Bloodmatch Reviews

Very often, a simple premise stands a film in good stead. Less is more, goes the adage. In BLOODMATCH, however, less is virtually nothing. Fleeing across a wasteland, an unidentified man is caught by his pursuer and battered martial-arts style. We know not who either is, where they came from, or why the beating must be so severe. The runner is tortured by the smug sadist into naming three men and a woman who, five years earlier, committed a dirty deed. This transgression, we learn, was the blackmail and career ruination of the assailant's brother, a kickboxing champion. The surviving sibling, Brick Bardo (Thom Mathews), is now a self-proclaimed avenger, dead set on a vendetta. Brent Caldwell (Dale Jacoby), the world champion kickboxer and a premier cad to boot, picks up a woman in a hotel bar with the lure of good drugs and great sex. In his room, using her body as bait, she sedates him at gunpoint with ether. Coitus interruptus, indeed. Brick phones Billy Munoz (Benny "The Jet" Urquidez), a retired kickboxing champ, and claims to have abducted his daughter. If Billy wants her alive, he must do as he is told. Mike Andrews (Thunder Wolf) is ambushed by a multi-ethnic gang of four, and nearly kills them all before they rally. But Max Manduke (Marianne Taylor), the hotel belle, dispatches the goons; she has other plans for Mike. Brick accosts Connie Angel (Hope Marie Carlton), summarily kills her boyfriend and administers a knockout drug. The statuesque blonde, we learn, is the first woman ever to defeat a man in full contact sport. These four, the creme de la creme of martial arts, are bound to chairs in an empty Las Vegas arena. Brick explains to his captive audience their guilt in his brother's downfall, recounting how each of them framed him after he revealed their fight fixing to the commissioner. Now all will pay with their lives. There are no heroes in BLOODMATCH, no one to believe in or root for. Brick is Judge, jury and torturer, a new Torquemada for his id-monster heretics. There is no catharsis, nor even a hint of vicarious retribution. The kickboxing battles elicit only glimmers of genuine physical prowess, and we are indifferent about who wins or loses. The illusion of fury is fleeting, the staging wooden and the payoff nothing like poetic justice. Spattered blood, broken bones, bodies on the canvas ... the violence, without clear motive, is foolish, pointless and, by some standards, grotesque. What is more, or worse, save for Carlton's modest performance, woeful acting is wed to foul, fevered dialogue. We care not one whit for these people or their predicament: is Brick Bardo actually a surgically altered Wood Wilson, the ruined "brother," or just a psycho with an attitude? Any greater narrative or existential purpose this kangaroo court was to serve in the quest for vengeful truth is never posed by director Albert Pyun, who may have reached a nadir here, or the screenwriter, K. Hannah. It is by no means certain if they even had one in mind. (Violence, profanity, sexual situations, nudity.)