Manhunt Reviews

Don "The Dragon" Wilson (who's helpfully billed as "WKA World Kickboxing Champion" for the many who have never heard of him) returns in BLOODFIST VII: MANHUNT for another installment in his direct-to-video series, faithfully upholding all of the cheesy and inept standards of its predecessors. Jim Trudell (Don "The Dragon" Wilson) rescues a woman named Stephanie (Jillian McWhirter) from some thugs at an LA biker bar and then spends the night with her at a hotel. The next morning, Trudell finds that Stephanie has disappeared with his car, but that she has left him her car keys. He finds her address in the car and goes to her house, but when he goes inside, he's attacked by a man and ends up killing him in self-defense. Two cops burst in and arrest him, and discover that the dead man is also a cop. After being interrogated by Captain Doyle (Steven Williams), Trudell is beaten by a detective named Marvosa (Jonathan Penner), but Trudell manages to escape. FBI Agent Craig (Stephen Davies) arrives and tells Doyle that Trudell is an ex-Special Forces Agent. Trudell goes to see a computer hacker friend named Tubbs (Cyril O'Reilly) and they tap into the LAPD files to learn that Marvosa is the head of a gang of corrupt cops who are running an auto theft ring. Stephanie calls Trudell at Tubbs's place and asks him to meet her. When he does, she's with Craig and tells him that she is a hooker under FBI protective custody because she and another hooker were with a cop when he was executed by Marvosa, but that she had managed to get away with a videotape of the incident. Just then, Marvosa arrives and reveals that Craig is working with him. They aim their guns at Trudell and Stephanie, but Trudell grabs Marvosa's gun and shoots Craig, then flees with Stephanie. Maravosa eventually catches him and after a long fight with Trudell, Stephanie shoots Marvosa. Doyle, who has also found out about Marvosa's corrupt activities, arrives and Stephanie turns the tape over to him. BLOODFIST VII: MANHUNT initially holds out some promise of being different from the other films in the series by beginning as a Hitchcockian innocent-man-on-the-run mystery, but once it's revealed that Wilson is again playing an invincible, ex-secret agent, the film turns into yet another generic government- conspiracy thriller. From that point on, it's the same redundant routine of fight sequences every 10 minutes, and endless scenes of Wilson's character being chased by a group of the dumbest and slowest cops in the country. The BLOODFIST series is just an excuse to show Wilson bashing heads, but since the martial-arts sequences are so poorly staged and edited, with Wilson always appearing to be moving in slow-motion (even when the film isn't), the films are generally worthless, even on the level of mindless violence. BLOODFIST VII is so inept that during the flashback which shows Stephanie witnessing Marvosa's murder of the cop, the POV shot through the video camera viewfinder displays the word "Play," instead of "Record"; and it can't even get its title straight: it's called MANHUNT in the opening credits, and BLOODFIST VII: MANHUNT during the end-credit scroll. Most of the interiors take place in dark corners of some dingy, nondescript rooms, and the exteriors all seem to occur in the same rundown two-block radius. The illogical plot is riddled with holes, such as: why was the murder being taped?; how does Stephanie know to call Trudell at Tubbs's; if she's under FBI protection, why hasn't she already given them the tape?; and what was she doing at the biker bar in the first place? These and many other burning questions all take a back seat, however, to the series' customary level of spectacularly incompetent acting, headed as always by the ossified Wilson, who with each film, raises inexpressiveness to a new heights of petrifaction. (Graphic violence, extreme profanity, nudity, sexual situations.)