Bum-Fights: Revenge of the Fallen–
I think my title is way better than N.Y.C. Underground and is more telling of the only real piece of excitement at the end of this rather generically directed, straight-to-DVD action/thriller fodder. It’s by no means a bad movie. On the contrary, it was watchable but I was continually checking the time to see how much was left, and it only had a running-time of 87 long — long minutes. It was so uninspiring that it felt pretty much flat throughout, except for the club scene near the beginning, then the end-game at the closing of this flick. And apart from a few iffy actions by our hapless heroes the story was almost plausible. Admittedly, all my knowledge of the underground system comes from watching movies but I think I know when I’m seeing something that isn’t realistic, and I wish director Jessy Terrero had seen some of them too. You can’t run at the same speed as a fast-moving train, keeping up for ages while you find a suitable spot to dive miraculously to safety. Also, have the bad guys amble along like it was a stroll in the park while the young folks are running as fast as they can, yet the hoods keep pace with them regardless. I could have sworn they only aloud stuff like that in Friday The 13th or Halloween type horrors, not in action/thrillers. Plus, why would the boss not carry his own flashlight? He kept snapping his fingers for one, so many times it didn’t make sense.
- N.Y.C. Underground
- Directed by
Jessy Terrero - Cast
Dania Ramirez, Sean Faris, Arielle Kebbel, Rob Mayes, Clayne Crawford - DVD Release Date
27 August, 2013 - Influx Grade: C
The acting was where this movie was decent and Jessy Terrero has used a good cast before, like his last effort (which was renamed) Crossfire, starring that excellent pair of thesps, Robert De Niro and Forest Whitaker, but that movie was less than well received as I suspect this will be too. We had the sultry Dania Ramirez from the likes of Premium Rush, X-Men 3 and Heroes, Sean Faris (Never Back Down), the sexy Arielle Kebbel (The Vampire Diaries, Uninvited) but the one who looked to be enjoying his part was the oft overlooked Clayne Crawford, who was good in 24, but my favourite performance was as the guy who gets trapped in a house with a psycho cop, in the excellent The Perfect Host (if you haven’t seen it, then you must), and it’s usually the quirky characters he’s good at.
*****
A group of 18 year-olds go to a Brooklyn nightclub, run by a local hood, Siman. The chauffeur who takes them has worked for the Montgomery family for years but has a hidden reason for introducing young Dylan Montgomery to gangster boss Siman. Dylan is there to get access to drugs which can be sold in his school, which is filled with wealthy kids with plenty of money to waste, but before this can happen the chauffeur is murdered by Siman (who spells Simon like that?) and then thrown off the roof of the building. Dylan’s older, sensible brother Logan has been waiting in the car but is fed up and follows Dylan up the stairs. He see’s and hears everything and grabs his brother and runs. The group accidently leave one of the girls behind (who we never see again after she’s covered in vomit in the toilet) but they make their way into the underground where a chase ensues. They have to try to make it back out of the tunnels but a determined Siman and his cronies are close behind.
