Bullet Points: Velocity Trap
Starting with Angel Town, ending with Showdown in Manila and a bunch of movies in between, I have been watching Olivier Gruner do his thing for years now.
But while I have seen my fair share of Gruner movies, I haven’t seen them all and recently I came across a Gruner sci-fi actioner that was completely new to me, 1999’s Velocity Trap…
- The Perfect Crime: The first characters we meet are the crew of the Endeavor. The Endeavor and its crew have been reported missing since they flew into the outer space equivalent of The Bermuda Triangle… and they want to keep it that way. The commander of the Endeavor, Nick Simmons (Ken Olandt) has devised a plan to rob a Federal Reserve spaceship and then send the spaceship on a collision course with an asteroid. The other members of the Endeavor crew include Simmons’ wife Alice (Jorja Fox), the muscle of the crew Fallout and the obligatory tech guy Simms.
- OPP: Olivier Gruner plays Enforcement Division officer Raymond Stokes. When we first meet Ray he is in bed with Dana Dawson, his lover who finds herself in a contractually obligated marriage with the head of the very mining colony that Ray is policing, John Dawson (Craig Wasson). John knows that his wife is carrying on with Ray, so he abuses his power and sets up Ray in the shooting of a fellow Enforcement Division officer. John then has Ray put on a special assignment as an escort on the very Federal Reserve spaceship that the Endeavor crew is planning on robbing. This is a total bullshit assignment and merely John’s way of getting Ray away from Dana for an extended period of time.
- The Unwelcome Wagon: When Ray boards the Federal Reserve spaceship he is “greeted” by Captain Fenner who questions why Ray is even there and for good reason. The ship is already equipped with multiple turret cannons… anything that triggers the ship’s proximity alarms that doesn’t have a clearance code is blown up with no questions asked. The vault inside the ship has the highest of high tech security systems. And finally once the ship makes the jump to light speed on its pre-charted course, the crew goes into hibernation chambers and sleep until it is time to land the ship at the central bank on Earth. Fenner isn’t the only one who is less than hospitable to Ray, the ship’s navigator Beth Sheffield (Alecia Coppola) and Ray get off on the wrong foot and have several awkward interactions, including Beth accusing Ray of putting the mental image of her in his “spank bank”. Still with all the weirdness between the two, you get the feeling as the movie plays out that Ray and Beth may end up hooking up. Dana Who?!?!
- The Fly in the Ointment: So Ray is just hanging around the ship, microwaving meals, shooting spitballs at a homemade Captain Fenner target he made and basically passing the time any way he can, while the crew is in hibernation. That is until about the 3 month mark when the proximity alarm goes off! The crew of The Endeavor has showed up, obviously with the help of someone on the inside with a clearance code, and they are about to board the ship and rob it of all 40 billion dollars on board. But Nick did not plan on Ray Stokes being on board or the fact that Ray would bring Beth out of cryosleep and it quickly becomes Ray and Beth vs. The Endeavor Crew in an intergalactic game of “Who Wants to Be a Billionaire?” And if those aren’t high enough stakes, the ship is headed right towards an asteroid!
Velocity Trap was directed by Phillip J. Roth. Now I have reviewed other Roth directed films in the past and they’ve been very hit or miss with me. I would lump Velocity Trap in with some of the more entertaining Philip J. Roth movies I have seen like Digital Man and New Alcatraz, even though I felt like the movie lost its way by the end. But Velocity Trap still didn’t approach the levels of bad I endured while watching Roth’s Prototype X29A, so I guess it’s got that going for it.
One thing that this review has going for it are these Bonus Bullet Points…
- Familiar Face: The gruff Captain Fenner was played by Bruce Weitz, an actor primarily known for his work on television, but he’s been known to pop up in some action movies like Memorial Day and Mach 2.
- Memorable Quote: “Man’s like a turd. Ignore the smell and don’t step on him.” – Delacruz on Captain Fenner
- Verhoevenesque: Velocity Trap opens with some fake product commercials and a news segment, clearly inspired by RoboCop.
- If You Ever: …wanted to see a long john clad Olivier Gruner dance and lip-synch to Georges Bizet’s opera classic, “Carmen” then Velocity Trap is the movie for you.
- Words of Wisdom: “Plan your work. Work your plan.” – Nick Simmons
