# Blackjack (1998) (TV)

### reviewed by
Josh Hammonds

    BlackJack
    A rather lengthy movie review by Josh Hammonds

    Josh's Scale o' Cinema: 5.5 out of 10

Capsule: Other than a few fleeting seconds of glorious coolness, this suprisingly boring John Woo actioner simply falls flat. Avoid it.

After calling Blockbuster from school during lunch to reserve my copy, and racing there afterwards to pick it up, I could not wait to get home and pop this baby in the VCR. Hooooooo boy, was I dissappointed. While I hesitate to call it bad, it sure as hell ain't good.

Dolph Lundgren, who manages to keep the same facial expression throughout the whole movie, plays an Ex-U.S. Marshall turned bodyguard, Jack Devlin. His casino-owner friend owes money or something to a loan shark (it's never really explained what exactly happened in the past to make the loan shark so angry). The shark threatens the casino-owner's daughter, so he calls in his old bud, Jack. Jack takes said daughter back to her house, where kidnappers try to get her. Jack dispenses them quickly, but in quite possibly the stupidest plot contrivance ever, he gets blinded by a flash grenade, which instills him with a morbid fear of the color white. Yes, the color white. Oy...

Anyway, cut to an indeterminate amount of time later. Jack, at his apartment, is told that his casino-owner friend has died in an accident, and he is now the daughter's guardian. This leads to a bunch of really annoying scenes of Jack trying to bond with girl, serving to slow-down the movie to a crawl. This quickly and thankfully takes a back-burner when Jack is agrees to help out a friend in need by protecting a supermodel from a stalker. Not just any stalker, though. This stalker seems to have access to high-tech surveillance gear and a buncha inexplicable biker henchmen. Plus, he's played by a horrible actor, which only serves to make the character more of a cliched joke. The rest of the movie is simply follows Jack protecting the supermodel. Wacky hijinks ensue.

All this would be totally forgivable if BlackJack were a normal Woo movie. Unfortunately, it isn't. The plot is cliched, predictable, and worst of all, really really slow. The dialogue is sub-par. My favorite line has to be "I have to go after. He poured milk on me". Still, one could get over this if the action was decent. It isn't. There are only three gunfights, and only one of which even resembles Woo's classic stuff. The rest are average, Hollywood-type shoot-outs. They are even lacking Woo's characteristic touches, such as slow-mo and stand-offs. Not even Hard Target was this weak in the action department.

Overall, BlackJack isn't really even worth a rental. Maybe if it comes on Cinemax sometime, and you've already seen Hard Boiled a gazillion times, check it out. Otherwise, steer clear of this wreck.

Josh Hammonds, with apologies to John Woo...

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