Bullet Points: Body Armor
In this edition of Bullet Points I’m going to take a look at the 1998 film, Body Armor. This one is also known as The Protector, not to be confused with the Tony Jaa movie The Protector that Chad reviewed back in September.
Body Armor stars Matt McColm, who is primarily known for his stunt work and not his acting. Body Armor is one of McColm’s rare leading man roles. He was also the lead in 1994’s Red Scorpion 2. I didn’t even know there was a Red Scorpion 2!
- Childhood Destroyed: The movie starts out with our hero Ken Conway (Matt McColm) working security for Rasheed. Now Rasheed is played by the one and only John Rhys Davis, who will forever be known in my mind as the lovable and loyal sidekick to Indiana Jones, Sallah. In Body Armor, the character Rasheed is lecherous not lovable and when he instructs a beautiful young woman to perform oral sex on him, my childhood was instantly destroyed. Conway may have felt the same way as he walks off the job, not wanting to work for seedy characters like Rasheed anymore.
- When One Door Closes: Now Conway needs work, and as luck would have it his former fiancee (Annabel Schofield) shows up and needs his help locating a missing scientist friend. Last he was seen he was working for Dr. Ramsey Krago (Ron Perlman). Conway poses as a doctor himself and attends a conference so he can check out Krago for himself and ask some questions.
- The Villains: Dr. Ramsey Krago has made it big in the profitable world of pharmaceuticals. What are the odds that he has created the vaccine for multiple diseases? Well the odds are pretty good when you are the one who created the disease in the first place. As a money hungry, mad scientist, Perlman is effective in his role as is Morgan Brittany as Krago’s conniving assistant/lover Sloane Matthews.
- The Good Guys: Conway ends up joining forces with Agent Monica McBride (played by Carol Alt), who had been leading an ongoing investigation on Krago’s operation. Also lending some comic relief to the film is the one and only Clint Howard, who plays Hutch, Conway’s friend/business manager/accountant.
If you are a fan of hardcore action this is probably not the movie for you. There are some good action sequences, as you can expect with a movie that stars a long time stunt man. They destroy a car, which is always a plus. But if not for the nudity and some of the language, I would have believed this was the 2 hour pilot for an action/adventure series. It definitely has that TV action kind of vibe to it. In fact, I felt like I was watching an episode of Acapulco H.E.A.T. several times during the movie. Which reminds me, how awesome was the open for Acapulco H.E.A.T.
