Bullet Points: The Killing Man
1994’s The Killing Man starring Jeff Wincott served up everything I expect while a watching Jeff Wincott action movie. Jeff Wincott kicking ass and Jeff Wincott portraying a character with more depth than your typical 90’s direct to video action hero.
What I did not expect was the near Skinemax levels of gratuitous nudity that The Killing Man had to offer.
- The Premise: Wincott plays former mafia hit man Harlin Garrett. After killing 15 people for the mafia, the organized crime bosses decide Garrett has outlived his usefulness so they double cross him by setting him up and leaving him for dead in a fire. But Garrett miraculously survived the fire and was taken to a secret government facility. At this government facility Garrett receives top notch medical care and plastic surgery to repair the damage to the 70% of his body that was burned during the fire. Now before you get the impression that the government was doing this out of the kindness of their non-existent heart, they really did it so Garrett could become a covert killing machine for them!
- Wake Up: Garrett was in a coma for more than six months. When he finally wakes up he finds that he is wrapped up like a mummy. He is completely disoriented and has near total amnesia. His captors/caregivers are not all that forthcoming with the information, but they do continue to monitor Garrett’s recovery and even put him through a few tests. One test involved sending a hot “nurse”into his room to see if he has regained his sexual functions. This scene was straight up late night Cinemax soft core. To make sure he didn’t lose his killing skills, they throw an armed robber in the room with him who murdered a storekeeper and his wife the night before. Garrett is reluctant to fight the man at first, but when the thug pushes him too far, the armed robber ends up dead on the floor. And that is when Garrett is made an offer.
- Green Pill or Green Pill: Garrett’s options are pretty limited, he either kills for this secret government agency or he himself will be killed. Garrett takes the option that will keep him alive and agrees to work for them. Garrett’s handler is a man by the name of Mr. Green. Green is played by Michael Ironside of Total Recall and Top Gun fame. Green is the man who gives Garrett his targets and is his point of contact at the agency. Green gives Garrett a new identity, a drifter from the Midwest named Danny Grange. The agency has developed a whole backstory for Grange, they even altered his fingerprints while he was in the coma. After a rough start (more on that later), Garrett/Grange gets on board and he takes out a gay rights activist and then an investigative reporter, per the orders of Green.
- His Next Assignment: Grange’s next assignment is to take out a professor who has been doing AIDS research. But before he does, Green wants Grange to befriend the professor to find out how much she knows. Grange literally bumps into Dr. Ann Kendall at the grocery store and for a moment I thought I was watching a How To Pick Up Women with your host Jeff Wincott. Grange was a knight in shining armor for the workaholic Annie, so it is no surprise that Grange and Annie become close. And when I say close, I mean Cinemax soft core scene #2 close. The two soon fall in love and that is about the time Grange finds out that Annie has evidence that the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, or HIV for short, was actually created by the United States government. The only other people who knew about this were the gay rights activist and the investigative reporter that Grange killed earlier in the movie. This is also about the time where Green gives Grange the greenlight to kill Annie. But Grange has become too close to her and he can’t do it. Now they are both targets!
One could say The Killing Man was the action entertainment genre’s answer to TLC’s “Waterfalls” and they may be right. One could also say that The Killing Man did not have the same level of action as other Wincott movies from this time and they would be right. But I can honestly say after watching The Killing Man that I have still not seen a bad Jeff Wincott movie and there is nothing wrong with that.
And this is the point of the review where I say something about bonus Bullet Points…
- The Name Game: The Killing Man is also known as The Killing Machine. There have been two other movies titled The Killing Machine. The first was back in 1984 and starred Lee Van Cleef (The Octagon), Jorge Rivero (Death Match) and Willie Aames. Then more recently was 2010’s The Killing Machine starring Dolph Lundgren (Joshua Tree) and Bo Svenson (Soda Cracker).
- Your Beard is Weird: Despite having a beard on the cover of The Killing Machine poster, Michael Ironside does not have a beard in the movie.
- Head in a Box: When Grange is first let back out in the world, he foolishly makes contact with a strip club waitress he knew prior to his accident. This goes against the rules that Mr. Green laid out for Grange, so Grange is ordered to kill the woman. Instead of killing her, he tells her to disappear and get out of town, but he lies and tells Green he killed her. Later that night when Grange gets back to his motel room, there’s a box on his bed. Inside the box, his friend’s severed head.
- If You Ever: …wanted to see Jeff Wincott’s bare ass, then this is the movie for you. Not sure if Jeff felt guilty that nearly all of his female co-stars were baring their bodies for the movie so he agreed to do it or he just wanted to join in on the on screen nudity.
