Bullet Points: Armstrong (1998)
When I first heard that Frank Zagarino and Joe Lara starred opposite of one another in 1998’s Armstrong, two questions immediately came to mind, who plays the bad guy and why did I hope it was Joe Lara?
I have seen both Frank Zagarino and Joe Lara as the action hero in movies like The Revenger and American Cyborg: Steel Warrior respectively. I have seen Frank Zagarino as the villain in Blood Warriors. But a villainous Joe Lara would be a completely new experience for me… and that is exactly what Armstrong provided me, even if his character had one of the worst names I have ever heard.
- Setting the Table: As the movie begins, CIA Agent Robert Zorkin (Charles Napier, Rambo: First Blood Part II) and his wife Susan (Kimberly Kates) are vacationing in Moscow. But it doesn’t take long before it is obvious that Zorkin is not just in Moscow to visit the birthplace of his now deceased parents. Agent Zorkin came to Moscow with a hidden agenda. Zorkin received intelligence that the Russians are selling nukes (the same nukes that per an agreement with the United States are supposed to be decommissioned) to Middle Eastern terrorists. The President of the United States himself sent Zorkin to Moscow on a covert operation to shut down the black market sales. It just so happens, that the best Navy SEAL that Zorkin ever trained, Rod Armstrong (Frank Zagarino, Convict 762), is now living in Moscow and doing freelance work for the FSB (aka the new KGB) and Zorkin wants to recruit Armstrong to help him on this special mission. Zorkin pays his old friend a visit and after filling him in on the particulars, their reunion is crashed by a man known only as Ponytail (Joe Lara, Doomsdayer) and some Russian mobsters out of New York… the result, Zorkin ends up dead thanks to Ponytail. Now it is up to Rod Armstrong to complete Zorkin’s mission.
- Loose Ends: Ponytail decides he needs to track down Susan Zorkin to tie up loose ends and find out who her husband talked to about the nukes and if he had any evidence that the Russians were selling the weapons. I should point out that Susan is about 25 years younger than her now deceased husband. She’s also far from a damsel in distress, having passed her husband’s Navy SEAL training. Both are valuable pieces of information to keep in mind when I describe this next scene…
- Booby Trap: We see a fully nude Susan in the shower, when there is a knock on her door claiming to be room service. A dripping wet Susan shouts that she’ll be right there, does not bother to towel off or put on a robe… instead she puts on her skirt and a very sheer top and goes to the door to get the room service she did not even order! Susan suspecting something may be up answers the door, with a gun in her hand and her nipples visible through her shirt. She orders the waiter (Ponytail’s henchman Eric in disguise) to push the cart in the room and then orders him to leave. But wait… Ponytail was hiding UNDER the cart! He lets Eric back in the room and threatens to kill Susan if she doesn’t tell him everything he wants to know. Susan manages to outsmart Ponytail and Eric and she escapes out the window, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, running through the streets while dodging bullets, avoiding oncoming cars in the middle of a busy street, jumping on the back of one of the goons pursuing her and this entire time it is nipples, nipples, nipples! This revealing sequence of events lasted an incredible 15 minutes and ends when Rod Armstrong shows up just in the nip of time to save Susan from certain doom.
- A Fight at the Opera: Having watched Armstrong twice now, I’m still not entirely clear why Rod Armstrong and Susan end up going to the opera, I guess Susan did not want the tickets her husband brought with them to go to waste. It is at the opera house that we get our first taste of Frank Zagarino vs. Joe Lara when Armstrong thwarts Ponytail’s attempt to assassinate the Russian President. During the skirmish Ponytail manages to get away and Rod Armstrong is mistakenly arrested as the assassin. With Rod temporarily in jail (until Rod’s Russian friend Andrei can clear things up) Ponytail kidnaps Susan and uses her as bait for the big action finale that features an exploding helicopter, a nuclear missile pointed right at the Kremlin, a countdown clock and yes, more Zags vs. Lara action!
Nu Image and Millennium Films know what action fans want and they’ve been giving it to us for decades with Armstrong being another prime example. Even without the star power of some other Nu Image releases, Armstrong proved if you have a cast with some action movie experience, stick to some proven formulas and include a high level of action content, you can make an entertaining movie.
I have some experience in providing Bonus Bullet Points and here is a prime example of that…
- If You Ever: …wanted to see Charles Napier sweat like a whore in church, then this is the movie for you. It must have been really hot in Bulgaria when they were filming.
- Familiar Faces: Richard Lynch plays General Zukov, a high ranking member of the Russian military. Lynch had previous experience playing Russians in movies like Invasion U.S.A. and Little Nikita… Menahem Golan was not only the director of Armstrong, he also had a small non-speaking role as the Russian President.
- The Name Game: As crappy as the name Ponytail was for an action villain, Rod Armstrong is an awesome name for an action hero.
- Reunited: Frank Zagarino and Joe Lara had previously worked together in 1996’s Warhead.
- Making an Entrance: We are first introduced to Rod Armstrong as he zip lines his way through a window and into a meeting being conducted by General Zukov.
