Anyone who's been repeatedly struck about the head and neck with a blunt object for an extended period of time will tell you the same thing — after a while, it just stops hurting. Well, I'm starting to believe this theory can be applied to those cinematic masochists who love spending their days and nights with whatever straight-to-video release happens to hit retail shelves that week. If you consistently stuff this nonsense into your malfunctioning mind, you start to grow numb to the agony it breeds. Suffering almost becomes second nature. So when something halfway decent comes along, it may have a bigger impact that it probably should.
For instance, Art Camacho's 2006 offering Crooked (aka Soft Target) is a pretty bad film. It really is. That said, the flick still manages to serve up a nifty chunk of low-budget action that recalls the days of PM Entertainment and other like-minded production companies. Nothing makes sense, the acting will make you weep for the future of humanity, and you'll get to see a very confused Olivier Gruner fiddle with a pair of fake breasts in a bathtub. If that doesn't make you want to see this flick, perhaps I'm losing my touch. I've heard that happens to online critics who spend too much time at their keyboard.
I wonder if there's a pill for that?
Anyway, Crooked stars my main man Don "The Dragon" Wilson and the aforementioned French superstar as a pair of mismatched cops who are forced to protect the proverbial "hooker with a heart of gold" from a vicious underworld boss who wants her dead. Why would anyone want to savagely butcher a prostitute, you ask? Well, in this case, it has something to do with the murder of a star witness and the retrieval of a large sum of money. But don't worry your pretty little head about the latter; most of the characters lose interest in that particular subplot by the time the movie ends. Sorry about that. I really am.
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