Bullet Points: Tactical Force

How could we have WrestleMania Week without the man who broke more sports entertainment records than anybody else, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin? “The Texas Rattlesnake” sold more t-shirts, pay-per-views and put more asses every 18 inches than any other man in professional wrestling history.

I keep waiting for a movie to capture the undeniable charisma and personality that Steve Austin brought to the ring, but Tactical Force was not that movie.

This is not to say Tactical Force is a bad movie, I just don’t think Austin has had the chance to play just the right character in a movie to truly capitalize on his star power. With that said, I thought Tactical Force had some interesting twists and plot points that I have not seen dozens of times before, which is saying something in the action genre.

• The Premise: Steve Austin plays Tate, a member of the LAPD SWAT Team, he and his team are not afraid to use violence to get the job done. After they thwart a grocery store robbery in less than precision fashion, the team is forced to go back through hostage negotiation training and sent to an abandoned Marine base for some training exercises… what they didn’t expect is there’s two groups of bad guys looking for a case with something valuable inside. Tate and his team have blanks, the bad guys have real ammo!

• Meet the SWAT Team: Tate’s team consists of Hunt (played by Michael Jai White). White brings some legit action movie cred to this movie and his presence takes some of the load off of Austin’s shoulders, so he doesn’t have to carry the whole movie himself. Smart casting!  Also on the team is the token tough chick Jannard (played by Lexa Doig) and Blanco (played by Steve Bacic). There’s definite chemistry between the four and it is easy for the audience to get behind this foursome.

• Rogues Gallery:  There is no shortage of bad guys in Tactical Force. Michael Shanks plays Demetrius. He’s assisted by Ilya (who kind of reminded me of Missy Hyatt, and not hot 1980’s Missy Hyatt with the Gucci bag, but modern day Missy Hyatt). Then there’s “The Italians” Lampone and Storato (played by the late Darren Shahlavi). There’s also Kenny who is playing everybody against one another and you never really know whose side he is really on.

• The Action: If you like guns a blazing, Tactical Force brings the heat.  You’ll also get to see some grocery store items used as weapons in the opening sequence of the movie. And you know a movie with Steve Austin is going to feature some hand to hand combat as well.

Tactical Force was not the best Stone Cold movie I’ve ever seen, but it certainly wasn’t the worst either.  As a supporter of Steve Austin, I found it enjoyable and I’m sure other Stone Cold fans will too.

Now for some more Tactical Force Bullet Points…

• If I Had A Dime: …for every time a movie had robbers wearing President masks, I’m sure I’d have at least 30 cents now.
• Favorite Quote: “Eat my grandma!” – Hunt
• Take That Ralphie: Hunt likes to carry a Red Ryder BB Gun into battle with him. Apparently his mother never warned him of the dangers of shooting his eye out. I smell a Six Degrees of Action coming out of this comparison later this year.
• The Green Frog: When Tate (Steve Austin) and his team were creating chaos at the grocery store, I couldn’t help but think back to one of Stone Cold’s more entertaining out of ring segments in his WWE days where he assaulted Booker T at The Green Frog grocery store.