Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Brainsbell The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Leofwine_draca I watched this one on Amazon Prime under the title FATAL COMBAT. It's a typical straight to video thriller of the mid 1990s which once again uses the old 'illegal arena fighting' storyline for effect. Here, chiselled fighter Jeff Wincott plays the world's least convincing professor who is spurred into action when his pregnant wife is attacked by thugs. He's thrown into prison where he's forced to fight by a sadistic overlord with murder in mind.This B-movie is in essence a prison film mixed with the usual arena fighting material. The fights are okay but the plot is extremely forgettable as are the characters and set-up. It's nice to see Sven-Ole Thorsen (Arnie's regular stand-in) playing the villain of the piece but, truth be told, this is one of those films you'll forget about watching just a few minutes after the credits roll.

Comeuppance Reviews Professor John Stoneman (Wincott) is a college professor who gives a lot of homework, but is a man of peace and nonviolence. He teaches his students about tolerance while hurling an unending stream of racial epithets against fellow student/friend Jason Samuels (Di Mambro). Luckily he was just playing a character to prove a point. Stoneman's wife Carmel (St-Onge) is also a professor at the same university and pregnant with their first child. Things are looking up for the Stonemans, but suddenly Carmel is attacked in the parking garage of the hospital after getting a checkup about the baby. Gangs of punks that hang out in hospital parking lots are a menace in Canada, or anywhere else, so John, who is also like a 200th degree black belt, dispatches them easily...but Carmel loses the baby in the process.The story of the attack was on the news, and evil mastermind Houston Armstrong (Fitzpatrick) was watching. You see, he runs his own underground TV network which has one show - No Exit. It is a fight-to-the-death tournament where people Armstrong has kidnapped and imprisoned on his compound in the middle of nowhere fight and die on live TV. The problem is, as you might think with underground death matches, that the losers keep dying, so there is the need for fresh blood to enter the competition. So both Stoneman and Samuels are spirited away to the compound and locked up. They must fight to survive. The star fighter of No Exit is the hulking, evil brute Darcona (Thorsen). He is known for being tough, being the biggest jerk ever, and shouting "Yahhhhhhh!!!!" a lot. So will Stoneman be able to beat Armstrong, Darcona, and Armstrong's second-in-command Tayback (Douglas O'Keeffe)? Basically an over-intellectualized punchfighter crossed with a prison movie, and as much as the filmmakers probably wanted to reference Jean-Paul Sartre's play No Exit, Fatal Combat is something of a cross between The Running Man (1987) and Death Warrant (1990). The movie suffers from a lack of originality, and the constant disjointed cuts and cutaways to a screen blasting with static as transitions between scenes make it seem like it is trying too hard to be cool.The movie starts with a "Nooooooo!!!" and Wincott says "Nooooooo!!!!" many times throughout the film, and a few of the times, it is in slow motion, so the "NO" is a few octaves lower than it would normally be. This is more funny than serious and the filmmakers should have known that. Fatal Combat has an unnecessarily dark and super-serious tone that we felt did not serve the film that well. For instance, after Darcona is already established as the ultimate villain, is it absolutely necessary that he rape one of the other characters? Another thing we noticed is Fatal Combat is especially gay. Not a negative criticism - just an observation. Yes, there are the normal greased-up, shirtless men grappling with each other, but the male-male rape scene and some of the other prison antics made it seem gayer than usual. Wincott has a montage training scene in tight spandex (to the catchy rock tune "No Exit" by Ken Greer, Phil Naro and Myles Hunter - no band name listed).Sadly, because of the largely negative tone of the film, and the stylistic touches falling flat, we found we were not that invested in the final fight or the final outcome. Wincott probably relished the role of playing a professor that can also fight, and he was probably desperate to tell the world he's not your average meathead, and if the movie has a saving grace it's him. Fitzpatrick is well-cast as the evil mastermind who has a command center - and what baddie worth his salt doesn't? Not Jeff Wincott's best - check out Last Man Standing (1996) - and there are plenty of flaws - but punchfighter completists could do worse.For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

sveknu I had some expectations for this movie. Jeff Wincott has starred in several great martial arts movies in the past, and the plot looked interesting. It was the typical "people get caught by insane rich guy who has them fight each other to the death while broadcasting it to other rich scumbags who want entertainment" plot again. This outline always has potential, but this time they far from utilized it the way they should. Most important of all: The fight scenes are way too few and way too far between. The point of a movie like this is to have lots of great action, and when that doesn't happen it becomes rather pointless. I don't think the fight scenes were that good either. Wincott was OK, Sven-Ole Thorsen was so-so as the bad guy, and all in all there was nothing memorable in this movie. You will forget about this film an hour after watching.

