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Chain of Command AKA Echo Effect AKA Deadly Target
R2 - United Kingdom - Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Matthew Crossman (15th November 2015). |
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The Film
 Special Operative James Webster (Michael Jai White) returns home from a tour of duty. At a family gathering his older brother takes a disturbing phone call. His Brother won’t tell Webster what it was about, not yet at least, but does tell Webster that he is in trouble. Later on Webster waits for his brother to return to tell him about his problem and instead receives a telephone call from his Brother’s Wife informing Webster that his Brother is dead. Webster starts to investigate who and why his Brother was slain but before he gets too far one of his army buddies, Cliff, is also killed. Webster manages to get to Cliff’s apartment whilst the killer is still inside but despite beating the living daylights out of him and shooting the assassin in the leg Webster cannot get any information out of him. By investigating his brother’s and Cliff’s murders Webster now becomes the target of the killers but nothing is stopping Webster getting to the truth which will involve a complex conspiracy that strikes at the very heart of the U.S Government. I’m going to cut straight to the chase here and inform you from the very beginning that this is a very bad film. I would like to say something nice about it but unfortunately it’s terrible in so many different ways. I’ll start with the cast. Any cast that is headlined by a former martial artist, a former wrestler and a former motocross racer is always going to be in trouble. Michael Jai White comes out the best of a bad bunch but in all honesty his performance is nothing to shout about. Considering his character has to be in possession of a hand gun, and use it, several times during the film you would think that someone would have taught him how to actually use a pistol (especially as the character he is playing is, apparently, the best assassin the United States Army has ever had). Here he hold the gun so close to his eyes that should he actually fire it in real life then he would probably lose one eye at least. It’s only during the fight scenes that White comes into his own, and he performs these moves admirably, but his opponents in these scenes look like they could not fight their way out of a paper bag. ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin suffers the worst. His snarling, angry bad guy persona is completely ruined when it’s clear that on several occasions Austin is reading his lines of idiots boards that are situated behind the shoulder of the cast member he is talking to. Max Ryan’s accent veers from partially American back to English and then American again, often in the same sentence. Ryan often leaves rather large pauses before delivering his lines which gives the impression that he has forgotten most of them. And that’s just the main cast. The supporting cast dredge an even lower level of acting. My favourite part being Webster’s Sister In Law reacting to her Husband being killed. She looked like someone who had just spilt their coffee on their new carpet. Upset, but not to the point of tears, and hey, some Vanish will get that out later anyway. The Direction by Kevin Carraway (who also co-wrote, for his sins) is awful. There is one scene early on with two people talking on a bench. The scene is cross shot with two cameras and Carraway cuts between the two with such speed and regularity that it genuinely made me feel queasy. I could go on but at this stage it would just be like poking a dead cat with a stick. Pointless. Pretty much like this film.
Video
1.85:1 anamorphic. The picture is serviceable if unspectacular. The Director has opted for a very muted palette throughout. The film is set just before Christmas but there are no bright baubles or decorations on show. The sets look like show houses and all the colours are drab and uninteresting. I really wanted to like something, just so I could write something, anything, positive about the film but it’s not the picture. The over reliance of CGI bullet wounds is becoming tiresome in these types of budget films and Deadly Target uses them for every, single bullet would. The picture is clear enough that they all look like CGI and all look terribly fake.
Audio
Two choices; English Dolby Digital 5.1 and English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo. There are large parts of the film where there is no music or sound at all. It’s all quite embarrassing. The dialogue is all crystal clear but because the script is so overwhelmingly bad I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing. The rear speakers do get a decent work out with gunshots, helicopters and cars roaring through the back but there is little spatial detail between the two rears. It just all comes through the back regardless of whether it should be left or right. The sub woofer might as well have stayed turned off so little is it used to any great effect. No subtitles.
Extras
There are a couple of start-up trailers for "The Forger" (2:22) and "Fighting Demons" (1:59). Trailer (1:25) The trailer appears to have been cut together by a completely different editor to the one that worked on the film. The trailer makes Deadly Target looked like a reasonably decent action flick. Don’t be fooled.
Overall
Negative as this review has been I can make a case for watching Deadly Target. It would make a great party film. Invite some friends round, crack open some beers and order in your favourite pizza and spend the next 88 minutes roaring with laughter. It was about twenty minutes into the film before I realised that it was being played straight and was not a spoof. I get the impression that Michael Jai White deserves to appear in better films than this, but not by much. The rest of the cast (and the crew) have found their level though.
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