CrackerJack Reviews

Action fans not burned out on the familiar DIE HARD formula will judge this variation at a mountain lodge passable. Others will just want to pass. Ever since the mob murdered his wife and children, aptly-named cop Jack Wild (Thomas Ian Griffith) has turned every case into a kamikaze mission. Forced to take a vacation at a mountain resort, he finds himself right back in the fire. Don LaRosso (George Touliatos), a mafioso on his way to the Vatican to buy absolution from the Pope, is also a guest. So is former East German secret policeman Ivan Getz (Christopher Plummer), whose plans to steal the Don's fortune to finance his neo-Nazi terrorist army puts the resort under siege. With the help of a new love interest (Nastassja Kinski), Wild becomes a one-man anti-terrorist force, and the revelation that Getz is the man who killed Wild's family makes it personal. When he learns Getz plans to wipe the lodge off the mountainside, Wild helps evacuate the hostages. Getz dies, hard, with a vengeance, and Wild prepares for a new life. CRACKERJACK is so derivative of DIE HARD that the actors should be making that quotation mark gesture with their fingers in most scenes. Still, it's no less entertaining than many other action flicks that have been copying the formula. Under Michael Mazo's direction, this carbon copy is well paced, with some good visuals and action sequences, but bland Griffith, and Plummer's comical imitation of Alan Rickman will never get this confused with the real McCoy, or more precisely, McClane. In the US the feature went direct-to-video. (Violence, profanity, sexual situations, nudity.)