| Pure Danger (1996) Cast:C. Thomas Howell, Teri Ann Lynn, Michael Russo, Marcus Chong,Leon,Darren Dalton C. Thomas Howell stars as a chef who with his girlfriend waitress finds a stolen bag of diamonds that a random guy has stolen from mobster Leon, along the way many things explode and blow up good but this time for some reason it's not very exciting. Pure Danger is a pure disappointment, plain and simple. When one considers PM studios one went in expecting lots of fireballs and ass-kicking but instead all we get is numerous chase scenes done with hardly any excitement, the problem is that C. Thomas Howell directed. I rather appreciate Howell's screen presence but as a director he simply can't put the audience in the middle of the action. He always seems to be detached and in a lot of cases making tons of awkward movements which end up giving the film an overall insipid approach to the actionscenes. The acting is adequate for the genre but for some reason I just couldn't get into the movie and I ended up finding myself only entertained on a few occasions. Pure Danger itself is an actioner build on cliches and formula, that's not the problem, what is that there's absoluately no variation done and no imagination has been taken to really give us the satisfying edge that the movie wants to do. Only an admittedly stylish finale with an interesting twist give this movie any real flavor. As it stands Pure Danger is Howell's best directing effort to date but that's the nicest thing I can say about it. In other words: Sitck to acting C. Thomas! D.C.Thomas Howell ** |