Final Impact Reviews

Since concluding his assignment as a prime-time hunk on the long-running TV soap opera "Falcon Crest," the genetically blessed Lorenzo Lamas (son of Fernando Lamas and Arlene Dahl) has reinvented himself as a martial arts star in a series of direct-to-video action potboilers. His latest, FINAL IMPACT, cannily casts the veteran stud as over-the-hill kickboxer Nick Taylor, boozy proprietor of a sleazy sports bar. Once a winner, Nick hit the spiritual skids after meanie Jake Gerard (Jeff Langton) defeated him in the ring, taking Nick's title and wife. Now a newcomer named Danny Davis (Mike Worth), "light-heavyweight champ of the great state of Ohio," is bound for Las Vegas to compete against Gerard in the kung-fu finals, and the kid seeks out his hero Nick for advice. Nick puts the young contender through the usual strenuous personal training exercises that are always a priority in these fight flicks. The cliched plot pushes the envelope slightly with Nick Taylor, who's not the expected ROCKY-esque underdog but a genuinely bitter, self-absorbed lush who cultivates little sympathy as he grooms Danny to be his instrument of revenge on Jake. Nick isn't even permitted to live to the fade-out; fatally injured by Jake in a street showdown, he repents on his hospital deathbed just before Danny's climactic bout. The tag-team directors Stephen Smoke and Joseph Merhi know well how to photograph a brawl, and had they merely delivered on the promise of a knockout finale FINAL IMPACT would have succeeded on its own lowly terms. Instead it fouls out. After a pounding that puts him on the canvas for a nine count, Danny totters to his feet and KO's the deadly Jake Gerard with two or three lackluster blows. The onscreen spectators cheer Mike's victory upset, but home viewers are more likely to cry "Fix!" The cast is serviceable, with Mike Worth looking like a skinny high school nerd until he sheds his sweatshirt and reveals a taut, muscular physique. The rather pudgy villain Jeff Langton bears a strong resemblance to the sand-kicking "Bully on the Beach" in those famous old ads for the Charles Atlas bodybuilding course. Romantic lead Kathleen Kinmont (married to Lorenzo Lamas in real life) contributes her own variety of body language, but the picture's sexy opening-credit montage of voluptuous lady wrestlers in peek-a-boo outfits oiling up for a performance gives a misleading impression of a high T&A component. (Violence, substance abuse, profanity, sexual situations.)