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GYMKATA (1985)
Worst fake martial art until the invention of wire-fu Somewhere within this completely ridiculous punch-line of a movie there's a kernel of a good idea, that somebody with crazy gymnastic skills could have those skills molded into lethal fighting moves. Or at least, lethal killing moves, maybe a working proficiency in defense is asking for too much. Let's not kid ourselves as to whether that idea comes anywhere close to panning out in this fucking hilarious movie, which richly deserves its infamy. There are few enough gymnasts who could make credible action heroes; and Kurt Thomas is not one of them. His fighting technique appears to be a lot of standard-looking punches and kicks and the like, interspersed with a lot of really superfluous, unnecessary tumbles and leaps, aided by the high bars and pommel horses which keep turning up in places are definitely not gymnasia. Thomas plays Jonathan Cabot, a champtionship gymnast who is recruited by CIA (who went by another name in this movie but I don't remember what it was) and trained to combine his gymnastics skill with martial arts so he can partake in The Game, a gruelling competition in distant Parmistan where the winner is granted one wish by the king/sultan/poobah. The CIA-in-all-but-name already has Cabot's wish picked out for him (something about a spy satellite), so what's in it for him? Well, his dad went missing in The Game years before so here's his chance to find out what happened. He meets "The Princess" of whom we are told "She has an interesting background; her mother was Indonesian!" Wait, that's not interesting at all. She does standard movie-Asian-chick shit like give Cabot back massages and sexual servicing. This happens about 15 minutes in, one supposes to put a quick kibosh on any audience assumption that gymnast dude = flaming 'mo. His journey to Parmistan has to be a clandestine one, during which the movie hints at knowing stupidity (the last five words in one scene is Cabot's acknowledgement that he's going to "Karabal, on the Caspian Sea" and immediately we get an establishing shot with the subtitle, "KARABAL, ON THE CASPIAN SEA"). In Karabal, he gets a Yankee-go-home greeting and the opportunity to rescue The Princess from a kidnapping. They sneak into Parmistan by raft, wearing bright orange lifejackets for maximum unsneakability. Unsurprisingly they are rapidly found by a whole squad of Parmistan goons. Your standard Parmistan goon is dressed like a ninja and has ninja weapons; I don't think anybody calls them ninjas but they might as well be, and keep in mind that this is before the idea of the ninja got all turtle-ized. Even though the ninjas wear solft-soled ninja boots, their footsteps still go CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP. The Game finally starts in earnest 53 minutes in; it consists of being chased by ninjas through corn, up a rope, through the woods, and across a rope bridge where you'll almost certainly be shot with a ninja arrow, through more woods where you'll have to fight other contestants, and into "the village of the crazies, he'll never get out alive!" It is in this village where Cabot improbably finds a pommel horse. That pommel horse shit is pretty funny, but for me the prize encounter he has in the village of the crazies is with some guy who actually has a prosthetic face on the back of his head so he can stand facing the wall and look like he's actually facing forward. So he turns around and...surprise attack. Of course, all he had to do was stand with his back to the wall and look like he isn't going to attack, without the vulnerability of facing the wall or the bother of crafting a prosthetic face to be worn on the back of his head; that would accomplish the same end, and all without having to consult the village prosthetic facesmith. I guess they don't call it the village of the crazies for nothing. I'm not really sure how The Game is supposed to proceed after that, but from there it's like a series of mostly expected fights and climaxes, with some truly desperate storytelling moves like having Cabot's presumed-dead dad turn up only to be killed immediately after he quickly gets in a laughable explanation for why he's alive (which takes like, one minute). Shot in Yugoslavia with as many toothless extras as its makers could find, Gymkata has a few moments of pretty harsh, bloody violence which got it an R rating, thus barring from viewing it the only eight-year-olds who would find it unironically entertaining. (c) Brian J. Wright 2009 BACK TO THE G's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE |