American Kickboxer 2

American Kickboxer 2 is a one of a kind achievement in horrendously bad acting, awful dialogue, poorly performed stunts, and incredibly stupid plot. It really is a perfect storm in bad action movies. With this combined tour de crap, it becomes a laugh a second tornado of awesomeness. This is too rad to ignore.

Essentially, a rich family's child is kidnapped and the mother has to recruit two tough guys from her past to rescue her. Sounds simple right? Well lets try this again. The owner of a successful plumbing company has a slightly mentally handicapped child who gets kidnapped by action guys. She contacts her tough guy ex-husband and her tough guy ex-lover and explains to both of them that they have an 8 year old child and that she's been kidnapped. The two tough guys then proceed to fight each other more than bad guys until a hooker tells them that a warehouse that stores guys who don't actually work there and just have upstairs "Fight Club" also contains the kidnapped child. At that point they end up having to fight each other to the death, when a pothead frees here by using cockroaches. Movie ends with an implied three-way. Wow.

As I mentioned the acting is awful.......ly awesome. Evan Lurie and Dale Cook are ridiculously bad. Dale shouts all of his lines but is unintelligible because he has to have a toothpick in his mouth at all times (including fight scenes). Evan Lurie, in the true spirit of the film, does the exact opposite and mumbles ever line because "he's so peaceful". Tackleberry is completely unbelievable as a fat Vince Vaughn/business executive/action guy and Kathy Shower does her best concerned mom routine (who is surprisingly better at it than Erika Eleniak).

The stunts....wow. This movie was filmed in the Philippines which usually means a complete lack of care about the safety of actors and typically involves the accidental destruction of an entire village. This is not one of those films. The stunts are so badly performed that they are hilarious. A man falls down a set of stairs and makes sure to gingerly make sure he doesn't injure himself and moves at a rate of 1 hour per mile on the way. Another guy gets his head shoved through an empty cardboard box (thus rendering him unconscious). Every punch clearly misses. Endless bad guys run on screen to immediately get shot before doing anything. It's so awesome. 

Lastly, the whole dynamic between Lilly (Kathy Shower), David (Evan Lurie) and Mike (Dale Cook) is so weird. In order to get David and Mike's help, Lilly calls each of them individually and tells them the exact thing; "You have a daughter and she's been kidnapped". Later they both see pictures of Suzi (the daughter), again individually and say the exact same thing, "She looks just like me." David and Mike have an unspoken sexual tension between each other and appear to like wrestling each other more than getting anything done. And lastly (spoiler alert) the film ends with the 4 of them (David, Mike, Lilly and Suzi) all living together in an alternate universe version of My Two Dads and playing a game of "The Wobbly H". Wow.

A completely awesome terrible movie because of its flaws for sure. Highly recommended viewing.

Individual Ratings:

Over the top action:
Cheesy effects:
Horrendous acting:
Laugh-out-loud-ability:
Ridiculous stunts:
Gratuitous nudity:
Memorable one-liners:

Overall Ratings:

Good Movie Quality:
Bad Movie Quality: