Alarm für Security 13

One of the worst screenplays ever. How's that for bad?! I guess what kept me watching it was the same reason people would watch a train crash. Too many things to specify, other than saying the whole third act was a joke. Things not making sense, in there for no reason, or a bad one, just overall terrible. Don't waste your time; even accidents this bad aren't worth it. Obviously the filmmakers have posted a lot of ratings here!

Hostile Force is a bland, generic title for a bland, generic film. You've seen the same premise and the same characters a hundred times before. It's not bad or unwatchable but it simply has nothing to distinguish it from countless other DTV movies. A robbery gone bad leaves a female cop without a husband. Two years later she is working as a coordinator for a security company. One of their sites - an armoured car base - gets hit by robbers with a simultaneous assault on the security centre.The majority of the film focuses on the ex-cop's attempts to sneak a message to the jobbing security maintenance man, who by a stunning coincidence is also an ex-cop who quit after the same robbery that her old man was offed in.

Don't rent this movie, and I doubt it ever came out in the theaters, but if it's 4 in the morning and you're a little drunk and it comes on, give it a chance. If only to see how far Andrew McCarthy has fallen and to see how no one's career went anywhere after this movie. Fine 4AM flick though.

HOSTILE FORCE

Aspect ratio: 1.33:1

Sound format: Ultra-Stereo

Employees of a security agency are forced to combat a gang of professional thieves who invade the premises with a view to stealing cash from the company's heavily fortified safe.

The very definition of DTV fodder, Michael Kennedy's blah programmer is an OK time-waster, nothing more. Top-billed Andrew McCarthy plays the villain, an ambiguous character who's not above killing those who get in the way of his criminal ambitions, but who keeps a tight rein on his psychopathic subordinate (popular German actor Hannes Jaenicke), whose wild behaviour threatens the entire operation. Wolf Larson (TV's "Tarzan") is a former cop who stumbles onto the heist and makes an effort to rescue the hostages, including Cynthia Geary, another ex-cop who switched careers when her boyfriend was shot and killed during a violent confrontation with armed robbers several years earlier. Unfortunately, hunky Larson is sidelined in favour of mousy-looking Geary, whose transformation into a gun-toting action hero during the film's climactic shoot-out stretches credibility to the limits.

Much of the film unfolds in the agency's control room where Geary and her co-workers are held hostage, and the banter between captors and captives isn't particularly compelling, which stifles tension and slows the pace to a crawl. When the narrative DOES move beyond these limited confines, the half-hearted action scenes are compromised by a lack of decent coverage, which further cheapens the production. There's plenty of talent on both sides of the camera (I'll refrain from making the usual comments about McCarthy's painful slide into obscurity), but the movie wears its lack of ambition like a badge of honour. Why do people waste their time making such bland, faceless tripe? Also known as ALARM FÜR SECURITY 13 and THE HEIST.

I caught this low budget heist-gone-awry story as I was channel surfing in the wee hours of the morning. The novelty of seeing where the careers of Cynthia Geary and Andrew McCarthy had digressed was enough to hold my attention. I think another reason I watched was it appeared to be filmed in Vancouver, B.C. It was a few years ago so I don't remember much about the movie other than the campy performance by McCarthy as the mastermind bad guy, and Geary's limited range effort as the security guard who foils the big money robbery. In a word the movie is bad, bad, bad. Oops, that's three words. But in the right state of mind, or hour of the day, it could be good bad.