Synopsis
A corrupt right-wing militia group chooses a California teacher as the ideal specimen to clone for its army.
A corrupt right-wing militia group chooses a California teacher as the ideal specimen to clone for its army.
Gary Daniels Kenneth Tigar Fiona Hutchison Jillian McWhirter Peter Jason Mark Metcalf Tim Colceri David Powledge Doren Fein Judith Marie-Bergan Emilio Rivera David Weininger Chuck Butto Ramon Sison Rod Britt Luis Beckford Jefferson Wagner Charles A. Tamburro Joseph John Barmettler Barry Nolan Tracey Flint Rick Avery Anthony Backman Trent Hopkins Bob Minor Denney Pierce Gary Imhoff Raymond Fitzpatrick Gary Bullock
Tim Gilbert Phil Culotta Bob Brown John Hateley Dennis Madalone Erik Stabenau Red Horton Jon H. Epstein Bill Jenkins Noon Orsatti Bob Minor Gregory J. Barnett Tom Harper David Walling Rick Avery Bernie Pock Tim Werner Mark De Alessandro Buck McDancer Patrick J. Statham Richard E. Butler Tom Morga Scott Rogers Charles A. Tamburro Doc D. Charbonneau Lane Leavitt Michael M. Vendrell Joni Avery Gilbert B. Combs Charles Grisham Jefferson Zuma Jay Wagner Buzz Bundy Michael J. Sarna Gary Combs Dane Farwell Spiro Razatos Monty L. Simons Jeff Dashnaw Jim Stephan Denney Pierce David M. Graves Eddie Fiola Faith Minton
Zuřivost, Zuřivec, Pusztító düh, Speed Rage, Ярост, Přežít může jen jeden, Furia, Гнев, Fúria Assassina
Did PM ENTERTAINMENT have a budget surplus that they needed to liquidate before the end of the year? That's gotta be the reason the action scenes in RAGE are so grandiose. There's an insane truck chase that features a dozen scene ending explosions, the longest 'hanging on the side of a building' sequence ever committed to film, and a climax that stands shoulder to shoulder with POLICE STORY in the glass smashing department. I was expecting a little more RAAAAAAAAGE from Daniels, but after further consideration, I assume they shot all the set-pieces and then had to cobble a story together to explain why this dude could survive things like falling from 500 feet in the air.
I love that…
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Rage is my introduction to the world of PM Entertainment, with their DTV films containing an array of exceptional action sequences and vehicular mayhem. This is a modest effort, but fucking batshit in its front-to-back excitement. There's hardly a moment to breathe as truck chases and broken glass become the poetic statements of this wall to wall explosive experience. The first 30 minutes is the high-point, which is seemingly nonstop, but the film is pretty consistent in not taking too long before getting back into things. Gary Daniels is a weak leading man, although his only real function is to be the link between action scenes, and you hardly have any time to complain before another face-melter moment pops up. This is a memorable film with well-staged sequences and a wild 'let's blow shit up' energy, which on a DTV scale, is all the more admirable and insane.
Not sure what is more ridiculous Gary Daniels as a school teacher or Gary Daniels fighting off endless bad guys while in a straightjacket! So much ludicrous action on display here that it is a leave-your-brain-at-the-door kind of movie. As I alluded to Gary Daniels is a school teacher who lives a simple life until he picks up the wrong dude on his way to work which sets off a series of events in which he is deemed the perfect candidate to be patient zero for an army of super soldiers. Government agents pump him full of an experimental serum which doesn't get the results they hoped, Our boy Gary goes batshit crazy, you could say he has an uncontrollable…
"He's a perfect physical specimen!"
Fridays of Fury Action Club w/ Rock, Adam and SubToretto
Not terrible! I have extremely limited experience with Gary Daniels as one of the many B-movie stars of 90s DTV action, so I have no idea whether Rage is indicative of his general ability level, but I was entertained enough not to completely regret the hour and a half I spent with this blatant Universal Soldier knockoff about a man pumped up with supersoldier chemicals against his will. There's a slight taste of weirdness at the start, when elementary school teacher Daniels has to field a question about cannibalism and Jeffrey Dahmer from one of his students when discussing monkeys' eating habits, but otherwise director…
Ignore the plot (it won’t be hard) and focus on the surprisingly muscular choreography and stunts. They’re way above average for direct-to-video fare — or for more mainstream action, for that matter. Every time we cut to a chase or a fight (which is often, thankfully), the energy is off the charts, with sharp editing that’s never excessive or unclear. An action diamond in the rough, and a typically good recommendation from R. Emmet Sweeney.
