Cold Harvest (1999 Video)
3/10
was there a harvest? I must have dozed off by then
25 October 2002
Well...

This is obviously a low-budget action film. It's too highly derivative, though, to be interesting for any reason unless maybe you're interested in the further adventures of someone involved in making it. The actors weren't just mailing it in, so I give them credit: they did as well as they probably could given the boring script and low budget. Whoever did the sound effects made a humorous decision to add them to virtually every sudden movement in the entire movie, destroying any fleeting illusion of realism which might have tried to slip between the wall-to-wall physical impossibilities of the action scenes. Well, actually, there were some extended "dramatic" scenes, like where Oliver (or was it Roland? I forgot which was which already) watches his dead brother's wife bathing and is so inspired by her beauty that he tells her simply "You have a nice back." Of course, with writing like that, whatever wafts of realism might have tiptoed past the sound effects and the action sequences would have been dropped dead cold in their tracks by a head-shot like that line, in the same fashion as some of the hapless victims of the overeager gore effects team succumbed to their inevitable -- read "predictable" -- deaths.

Just two more examples should suffice to illustrate the quality of the writing. First, the two main characters face off with guns, then both throw away their guns at the same time to "finish this like men" (which is actually what they say when they do it). Uh huh. Real smart, "men". Then they go on to an even sillier final "final showdown". I'll leave a shred of suspense in it for you should you decide to see this turkey and spare you a description of that face-off. But my favorite part was the handy provision of a small array of GARDEN TOOLS (including a pitchfork -- gee, wonder if/how that will play into the action? *yawn*) right outside the villain's OFFICE. In the hallway. Yeah, you know, nothing says professionalism in the evil boss industry like some garden implements close by. Remember, there's no sunshine in this post-apocalyptic world.

Hmmm... bah, thinking and this movie do not mix.
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