In a small midwestern or southern town (we’re never told
where specifically but it was filmed in Indiana and Ohio) there’s a group of
white supremacists wreaking havoc. They
just murdered the local pastor and burned down his church. They also hassle the other residents, recruit
the aimless youth and generally make life miserable for everyone.
So how the hell does Tommy Lee figure into this? He strolls into town to visit his sister,
Karen (Anzu Lawson (lots of TV shit)), who also happens to be married to the sheriff
(Christopher McDonald (Dutch, Happy Gilmore)). The neo-Nazi assholes attack Karen and plan
to overtake the entire township so now Tommy must stop them.
By the third film Phillip Rhee is the only original cast
member left. He also produced each one
so he used his leverage to put himself in the director’s chair. The results aren’t, shall we say, the best. Number three is cheap looking and feeling. This isn’t necessarily an automatic negative though
and Rhee does what he can to squeeze the most out of what he has. The action has enough of a mix with martial
arts, a motorcycle chase and a shootout finale.
Rhee even manages to put himself in a clown costume for one fight scene
with the red nose, large shoes and everything. He also likes to throw his adversaries into
objects like tables, bookcases and windows which adds value, impact and fun to
the brawls. The ending has a fair amount
of explosions and puts forth a nice effort to make it exciting. All appreciated.
However, there are definitely some problems. The movie’s views on racism are sorta
child-like. The townsfolk are either
hardcore racists or totally against racism without any shades of gray. And the worst scene in the film is during a
townhall where the local school teacher (Gina Gershon (she did this the same
year as Showgirls)) gives an embarrassingly oversimplified speech about
how racism is bad and racists don’t understand the true spirit of America.
Unsurprisingly the script was for a different movie until
Phillip Rhee made it part of the Best of the Best franchise. The only time when a character mentions something
from a previous installment is when Tommy confesses to the aforementioned school
teacher/love interest that he killed a man years ago (Brakus) which is why he
quit teaching martial arts.
And this brings up an interesting development for
Tommy. In the first film he was afraid
of his own abilities because he knew he could kill Dae Han if he let
himself. Then in part II he
commands Brakus to stay down during their fight but of course the brute doesn’t
listen so Tommy is forced to take his life (spoiler). Now in Part 3 he still holds back on
killing anyone for a while but by the third act he seems to have gotten over
this because he murders a number of folks.
That final fight is bullshit too. Tommy is a world champion martial artist but
some asswipe neo-Nazi can go toe to toe with him? I don’t think so. And those other neo-Nazis rallied around the
two of them would never let Tommy walk out of there alive.
So yea, the whole thing doesn’t really come together. Apart from not being as good as its
predecessors and taking on a generic subtitle they switched from roman numeral
numbering to Arabic numbering and that’s just silly. You had a good thing going Bests but
you fucked it up.
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