Subject: Review: "Wedlock" (SF video)

From: [email-masked] (p-m agapow)
Date: Wed, 4 Sep 1996 20:37:04 GMT

[video] "Wedlock" (aka "Deadlock")
		A Postview, copyright 1996 p-m agapow

In the near future an electronics wiz (Hauer, no really) is thrown into
jail.  The macguffin here is a collar fastened around the neck that contains
a transmitter and explosive charge.  Each prisoners collar is paired to
another random prisoner.  Should a collar get removed, tampered with or more
than a set distance from its partner - both explode.  Our anti-hero must
contend with the usual prison motifs (aggressive prisoners, warden out to
get him) while a follow inmate (Rogers) suggests escape, alleging she has
his collar's partner.  Meanwhile his ex-partner (Chen, oh yes) lurks around
the corner ...

"Wedlock" is a B-grader alright, but it's an unusually good one.  The plot
holds together and the action moves at a reasonable pace.  What makes this
film are the deliciously "out there" performances.  Rutger, thankfully
taking a break from psycho and tough guy roles, is a weedy neemish who
stumbles from scene to scene getting beaten up and betrayed.  The tragically
under used Joan Chen vamps it up as a gleefully violent femme fatale.
Stephen Tobolowsky is the shifty, devious prison warden out to get Hauer.
You've seen this film before but who cares?  The dialogue is snappy, the
pace fast.

Energetically silly without being stupid, this is a prototypical good B
movie.  [***/interesting] and beer on the Sid and Nancy scale.

"Wedlock"
Directed by Lewis Teague.
Starring Rutger Hauer, Joan Chen, Mimi Rogers, James Remar, Stephen Tobolowsky.
Released 1991.

paul-michael agapow ([email-masked]), La Trobe Uni, Infocalypse
[archived at http://www.cs.latrobe.edu.au/~agapow/Postviews/]