 | A Night on the Town
rating: 3
"Face of Terror" is an average feature. Rick Schroeder who won the Golden Globe in "The Champ" as a child actor in 1979 & was nominated as Best Actor in a Dramatic Series for "NYPD Blue" in 1999 plays policeman Nick Harper. Harper is kind of a "Die Hard" light, which may be why Jeb Stuart who directed the first "Die Hard" film picked him for "Blood Done Sign My Name" which should be out in 09. Harper has a thin trigger and little patience, particularly when his kid sister Faith has disappeared. Faith is played by Rachel Stevens. She looks good in her swimsuit, but does not display much confusion when the good guys turn out to be bad guys. Dean Haglund who was in "Dead & Deader" & "X-Files" plays a drug-dealing photographer. Kadeem Hardison plays Harper's cop pal Jefferson. Jefferson stays stateside while Harper hops to Barcelona. Jefferson's role is written thinly, without much sympathy for Harper who has to find out what happened to his sister. Paulina Galvez plays the Spanish detective Ana Palacios whose good looks earn her a night on the town with Harper. Eric Balfour who did a great job as a two-timing ex in this year's TV pilot "The Ex List" plays Palestinian terrorist Saleem Haddad. Balfour's job really has the most levels and looks the best as far as the lead actors. "Face of Terror" keeps your attention for an evening's entertainment. Enjoy!
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GREAT
rating: 5
This is a great film. The dvd was sent in Brand New condition, I am very pleased. I would deffinetly order from here again. Thanks!
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An effective crime drama and thriller
rating: 3
There are a few things about this little film that are very interesting, but none more than the site of most of its scenes -- Barcelona, Spain. The scenery of this southern European city is easily the most easy to watch and interesting part of this drama.
The movie revolves around the star (Rick Schroeder, late of "NYPD Blue") running around Barcelona trying to locate his sister, who left home to pursue modeling in Spain and has since become involved in a strange and hardly believable plot that involves models, a briefcase and a terrorist.
It's pretty ridiculous how Schroeder got there. He plays a cop in Los Angeles that dials up his sister on his cell phone -- right in the middle of a bust -- and, when she fails to answer, he decides to leave his partner, his employer and his case to go to Spain to locate her.
When he arrives he finds sis has been missing for weeks. This is another ridiculous plot device, since she's really just been vacationing on some rich guy's boat!
Anyway, she and a bunch of other models have been and are becoming unwitting (!) tools of an international terrorist who blows up buildings in Spain for reasons never explained in the flick. There's a pretty good chase and some good action at the end when our hero and sis meet up with the bad guys.
This movie is based on a lot of ideas that aren't realistic, and it's full of lovely people that probably never took an acting class, but it maintains tension throughout and keeps your interest for 90 minutes. It has some great scenery and action sequences that help you stay involved.
Schroeder's had a good career, beginning as a child actor and rotating in adulthood through "NYPD Blue" to play a similar role in this movie. This probably won't be the gold star on his career when it's done but it won't be the worst thing he ever did, either.
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Plenty of action makes this an entertaining thriller
rating: 3
It was the cast, rather than the film itself, that brought me to Face of Terror. I hadn't seen Kadeem Hardison since A Different World went off the air, and I had never seen Rick Schroder take on a serious role before (no NYPD Blue for me, please). The clincher, though, was the inclusion of Dean Haglund - aka Langley of The Lone Gunmen. When all is said and done, I have to say I enjoyed the film. If they had given me anything that could possibly explain the link between the two convergent storylines, I would have given it four stars. This thing has no shortage of action: shootings, car chases, explosions, fist fights, and all sorts of general mayhem. Then, on top of that, they throw in a bunch of fashion models - and that's never a bad thing. (I could have done with a whole lot more of that photographer's half-naked model.)
Remember how Team America basically destroyed Paris in the opening scenes of Team America: World Police? Well, Nick Harper (Schroder) sort of does the same thing to Barcelona - albeit in a more piecemeal fashion - when he comes searching for his missing sister. Harper's a cop, and he's going to do whatever he has to do to find Faith (Rachael E. Stevens) - no matter how much destruction and death he brings upon the heads of the local citizenry or how many warnings he gets from the unhelpful Spanish police inspector. His basic operating procedure is to find anyone who knew his sister, ask him about her, and then start wailing on him with his fists. As Nick was beating up a significant percentage of the local population, all I could do was sit there wishing the movie had been set in France rather than Spain. He does get help from a lady who turns out to be more than just an employee of the company his sister had worked for - he doesn't beat her up, but he does get physical with her.
While all this is going on, Barcelona is suffering a series of terrorist bombings, all of them the work of the dude who played Xander's best friend (until he was turned into a vampire) on the two-part series premiere of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. What does terrorism have to do with a young fashion model gone missing? A heck of a lot, as it turns out. It certainly makes for a lot more action, as Nick not only has to find his sister, he has to save her (and a lot of innocent civilians) from the clutches of a notorious terrorist.
Face of Terror was filmed in Barcelona. As far as I know, no citizens of that city were harmed in the making of this movie, but the filmmakers certainly blew through the town like a rabid wildcat. Countless cars were crashed (after extensive chases that sent extras running for their fictional lives), a number of quaint little settings were basically destroyed, and an extensive foot chase saw dozens of "innocent bystanders" pushed to the ground or just flat-out run over. (Why oh why couldn't they be French instead of Spanish?) The action is a bit clumsy at times, but it makes up in quantity for what it lacks in quality.
Face of Terror is basically your decently average action film. There's nothing all that special about it, it's pretty predictable, Hardison pretty much phoned in his performance (literally), and the plot is not without a few holes, but I have to say it's pretty entertaining to watch. Doggone it, you just can't help but pull for Ricky Schroder, even though he's all grown up now.
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Not too good, but not COMPLETELY horrible
rating: 2
In this passable action flick, a Los Angeles detective goes to Barcelona to find his sister, a model there whom he has not heard from in some time. His search for her brings him face to face with terrorists and arms merchants.
The main draw here will be the cast. Rick Schroder stars as the detective, Nick Harper. His performance is unremarkable, and the character isn't well-developed. Eric Balfour, as terrorist Saleem Haddad, tries a little harder and manages at least a little menace. Kadeem Hardison (of television's "A Different World") plays Harper's partner back in L.A., but he doesn't do much besides talk on the phone. And Dean Haglund, known to X-Files fans as Langly of the Lone Gunmen, shows up as a "sleazy photographer."
The real gem, at least for me (and most other males, I would think) is Marta Nieto, who plays Lola, another model mixed up in the craziness. It's a minor role but Nieto is simply gorgeous. It doesn't hurt that she (as Lola) is occasionally allowed to show actual emotional depth, rather than being just a one-dimensional sexpot.
There's little else worth commenting on. The story is serviceable but the dialogue is pretty bad. The movie was filmed in Barcelona, and the director wisely shot most of the scenes in the daylight, so there's some great scenery. Some of the action scenes are fair.
The main problem with the movie is that it's not good enough to really enjoy but not bad enough to laugh at. Unless you're a huge fan of Schroder or Hardison, or you want to check out Marta Nieto (who's certainly worth checking out), you'll probably want to ignore this.
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