Dangerous Prey Reviews

Both cheesy and unforgiveably lethargic, DANGEROUS PREY is a numbing variation on the FEMME NIKITA/POINT OF NO RETURN carefully-trained hitwoman plot line. In a Mideastern country, Robin Kane (Shannon Whirry) has a sexual interlude with her gun-runner boyfriend Paul (Michael Rogers) and is subsequently arrested for his truckful of blackmarket weapons. Convicted and on her way to prison, Robin is captured by a team of women warriors and taken to "the Institute," run by Dr. Drexel (Joseph Laufer). There she is coerced, with injections and a homing device implanted into her skin, into joining the Falcons, an assassination squad overseen by Yanna (Beatrice de Borg). Their target: minister Bronik (Jiri Krampol). Initially Robin becomes a bitter enemy of Yanna's lesbian stooge Tanya (Ciara Hunter), but they become friends when Robin discovers that another Institute "trainee" Karin (Carol Cartier) was put to death by the increasingly insane Drexel after she failed to kill her target. It soon becomes clear to Robin that Drexel plans to kill all the Falcons and flee the country. When Tanya is assigned to murder Yuri (Zdenek Pechacek), Robin stabs Yanna through the mouth with a knitting needle and tags along with Tanya. Both are soon helped out by the sudden appearance of Paul, now working for Yuri. The deceptive boyfriend is quickly killed in the ensuing explosions and gun battles. Robin and Tanya return to the Institute and kill Drexel; they exit the Institute arm-in-arm. With most of its excitement stored up in the fast-paced but lengthy opening credit sequence, in which a handful of Falcons seduce and murder their targets, DANGEROUS PREY soon settles into the women-in-prison mold. The screenplay, by Christopher Hyde, lacks believability on any level-most notably with Tanya and Kane's abrupt enemies-to-friends switch, and the dopey appearance of Kane's boyfriend in the finale caper. Even the film's central, workable concept is soon lost in tired action-film ploys, which director Lloyd A. Simandl (CHAINED HEAT II, ULTIMATE DESIRES) fails to enliven. The editing attempts to cover up the gaping holes in the story, resulting in some very awkward, disjointed cutting schemes. The film features full frontal nudity, unusual for such fare, but the sex scenes, including some playfully chaste lesbian duos, are as anemic as the narrative. The acting is adequate, with top-billed Shannon Whirry (ANIMAL INSTINCTS, MIRROR IMAGES 2) somewhat better than usual and villain Joseph Laufer (LADY IN WAITING) enjoyably over the top as the mastermind scientist. Technically adequate for its low budget, the movie was shot in the Czech Republic, at Barrandov Studios and in the cities of Breznice, Pribram, and Starosediecky Hradek, and was released direct-to-video and pay-cable.(Violence, extensive nudity, sexual situations, profanity.)