5 Questions: Mortal Challenge
What do you get when you take an action movie set in 2023 Los Angeles, throw in two legitimate martial artists, mix in a guy who had his wife stolen by Charles Bronson, dump in a healthy dose of Timothy Bottoms and finish it all off with a cheap knock off of the Mortal Kombat theme song? The answer… 1997’s Mortal Challenge.
What happens to a person after they watch Mortal Challenge? Individual results may vary, but I doubt anyone is going to be left feeling like they just experienced one of the greatest action movies of all time. I know I sure didn’t and my viewing of Mortal Challenge also had me asking questions…
1. When has a father forbidding his daughter from seeing a guy from the wrong side of the tracks ever worked?
2023 Los Angeles is a much different place than it is today. After a major earthquake and gang riots, Lala Land’s wealthy and elite all moved to an artificial island off the coast of California known as New Los Angeles. Meanwhile, the disenfranchised, the downtrodden and those who simply could not afford to make the move were stuck in Old Los Angeles. The best the Old Los Angeles residents could hope for was being able to work in New LA, that was the case for Coz, who got a job as a gardener for the well to do Barrington family.
Coz and Tori, the teenage daughter of the Barrington family, fall in love. When Tori’s father gets wind of this, he fires Coz and forbids Tori from ever seeing Coz again… so of course, Tori wants to see Coz more than ever and starts sneaking out of the house at nights and taking a cab to that shithole Old Los Angeles to hook up with Coz. One night their romantic rendezvous turns dangerous, when the young lovers are scooped up by some Centurions and Coz is forced to fight for his life in an underground arena.
Tori’s abduction fits a pattern of people being abducted from Old Los Angeles. But unlike the others, Tori is a rich girl from New LA, so the cops are all over it and the cop assigned to the case is a guy named Jack (Timothy Bottoms). Jack goes over to New LA and interviews the parents, but they are all but useless (especially the mother who is both tits out and coked out of her mind getting a massage from some towel clad hunks). But Jack does get some valuable intel from Tori’s little brother about Tori taking a cab when she would sneak out…
2. Was anyone else confused that Jack and Freeze became fast friends?
…so Jack finds Cookie the Cabbie, the cab driver who would drop Tori off in Old Los Angeles on the regular, and has Cookie show him the exact location of where Tori would be dropped off. Jack then stakes the area out and that is when he encounters a gang led by Hawk (Nicholas Hill, Fists of Iron). To say it was not a friendly encounter would be an understatement… all Jack wanted was some information, he ended up getting in a knock down drag out with Hawk, but that is all interrupted when the Centurions show up and grab Hawk and a few other gang members and take them to the underground.
This leaves Jack and the gang’s tech geek Freeze (Alfonso Quijada) as the odd men out… but in a matter of seconds you would think these two were long time partners fighting crime as they don’t hesitate to team up and track down where the Centurions have taken Freeze’s running buddies and where Jack suspects he will find Tori too.
3. How much was David McCallum hoping for another hit television series at this point in his career?
The mastermind behind this whole underground death game is a man named Malius (David McCallum). Malius points to the low crime rate that ancient Rome enjoyed as the justification of his abduction and the weeding out of the lower class citizens of Los Angeles. On the Malius payroll is his champion gladiator Rogius, who looks like he got his outfit from a Legion of Doom estate sale, an army of Centurions and a killing machine that he created known as Grepp (Evan Lurie, T-Force). Grepp patrols the underground ruins that house Malius’ operation.
David McCallum had been acting for over 40 years by the time Mortal Challenge was released and at that point he was still most known for portraying Illya Kuryakin in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. way back in the late 1960’s. As I watched McCallum in Mortal Challenge, I could not help but get the feeling he was a man desperately wanting another hit on television so he didn’t have to agree to be in B movies like Mortal Challenge anymore… fortunately for McCallum N.C.I.S. was just 6 years away.
4. Why even wear a top?
The audience for Malius’ death game is comprised of some of the New Los Angeles elitists who hang out, party and watch those who weren’t born with a silver spoon in their mouth fight to the death. Fun fact: One of those elitists was actually a young Michael Buble.
There are two alphas in the group of spectators, one is Alex (Vince Murdocco, L.A. Wars). Alex is actually the former boyfriend of Tori Barrington and the reason she dumped Alex was his fandom of the death game. Alex is as smug as they come and he spends most of the movie in a leaned back position with women surrounding him. Not a bad gig if you can get it, but one that grossly underutilized Murdocco’s fighting skills.
The other alpha is a woman named Felicia, Felicia is also really into Malius’ death game. I would go so far as to say she has a perverse love of the game. He fashion sense is also on the perverse side as she wears a top that barely contain her breasts… but don’t worry fellas, those breasts do make an appearance when she attempts to seduce (and kill) Hawk in the designated Pleasure Room.
5. Wait a minute, Freeze isn’t dead?
I mentioned how as Alex, Vince Murdocco’s kickboxing skills were underutilized in Mortal Challenge, but the Alex character did get a chance to show off some fighting skills in the movie’s big action finale. Alex actually kicks Freeze into an electrical panel… sparks are flying, Freeze is convulsing and in my notes I wrote down “BEST DEATH = FREEZE”… the only problem was moments later I realized Freeze wasn’t dead. How did he survive all those volts, I don’t know but he was there to stand side by side with his “longtime friend” Jack as the good guys attempted to shut down the twisted Malius and his death game once and for all!