Exactly like RAmpaGE without a wolf and a lizard but with Gary Daniels as a grade school teacher who is maybe called Mr. Monkey??? A poster child for bug nuts low-grade action trash that is so hopped up on RAGE that it almost forgets to inform us of the plot. Gary Daniels uses a head-on crash between a truck and a bus as a human catapult, wrestles maybe-Joe Pesci and maybe-Rosie O'Donnell-in-Exit-to-Eden, and does a lot of kick-punching in a movie that probably cost some lives but no money compared to the latest Mission Impossible. Except this is free on YouTube and no Tom Cruise so that is what we call a win-win across the board.
I don't know if there's a real way to quantify it, but Joseph Merhi must own the career record for the most police cruisers destroyed in the service of cinema. The sheer volume of vehicular mayhem packed into the average late-period Merhi flick is nothing short of staggering, and Rage is in all regards an above-average late-period Merhi flick.
Squeaky clean second-grade teacher*/doting husband and father/perfect physical specimen Gary Daniels gets carjacked by a Mexican guy on the run from the cops and soon finds himself the unwitting subject of a rogue military operation aimed at chemically transforming undocumented migrants into disposable killing machines. Once Daniels busts out of the mad science facility jacked up on super soldier serum, it's…
Well where's this little beauty been hiding all my life.
Starting with possibly the most unbelievable scene in Rage, where Gary Daniels is teaching a class of primary school kids about Jeffrey Dahmer, it then quickly shifts to a genuinely beautifully shot shoot-out in some high-tec lab. Clearly owes a lot to John Woo, but if you're going to steal etc.
Then there's a near 15 minute long car / truck chase with about a million destroyed cars and the stupidest / greatest climax to said chase I've probably ever seen. You then get to breathe for about two minutes before Daniels is fighting a dominatrix and her sub after breaking into her house and…
5 minutes in -- a man teaches a class of kids what monkeys eat.
13 minutes in -- following an unlikely chain of events, said grade school teacher is now strapped to a gurney, being injected with super soldier rage drugs
The magic of the movies.
Don’t you just hate those days when you’re teaching your second-grade class about monkeys and Jeffrey Dahmer, only to become an inadvertent getaway driver, but the cops rescuing you are in cahoots with a government conspiracy that turns you into a super soldier on the run?
If so, you’ll find Joseph Merhi’s 1995 actioner Rage very relatable!
That above scenario is the opening half-hour of this movie: a breathless roller coaster of mad science, thriller non-sequiturs, Woo-inspired shootouts, and an insane twelve-minute car chase that ends with a school bus colliding head-on with a semi. After that, Rage only ever stops for the exposition equivalent of catching one’s breath, as Gary Daniels sprints from one excellently-staged and stunt-heavy sequence to the next. Forget physics, plot, personality, and enjoy ‘90s DTV mayhem that puts most modern action to shame. The finale of Rage could give Police Story a run for its defenestration money.
As a direct-to-video production company, PM Entertainment were known for their quality action sequences. Rage has maybe the most action I've ever seen in a DTV movie (not the best, just the most). In the first half hour we already have two shootouts and a ten minute car chase that is truly memorable. The action slows down for about ten minutes for some exposition and story, but finishes strong with a long finale. There's not a lot of down time.
I believe this movie holds the record for the highest number of broken panes of glass. It's absolute insanity how many people are thrown through glass. It becomes a running gag for the filmmakers: by the final shootout in a…
A certain degree of expectation is set, met and trounced with this being a PM Entertainment film; as after a completely nonsensical rage-monkey concoction meets perfect specimen second grade teacher Gary Daniels setup, we are away with Daniels being chased violently in trucks, cars, helicopters, on foot, hand-to-hand, through glass, off buildings and copters, in straight-jackets and more.
This is Gary Daniels on the run, and it both delivers the basic tenets of what that should be while executing each setpiece with a fiery, intense and stunt-filled fury. Its completely breathless and doesn’t waste time trying to inject much backstory to Daniels’ character. In fact, it isn’t explained why he is such a gun-toting, kick-launching badass until the second half.…