Black Out Reviews

Following his flashy stint on the football field (and the failure of his big-screen vehicle STONE COLD), athlete Brian Bosworth appeared as an action hero in weak, straight-to-video items like BLACK OUT. An amnesiac after a car mishap, businessman John Grey (Brian Bosworth) must relearn everything about his life. But his nightmarish flashbacks to cellblock scenes and robberies don't square with the public John Grey, an Arizona bank executive. He discovers he was once Wayne Garret, member of a fearsome criminal gang (who have, coincidentally, just burst out of prison). Grey's/Garret's incautious inquiries draw the attention of his former outlaw boss, Thomas Payne (Brad Dourif), who orders Garret killed for having been the state's witness at the trial. Hit men rub out the present Mrs. Grey (Marta DuBois), but Garret escapes. Suspected of murdering his wife and with his memory still largely blank, fugitive Garret goes to California after Payne and finds refuge with waitress Jenny (Claire Yarlett). Garret locates a handy arms cache from his past, and he and Jenny invade the villain's lair. With the firefight finished and Payne slain, a federal agent brings the deus ex machina revelation that Garret was never a crook in the first place, but an undercover supercop who once infiltrated Payne's mob. The premise of the amnesiac who knew too much gets a mild uplift from Allan Goldstein's direction and a soundtrack that is reminiscent of B-movie potboilers of yesteryear. But when the gunfire starts, the filmmakers opt for action scenes in a lightweight, almost camp vein. Bosworth is really the main drag on the tale's overextended credibility, far more convincing as a beefy thug yelling "You want a piece of me?!" than a confused yuppie whining "What am I doing?" an instant later. One-time Oscar nominee (ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST) Dourif does a Christopher Walken bit as the dapper bad guy. Despite the ingrained marketing bias toward huge guys with huge guns, it would have been more interesting to see all-pro thespian Dourif handle the duality of the disoriented hero and leave The Boz with the larger-than-life antagonist position he once practiced on the football field. (Violence, substance abuse, profanity, sexual situations, nudity)