking a page out of Gainer's book thats for sure. But this movie isn't all philosophy and love, oh no, this movie contains some of the best action, only rivalled by Executive Target. After then scene at the top of the sky scraper I needed to have surgical nail implants as I had bitten all of mine off, it was so tense. There is a great car and truck chase as well towards the beginning, but the final shoot out in the mall was the mad note. The stunts were exceptional and the choreography was breath taking.

Well PM Entertainment proved they were still the best with this film, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did

Good day friend
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1/10
what happened to movie making?
serpico_usa11 January 2005
what a disgrace to movie making. bad acting,and the most unbelievable script. the star of the movie(who should have stuck to his Karate skills instead of trying to act,who I will not even try to remember his name and hope he retires from the business. Maybe he should have been the new superman for the unbelievable number of times he should have been killed in the movie yet barely gets a scratch.Do film makers think that making a movie with a large number of stunts,destroying vehicles etc make a film. To the writer and Director go back to school and learn your craft.This movie is a disgrace.I did find one nice feature of the film. The scenery and color are nice. Life is too short to waste watching junk.
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8/10
PM Entertainment's and Gary Daniels finest hour
HaemovoreRex21 October 2009
Well, if ever there was a definitive example of a 'mindless fun' action film then this must surely be it! The plot here is ludicrous, the acting even more so and the action scenes - well, let's just say that to call them OTT would be a dramatic understatement.......but by God - this is so damned ridiculously entertaining from start to glorious finish.

Daniels plays a primary school teacher(!) who's seemingly idyllic life is one day plunged into absolute turmoil when a desperate man brandishing a gun jumps into his car and demands Daniels to help him escape from a group of decidedly shady pursuing government agents. It turns out that said agents are conducting clandestine and immoral experiments with an experimental serum designed to create a super soldier. Well, it doesn't take a prophet to foresee that our hero ends up as the next unwilling participant in these trials. Unfortunately for his captors however, our man turns out to be a tad more unruly than the previous experimentees and promptly goes crazy and kills everyone in the secret facility(!) before hightailing it out in a bid to reclaim his freedom. Needless to say, the dastardly agents can't allow any evidence of their illicit experimentation to become public knowledge and subsequently set out to eradicate all traces of their antics i.e by killing off our man!

Well, there's the plot in a nutshell (what there is of it!) but really such a wafer thin notion is only present to serve as an excuse for the amazing non-stop action in this. Literally hardly a moment goes by without either a massive shoot out, Daniels displaying his awesome martial arts skills or else an insane car chase of some description.

Best scenes? There's simply so many to choose from but a number stick out including a hair raising freeway chase upon Daniels' escape from the lab, the lab massacre itself, an hilarious scene in which Daniels is attacked by a mad dominatrix and her 'servant'(!) a mall shoot out which shamelessly plugs other PM output via having part of the carnage take place in a video store(!) and best of all, a truly sidesplittingly stupid (but hilariously fun) sequence in which Daniels swings from the side of a building and lands (amazingly!) on a helicopter(!!!!!) Simply insane fun from start to wonderful end - you NEED to see this!!!
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4/10
Watchable...but just once.
Logic40413 July 2006
It's to bad. The action in this film is almost non-stop but still not that exciting. But boy do they try hard. The ONLY reason I didn't score this a 1 was because of that effort.

There are quite a few "so bad that they are good" scenes that a least a couple laughs come your way. Some of the acting is atrocious. In my opinion the best actor is the one that plays the head journalist.

One thing I found really funny was one scene when the hero is hanging from a building and a guy is shooting at him on a helicopter. That guy must have took about 30 or 40 shots (most from close range) and didn't hit him once. I won't even mention the end shootout in a mall (really stupid).

So see this movie only for a few moments of inspired action and some unintentional laughs and let us never speak of this movie again.
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8/10
Totally unrealistic, but fun
Mitch Weaver22 December 1998
That pretty much sums up this movie. If you're a fan of non-stop action films, you definitely want to check this one out. There is one little thing that could keep you from enjoying Rage: I've never seen such unrealistic action in a film before. This guy does stunts that make him look like Superman. Example: in one scene, our hero jumps about 15 feet in the air off an exploding truck and lands on the ground, with only a few hairs out of place. Then he proceeds to chase a car on foot! For me, the campy action in this film made it great. If you don't like stuff like that, stay away from this one. However, if seeing someone doing a rolling dive in the air and machine-gunning 5 thugs at once is your cup of tea, I suggest you rent Rage as soon as possible!
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8/10
Spectacular Action
genesse9 July 2000
You will love this Movie if you be a Action-Fan.A good Movie from the Action-Specialist Joseph Merhi. There are Car-Stunts, Explosions, Shoot-outs and good Fights. What will you more? In Rage is more Action as in Big-Budgets Productions. Gary Daniels is a good Martial-Arts Fighter. Thanks P.M. Entertainment for your great Action-Movies.
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Silly, but a heck of a lot of fun!
Wizard-823 January 1999
I usually like movies from this company (P.M. Entertainment), and you have to admit one thing: they try VERY HARD to deliver the goods! This is no exception. There are car chases, machine gun fights, falls, breaking glass, and a wild finale at a shopping mall. It IS very silly, though - but it somehow adds to the fun of the experience.
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10/10
One of the Most Underrated 90s Action Flicks, and PM Entertainment's Best
monkeysgalore6 April 2020
There's always something satisfying about an unapologetic genre film that completely knows it's audience. Action and horror movies are good examples of this, as audiences expectations for these kinds of films are pretty obvious. Well Rage, is one of these movies. A supercharged action thriller, Rage races along at a breakneck speed with only a small lull near the end, and I would go as far as to say that it's one of the best action movies of the 90s.

Hear me out. Yes, it's direct-to-video, and yes it stars Gary Daniels, who is not a very memorable action star and is only known for his string of DTV action trash in the 90s. This film is one of those movies, but it just doesn't give a crap. It knows the viewer wants action, and goes all out to deliver.

The premise is quite simple, and more than anything, it's an excuse for lots large-scale action scenes. It's relentless with its action and quick pacing, and it's definitely what I expected Wesley Snipes' much later DTV vehicle Unstoppable (Nine Lives) to be.

The action sequences are above all the reason to see this. The action scenes are large-scale, with an edge and obvious inspiration from Hong Kong action movies. There's an opening shootout, a brief car chase, an awesome fight/shootout in a laboratory, a fight scene in which Daniels takes on a bunch of cops, a remarkable freeway chase, a cool, if weird, house fight scene, a helicopter fight, another small scene in a house, and the final battle in the mall. While it doesn't sound spectacular, it is. The scenes are lengthy and tense, and could rival any mainstream theatrical production with a wider release.

Gary Daniels is pretty good. Although he definitely has room for improvement as an actor, his martial arts skill is undeniable and he seems to be doing many of his own stunts.

A simple premise and inspired and wildly entertaining action scenes make for a great time. A bus and a truck ram into each other with Daniels jumping off the roof, and he fights a man and woman who are both wearing S&M outfits. He hangs off of a building and manages to swing into a helicopter and fight a dude before falling through a skylight and shaking it off like a boss. It's seriously awesome.
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10/10
There will be RAGE
dougy-tz29 June 2022
You'd really love RAGE. The plot is outRAGEeous and not aveRAGE, its full of tRAGEdy, there's a barRAGE of enRAGEd baddies. So I encouRAGE you to buy it, if you don't have stoRAGE you can rent a gaRAGE. Watch it with a beveRAGE, and your entouRAGE, but no one undeRAGE or there will be... RAGE.
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