Bullet Points: Merchant of Death

When you are a massive fan of an actor then you’ll often times let them get away with making some truly awful films. I know because I’ve been there for years with several actors from the Cannon Films days. The same can be said for Michael Pare. He doesn’t have a long list of bonafide hits under his belt but I just love Streets of Fire so much that I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and watch anything he does. Many times it has backfired on me, but sometimes it reminds me why I’m a fan in the first place.

Synopsis: Jim Rendall (Michael Pare) is just a boy when his family is killed in front of him by a mysterious group of men. Thirty years later he’s one of the toughest cops on the Portland police department and he’s finally getting the chance to get some much needed payback.

• Family matters: The Rendall family is having a little picnic on top of a tall cliff and Jimmy’s dad has one of the biggest and most inaccurate arms in the history of dad-son football tossing. Dad launches a football 40 feet over Jimmy’s head and ends up keeping him from being brutally murdered along with the rest of the family.
• Grown up Jimmy: Michael Paré plays the adult version of Jimmy and one tough cop. The action scene that introduces us to him absolutely insane. There are so many explosions, bloody squibs, and flying stuntmen that you’ll forget that you’re not watching a John Woo movie. It ends with the classic grenade down the vest, thrown through a window, fall three stories, and explode on a car trick. Awesome!
• The doctor is in: Linda Hoffman plays the psych doctor for the Portland Police Dept and she is one hot piece of ass! I can imagine dozens of officers requesting a little one on one time with her before being quickly ushered straight to the HR department for some sexual harassment training. Jim is ordered to meet with her and the two of them start to strike up something of a relationship. I wonder if that will come into play later…

• Portland?: Nothing about this movie, the characters, or the accents scream Portland to me. Some of the men on the police department sound like they could just as easily been working on the New Orleans Police Dept. It’s to the point where I was keeping track of how many characters seem like they’re from different movies.
• So…many…explosions: Dirt bike shootouts don’t happen like this anymore. By the middle of the film, you’ll be begging for them to take a minute to catch your breath. There are just so many excellent action scenes that when Paré describes a man’s bullet wound to the chest as “just a scratch”, you’ll believe you’re watching an Arnie movie instead.
• One man army: Paré chomps on a cigar, wears lots of denim, and sneaks around in cowboy boots like he’s a ninja Texas Ranger. He uses all of his detective skills to finally track down those responsible for his family’s death all those years earlier and uses his other skills to take vengeance on them. The finale is downright scary in how awesome it is. Paré is essentially John Matrix from Commando but with a pistol instead. Drums filled with explosive liquid litter the sets and the stuntmen are once again called upon to get their shit blown to smithereens.

The Verdict: Merchant of Death is a really good B action movie. Release it 10 years earlier and it has Dudikoff in the lead and it has a chance to succeed but somehow Paré was never given a fair shake. The action is well above average as they fill two-thirds of the film with gun battles and explosions. The only snag is during the middle third when the movie slows to develop the story. Some serious explosions in the finale send stuntmen flying around like they’re in space and Big Mike finally gets the closure he’s been seeking all these years. It truly is an underrated gem of the late 90’s B-movie action scene and has to be among Michael Paré ‘s best films. Definitely watch this one!