ChoiBaby A conspicuous and uninspired retread of Richard Cornell's "The Most Dangerous Game." In spite of that drawback though, FATAL COMBAT has a few strengths and merits that buffer this piece of opus from becoming a total disaster.Well, here goes, College Professor John Stoneman (Canadian martial artist Jeff Wincott) teaches a course which emphasizes on psychological conflict resolutions. He always dictates the use of moral ethics over violence. While trying to protect his pregnant wife from a gang of obnoxious and murderous thugs, Professor Stoneman is lured and captured by a sadistic entrepreneur of television programming. Here, Stoneman is coerced to participate in a game show that comprises of death matches, fistfights, and run-for-your-life obstacle courses not to mention plenty of booby traps hidden along the way...Evil, bald and crooked television producer and distributor Armstrong (Richard Fitzpatrick) has designed a most optimum competition meet which forces several fighters of various skills to compete in an eight day tournament being aired live on television across Canada and presumably parts around the world. The contest is called "No Exit," and only the best and strongest of wills can survive this grueling process where tough guys beat the living daylights out of weaklings and even the brave will collapse in disillusion. The current champion of "No Exit" which airs every year is Darcona (Sven Ole-Thorsen). He has a propensity for neck snapping and breaking the spirits out of many of his competitors. He intimidates, then kills his victims like a panther without any remorse...Stoneman has the temerity to face Darcona, but in a unexpected turn of events, Stoneman has discovered that his wife's soon-to-be born baby has been aborted, attributed to the attack earlier on. Stoneman must keep a calm composure, and somehow, he must fight back against the corporate villains...even if it resorts to breaking the rules...and losing his life...FATAL COMBAT (also titled NO EXIT) is an interesting clone of "The Most Dangerous Game." This film is surprisingly anemic and mundane for a martial arts showcase. Some rather good fight scenes though and a shrewd, creative touch here and there with the arena and the battle scenarios. The highlights include "The Key," where two opponents race to grab the "key" and thus blow his rival away into shreds. The arena, confined in a small cage where two warriors duke it out with pulse sensory sticks while trying to avoid an electrical, surrounded fence is kind of neat. The brawl at the cafeteria was pretty cool...What makes FATAL COMBAT a venial though well-intentioned thriller is that the main, robust character and hero, Stoneman normally resolves his conflicts with inner peace and words rather than punches and violence. He manipulates his challengers before they can make their move. However, once Stoneman enters the "No Exit" games, he has no choice but to fight for his life. All his philosophies, his beliefs in non-violent resolutions, peacemaking alternatives, staying unnerved at the face of danger, keeping his provocations inside himself...have vanished once he has competed in the "No Exit" matches. Stoneman was originally someone with high ingenuity and humane rhetoric. Now, all those ideas and thoughts are meaningless and trivial...Even though FATAL COMBAT tries to deliver a message about only the strongest of souls will survive the fiercest perils, this film has one too many liabilities. First, the low budget does not help though the scenic atmosphere around the Arctic area was well photographed. Second, there are too many cliches which built to a surpassing amount. Stereotyped characters, paltry action sequences, and an involving though trite characterization are examples of the film's banality. Also, what kind of sick individual would also want to rape one of the good guys?FATAL COMBAT deserves a better criterion. Don't look for anything remotely original or intriguing in this movie. The same effects, situations, and tiresome kicking and hitting are all recycled from earlier films just with different actors trying to repaint and redesign the plot and movie. The cast and director work earnestly with this film; and their message that sometimes, choosing between what is right or wrong can be beneficial as well as detrimental is taken with consideration. Otherwise, this film is labeled with the word "PREDICTABLE" all over it. FATAL COMBAT is in fatal trouble...RATING: *1/2 out of ****.