Fugitive Rage (RiffTrax)

Film Year:  1996

Genre:  Action

Director:  Fred Olen Ray

Starring:  Wendy Schumacher, Shauna O'Brien, Jay Richardson, Tim Abell, Ross Hagen

RiffTrax Year:  2022

Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

The Movie

Women.  Prison.  Guns.  Nudity.  Action.  Everything a man wants in a movie in one package.  But it's direct to video, so it won't be done well, but that hardly makes a difference to us.  Fugitive Rage tells the story of blonde bombshell policewoman Tara who tried to murder the mob boss who killed her sister.  Now in prison, she is offered an opportunity to be released if she promises to join a covert mission to kill the same boss she tried to assassinate.

Clearly not a lot of effort was put into this movie.  The centerpiece that the entire film seems to have been built around is a scene where star Wendy Schumacher strips down and takes a shower as the camera lingers upon her glistening shapely body.  Everything surrounding this scene has far less thought and care put into it.  Schumacher's take on the badass heroine is to be as sarcastic as possible and kick really high, though to be fair, she looks good in the role.  But the entire movie is a fumble and it's hard to tell if she has action hero chops when she's being showcased in such a clumsy production.

Mystery Science Theater fans will rejoice to see a familiar face in Ross Hagen, star of The Side Hackers and The Hellcats.  I like Hagen, and he's clearly the best actor here, but he's also held back with a production that can't choreograph worth a damn or give him anything to do.  He has one big climactic fight with Schumacher, which concludes with him getting stabbed.  Despite the film's R rating, there is no blood nor wound featured, as the area in which he is stabbed is clean and his clothes look perfectly tailored.  That's a recurring feature of the violence in this movie, as people are gunned down in multiple sequences which results in them grimacing or clutching vague areas of their body, implying a mortal wound but you can tell one is not actually there.  That would be somewhat forgivable if this movie were made in 1940, but this is the mid-90's for crying out loud!

The film features twists and turns...kinda.  They're there and I guess they're surprising, but I also wasn't thinking too hard about this movie while it was running, so I wasn't anticipating anything.  There is an attempt at a heart as Schumacher befriends a fellow prisoner, but there is no real meaning to their relationship as it only exists to give Schumacher someone to save in the third act.  The film is a hollow showcase of violence featuring women not wearing bras.  Let's face it, at that mild ambition, the movie reaches a level of adequacy but not full blown competence.

The Trax

Mike, Kevin, and Bill have a movie that has no shame this week as it just plays out and does whatever during its duration.  I think they get something of a kick out of how nonchalant the film is about its own badness, as it really gets their amusement level up during its goofiest moments.  They get a laugh out of Wendy Schumacher's whole "This is stupid" attitude throughout the whole movie, noticing that "She's always in some degree of eyeroll."  I'd be curious if maybe Schumacher has some RiffTrax starlet X-factor in her and maybe there are more movies featuring her to be seen.

But to put it bluntly, this RiffTrax is quite funny.  I think the dumb movie was always going to win some amusement status with Trax fans as it gets laughs on its own quite a lot, but the commentary gets some quality chuckles to boost it.  Fugitive Rage is always doing something stupid, saying something stupid, showing something stupid, which means more often than not there is something to say about it.  The terrible blocking of action scenes gets roasted, as does the film's terrible attempt at quipping.

"If you do anything to attract attention, I'm going to put you on Death Row permanently."

"That's just Death Row, dumbass."

I laughed a lot during this riff to the point where I do consider bestowing a healthy "classic" rating upon it.  I'm going to be a bit restrained though and dial my enthusiasm back a tad.  There are slow spots and a few wasted jokes that made my humor fire dim down a bit while watching.  But it's certainly one to pick up, if only for an unforgettable sequence in which Wendy Schumacher is splayed on the hood of a moving car.  The comedy here is worth the purchase.

Good