Bullet Points: Extreme Honor (2001)

If my calculations are correct, 2001’s Extreme Honor will mark my 107th and final movie review of 2024.

I am extremely dishonored to say I saved the worst for last…

• Crossing the Line: Brascoe (Dan Andersen) and Cody (Olivier Gruner, Angel Town) are on a mission to stop Packard (Martin Kove, To Be the Best) from selling United States military secrets. The mission starts off promising, Brascoe manages to get the discs from falling into the wrong hands, but when it is time for Brascoe and Cody to face off with Packard, Packard plays dirty and takes a young boy hostage as a way out of the predicament he now finds himself in. Brascoe immediately complies, not wanting to see anything happen to the boy… hot head Cody on the other hand, does not drop his weapon. Before it’s all said and done, Packard is dead, the kid is dead, and a portion of the money that Packard received from his transaction went missing.

• After the Mission: Not surprisingly, John Kennedy Brascoe finds himself facing a tribunal after the botched mission. But since Brascoe has EXTREME HONOR, he does not throw his fellow Navy SEAL, Cody, under the bus (even though it was legit all Cody’s fault) when he’s asked to fill in some of the gaps in his official report. Cody probably figured as much, because in his official report, he totally shits on Brascoe blaming him for everything. Brascoe now has two choices… get dishonorably discharged OR voluntarily leave the Navy. Brascoe leaves voluntarily, breaking the tradition of being a career Navy man that started with Brascoe’s grandfather (that served with JFK back in the day). Brascoe gets a job in the private sector at MaxCom. You’ll be happy to know that Brascoe likes it at MaxCom and is treated very nicely there. He’s even made two friends… Sherman and Kenny.
• Eat the Rich: We find out more about Brascoe’s personal life… he’s divorced and his young son, Jason, has leukemia. Brascoe’s ex-wife has found a doctor who is working on experimental treatment that could very well save Jason’s life… but the cost of this treatment is $5 million dollars! Where are they going to get that kind of money?! After a phone call montage, Brascoe ends up at a bar where he meets a reporter named Samantha Scott, she’s working on a story about billionaire Jerry Baker (Michael Ironside, Total Recall) and it’s this chance encounter that plants the seed for Brascoe’s next move… he’s going to force a meeting with Baker and ask him to pay for the treatment since 5 million dollars is nothing to him. In order to get the meeting, Brascoe basically blackmails his way in, as he has info on a dirty deal Baker did with a certain Senator Richards (Edward Albert, Shootfighter: Fight to the Death). Baker turns down Brascoe flat and tells him to have a nice life… this infuriates Brascoe.

• The End Justifies the Means: Even though we are told that Baker’s billions may not have been obtained in the most above board fashion possible, I still had trouble following the logic that Brascoe should steal the 10 million dollars that Baker has bragged about keeping in a safe on his property. Two wrongs may not make a right, but one man definitely doesn’t make a team, and Brascoe is going to need a team to pull of this 10 million dollar caper. Brascoe calls in his MaxCom buddies, Sherman and Kenny, along with two of his old pals from his Navy SEAL days, Sparks (Michael Madsen, Executive Target) and Brady (Grand L. Bush, Die Hard), promising each of them 1 million dollars for their participation) After some planning and recon work, the team infiltrates Baker’s estate, steals the money and unfortunately for the viewers it is way too early in the movie for this to be the end.
• Pay the Price: Two members of Brascoe’s team find themselves dead following the theft of Baker’s millions. Naturally they figure Baker is responsible, but it turns out it was that no good Senator Richards that put out on a contract on the Brascoe Boys. And can you guess who was more than happy to collect on the contract?!? If you said Cody, you’d be right. If you didn’t, at this point in the movie it would be completely justified that you forgot Olivier Gruner was in the movie. Cody gets to Brascoe’s son who is still in the hospital, following his experimental treatment. That would qualify Extreme Honor for the World’s Most Dangerous Hospitals – Vol. 2, but I don’t think I’d want to rewatch even a scene of this movie again… this of course sets up Brascoe vs. Cody and more importantly, the end of the movie.

Extreme Honor failed miserably as an action movie thanks to long stretches without any action, but it did have the makings of a good mystery movie! I spent a majority of my time watching the movie trying to figure out who the hell Dan Andersen was, how Dan Andersen became the leading man in a movie, why is Andersen not featured on any of the DVD covers and how did this unknown man who never appeared in another movie after this end up working with so many known actors!?! But since that information was never revealed, Extreme Honor failed miserably as a mystery movie too.

After the movie was over, I found myself on the Google machine attempting to dig deeper into the Dan Andersen movie, only to find other people who suffered through this movie years earlier asking the same questions I was. Where’s Unsolved Mysteries when you need them?!!?

There’s no mystery if this review is going to wrap up with some Bonus Bullet Points…

• Familiar Faces: There was more star power than the names already mentioned… Charles Napier (Rambo: First Blood Part II) was one of the commanding officers in the tribunal… Antonio Fargas (Streetwalkin’) played Willy the bartender… Sven Ole-Thorsen (The Running Man) played one of Baker’s bodyguards… Brascoe’s dad, Randolph, was played by James T. Callahan (Midnight Man)… And, Sy Richardson (Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects) played Schultz, the head of hospital security.
• If You Ever: …wanted to see Michael Ironside direct an erotic lesbian scene, then Extreme Honor is the movie for you.
• Montage Alert: There are a few montages in the movie, but the one I’d like to point out comes late in the movie. It contains a scene of a conversation between Brascoe and Sparks but we don’t hear any of the dialogue, they just play music over it. Was it that bad, but they didn’t want to cut it completely? Was this intentional? More unanswered Extreme Honor questions!
• Cuz Jerry Baker Said So: “Dying is the bottom line to life.”