Rug Cop

Ah, Japan. You know just how to take western culture and twist it just so. Rug Cop offers a send up of seventies cop shows with a definite Zucker brothers flair. Robert Mitchum-esque detective Zura is transfered to a rinky dink Tokyo substation for being too good. There he works with a band of misfits each with their own talent. There’s Shorty, the pint-size powerhouse. Fatty, the prodigious eater and master of the offensive flop sweat. And Big Willie, who has some kind of subtle Star Wars reference working for him. Zura is not with his own talent; with a flick of his wrist, he takes out bad guys with his sentient boomerang wig. As the team gets to know their new member, the mysterious criminal mastermind, Hades, steals uranium and holds Tokyo for ransom. It is up to Zura and crew to shut down Hades evil plan.

Either the above made sense to you and you can sit through this movie or you can’t. This movie offers retro cop action, obligatory schoolgirls, slapstick comedy, a training montage, a sing-along… it’s got everything. And I have to say, Fuyuki Moto’s work as world-weary, stone faced Detective Zura is inspired.

MirageMan

Latin America isn’t know for its martial arts action movies… yet. But Chilean duo actor/coreographer Marko Zaror (body double for the Rock in The Rundown) and writer/director Ernesto Diaz Espinoza are working hard to change that. MirageMan, their second outing, brings you 70’s retro ass-kicking action. If you remember Chuck Norris (before Walker, natch) and Nicholas Hammond armed with the worst web-shooter of all time, you immediately get the idea here.

Zaror stars as Maco, a strip club bouncer and driven martial artist who stops a home invasion/robbery after donning ski mask. One of those he rescues is TV reporter Carol V., who praises and thanks the mysterious hero on air. Soon all of Chile is taken with MirageMan including Maco’s younger brother, Tito. See, Tito is in an institution after the brutal assualt that killed their parents and left both Maco and Tito damaged in different ways. Mirageman fever has pulled Tito out of his near catatonic stupor and onto the road to recovery. Once Maco irons out the kinks in the MirageMan costume, he faces increasingly dangerous odds and increasingly dangerous media coverage leading to confrontation with a gang of kidnappers who target young children.

MiracleMan is good fun with some really talented lo-fi camera work. And Zaror’s skills don’t hurt either. He is a Screen Presence whose sweaty training scenes had the women in the audience sighing and bouncing in their seats. But it isn’t just the biceps, he shows some genuine emotional depth in the scenes involving Tito and the loss of his parents. Taking a cue from the Steve McQueen school, Zaror lets the other actors get the lines while he works the strong, silent, and emotionally damaged type. More action stars should learn how to do this rather than practicing their delivery of the next one-line zinger.

There is room for improvement, though. MirageMan’s lighter, comedic tone goes very dark in the second half. It gets so dark that I wondered if the comedy I saw in the previous hour really was as funny as I thought it was. But any hero has trouble changing in public and rocks the 70’s Spiderman "knife-hands at the ready" stance is alright in my book. Not the best martial arts movie you will ever see, but definitely worth seeking out for a change of pace. I’m really looking forward to Kiltro, Espinoza and Zaror’s other martial arts flick also screening at FF07.

Weirdsville

Fantastic Fest must have broadened it’s horizons beyond horror-sf-fantasy this year seeing as how Weirdsville is pretty straight forward a stoner/buddy caper comedy. In this case, the stoners are Royce and Dex experiencing the worst night of their lives. Omar, their dealer, wants to be paid by the end of the night or bad things will happen. Too bad Royce and Dex have to worry about dead girlfriend who knew the combination to a safe loaded with money. But see, these Satanists er sorry, those who bask in the glory of the dark lord, need the dead girlfriend. Oh, and this marauding band of little people from a ren faire have a bone to pick with the cultists. You get the idea.

Lots of constantly crossing paths that eventually all wrap each other up. Scott Speedman’s Dexter and Maggie Castle’s Treena plus some nice lighting and camera work elevate this a little above average.