Rage Reviews

RAGE is a routine direct-to-video action film featuring solid performances and some exciting, if overdone, chase sequences. When Alex Gainer (Gary Daniels), a law-abiding schoolteacher and family man, is car-jacked by a man trying to elude police, his life is forever changed. Rather than rescuing Alex, the cops beat him into unconsciousness and take him to Westech Labs, where he is used as a guinea pig for chemical experiments. Alex is injected with chemicals that induce uncontrollable rage. Alex manages to escape from the lab, killing several people in the process. Desperate to conceal their secret, the police use all their resources to recapture Alex, but Alex continues to elude his pursuers, killing more people with each encounter. Alex is soon a media celebrity, with all reports branding him a guilty man. Only one journalist, Harry Johansen (Kenneth Tigar), believes in Alex's innocence, and he gives Alex a chance to tell his story on television. When the interview airs and the governor learns the truth about Westech, he calls off the police. Alex is given the antidote to the rage-inducing chemicals and returns to his family. Gary Daniels is a fine action hero, though the script never explains how this mild-mannered Brit became so skilled at martial arts and gunplay. Fiona Hutchinson is convincing as his agonized wife, Mary. The fact that Alex and Mary have British accents, but their daughter and Mary's brother sound as American as apple pie, is either a casting faux pas or yet another unexplained script element. Tigar delivers a memorable characterization as an unlikely defender of justice, but the bad guys are strictly stereotypes. The film is technically proficient in every department, with special mention going to stunt coordinator Spiro Razatos for choreographing imaginative action sequences involving cars, trucks, helicopters, and even a merry-go-round. (Violence, sexual situations, profanity)