Convict 762
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DVD Cover Information Actor: Billy Drago, Frank Zagarino, Shannon Sturges Director: Luca Bercovici DVD: Region Code 1 Audio: Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo Format: Color, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen Picture Format: 1.85:1 Running Time: 100 minutes DVD Release Date: 1999-06-15 Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Studio: York Entertainment |
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Movie Reviews of Convict 762
Movie Review: Six Women Visit A Penal Colony In Space...I Don't Even Need A Witty Title
Summary: 2 Stars
"Convict 762" is a low-budget straight to video (and cable television) production featuring yet another tortuous "escape from a space penitentiary" plot. Six attractive women are flying a salvage ship through space, although they are not an ideal crew as they do nothing but bicker, argue, and scream at each other. Let me say at the outset that I am generously giving the movie two stars for having relatively decent spaceship sets (although the CGI is wretched) for a film of this genre. It doesn't hurt that the women are attractive, although in general the director, Luca Bercovici, for the most part doesn't take the cheap way out and have them in spacey loungewear and the like, so I have to admire his purity of vision, if not the direction of the film.
The film starts when the slacker hottie navigation officer Reno (Tawny Fere) decides not to do her job and as a result the ship plows through a hilariously bad asteroid field, or field of something, anyway: the effects were so ludicrous it was never clear what they were transiting, or in what dimension it was in. The effects and acting did make me laugh, though, so in that sense, the movie was entertaining. For some technical reason due to the asteroids, Captain Niles decides to dump eighty percent of her fuel, thus making a refueling stop necessary. And all because little miss troublemaker didn't figure out the coordinates right; this results in the lamest chewing-out and pep talk from a Captain imaginable.
As they land on the penal colony, they discover there are only two survivors, and they are battling each other that look like intergalactic hockey equipment, and to break it up Niles elects to "dust them off," meaning she knocks one of them over with the enormous spaceship when she lands; this is the most hilarious scene in the film (and there are many unintentionally humorous scenes here.) This whole refueling stop had me wondering several things. Among my questions: why would any governmental entity co-locate a refueling stop and a maximum security prison; and, why would anyone design a facility to refuel spacecraft that is thousands of feet under the surface of the planet, requiring the ship to fly a gyrating descent onto a platform far below the planet's crust?
The ladies promptly capture one of the fighting guys, Vigo (Frank Zagarino,) who they find cute and question intensely. He spins this tale about how there was an uprising and that only two men are left, which it turns out is not technically true, as several men are killed while they are on the planet ("these men were butchered minutes ago,") but that's a minor plot hole. He claims he's a law enforcement official, and the other one is Convict 762, the worst of the worst. Vigo is really into overacting but is soon eclipsed by the generally competent thespian Billy Drago as Mannix. Vigo and Mannix have a lifelong deep-seated rivalry to out-act each other, and Bercovici gives them all the latitude they need to ham it up, especially in rambling flashback scenes and monologues about blood and death. You'll get the picture pretty quickly.
Of course Mannix tells the women that he's the cop and Vigo is 762. It doesn't make a lot of difference as the women repeatedly make stupid decisions (wandering off and getting slain, etc.) and spend much of the time fighting among themselves. The question of who the real criminal is becomes central to the plot as soon as we meet Mannix, and frankly, there are good arguments on both sides of the coin (providing yet another reason for the second star in my rating.) In a supremely foolish demonstration of the women's incompetence (you will have to see the scene to believe it,) Mannix gets a hostage and a gun, and after numerous twists and turns, and a lot of carnage, we are still no closer to knowing the truth than we were to start with. This had potential for suspense, but the overacting and excessive unuseful flashbacks were so distracting that audience interest is rapidly diminished.
In the end it comes down to the two guys and Niles in the ship: here the pretty girl fights off a psycho in space (where no one can hear you boo) rather than an alien. In this case we don't learn the truth until the most visually interesting scene in the movie, during which Niles finally figures out the truth. Or has she?
The movie is quite lame overall. The acting was unbelievably over-the-top and I have to think a lot of that was due to the directing received, as Drago normally acquits himself adequately. (What was he doing here?) The spaceship interiors were decent, and there was some tension generated by the question of who was the good guy, and who Convict 762 actually was, but that's really all that it has going for it. In the end, the movie is derivative and often boring (it's 100 minutes long.) If you must see every prisoner in space movie, go for it; otherwise feel free to give "Convict 762" a pass.