Ticker (2001)

A Masterpiece!

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The acting in this movie is really good.

i liked this movie starring Steven Seagal.but Seagal doesn't get top billing.he actually get third billing behind Tom Sizemore and Denis Hopper.the film had a good level of intensity which is maintained throughout.it's not the usual type of movie you would see Seagal in.this one's more dramatic.wit more emphasis on story and acting.speaking of the acting,it's good all around,even from Seagal.there are only two separate martial fighting sequences which are very brief adding up to probably less than two minutes combined,which is good,because it appears as if Seagal had a stunt double do his fighting as all we see are hands and feet but no close ups and no face.Jamie Presley also co- stars and although her role is small,she brings a lot to it.overall,this was a pretty good film.for me,Ticker is a 7/10

Ticker is set in San Francisco where narcotics cop Detective Ray Nettles (Tom Sizemore) & his partner Detective Art 'Fuzzy' Rice (Nas) are following up on a lead when they come across IRA terrorist & bomb expert Alex Swan (Dennis Hopper) & his woman Claire Manning (Jamie Pressly), Fuzzy is shot dead & Swan escapes but Nettles manages to capture Claire & take her in. Swan needs Claire so phones the police demanding that Claire be let go or he'll blow lots of things up which will kill people, lots of people. Nettles teams up with the bomb squad & Lieutenant Frank Glass (Steven Seagal) who is the one in charge to track down Swan & disarm his bombs, erm that's about it really.Directed by Albert Pyun this film has a pretty bad reputation which, I'm sad to report, it fully deserves. Things got off to a bad start when I saw the 'Nu Image' logo appear prior to the films commencement, my heart literally sank as I'm one of the few poor souls who has actually sat through some of their giant 'creature feature' flicks so my hopes for Ticker were not high & despite that I still felt let down. The script by Paul B. Margolis is awful, the character's are awful, the dialogue is awful, the story is awful, things happen to accommodate the copious use of footage stolen from other 'Nu Image' films & the fact the three main 'stars' who are all packing some serious excess weight around their belly's probably never met each other & were probably only available for short times means the script was also tailored for this & it just ends up looking & feeling an absolute mess. Ticker is just awful, I've seen some terrible Seagal flicks but even I think this is probably his worst film & believe me that's saying something. As for respectable actors such as Tom Sizemore & Dennis Hopper they should know better & are far too good for crap like this. The only good aspect of Ticker is that it actually had a decent plot twist towards the end but coming in such a bad film it matters little.Director Pyun turns in a terrible film, the action scenes are absolutely terrible since almost all of the explosions & action is stolen from other films, footage from Deadly Outbreak (1996) makes for the opening explosion of the senator's house, The Last Days of Frankie the Fly (1997) steals footage of Dennis Hopper, The Peacekeeper (1997) accounts for virtually the entire final 20 minutes & it also uses footage from Sweepers (1998). The continuity is absolutely horrible, the sites of explosions changes between shots, the things that are blowing up changes, cars change types, the number of passengers in them changes & this is just a really badly, cheaply made flick that is quite frankly a disaster on every level.The IMDb says Ticker cost $25,000,000 to make, no disrespect but that's bull. The makers have said that it cost a lot less & director Pyun has said in interviews that it cost a mere $600,000 & was shot in just 11 days & I believe him. Apparently Hopper was only on set for 1 day & never met any of his co-stars, his Irish accent is terrible & I think you can see he knows the films junk & he isn't really trying. In fact Hopper's role as a mad bomber holding a city to ransom isn't a million miles from his role in Speed (1994), having said that Seagal playing a hard as nails karate kicking cop is more or less the same role as every other film he's been in as well. Why actor's like Sizemore, Hopper, Seagal & Peter Greene agreed to do Ticker is beyond me. Ice-T also makes a small appearance at the end.Ticker is an awful film, there are some unintentionally hilarious moments in it which makes it one of those car crash films which are a complete disaster but you can't take your eyes off it. Do yourself a favour & give this one a miss.

Having lost his partner in a shootout, Detective Ray Nettles is keen to hold onto the woman he captured at the time (Claire) even though the matter now belongs with homicide rather than narcotics. He is given a chore to do that brings him into contact with the San Francisco Bomb Squad as led by Frank Glass. Quickly the two men realise that they have a common enemy in bomber Alex Swan, but Swan is one step ahead of them and demands the release of Claire without question or else he will start bombing San Francisco. When the police don't immediately respond a bar is destroyed in the first of a wave of attacks.I'm not sure what I can say to add the revulsion already on this page. It is hard to describe how poor this film is because the internet is full of people saying "this sucks" or "this rocks" but this genuinely does "suck" and it does it on pretty much every level and every aspect that you could imagine. The plot is a mess. It has basic elements to it that are poorly strung together in a manner that just left me cold and uninterested; the reasons for characters doing where they are doing are often nonsense and the lack of logic or internal reason is just brushed off and forgotten. The delivery of it lacks any sort of urgency and I was actually surprised by just how lacklustre the whole thing was – the "big" finish is a fine example, as it is plodding and as exciting as cold tea. I appreciate that this was made in less than two weeks but I did wonder why they didn't take a little longer if this was the outcome. Director Pyun seems entirely focused on getting the shot in the can and moving on and my god but it shows in every frame. Everything looks like it was done first time and that half the crew had moved on before the cameras had stopped rolling.His ability with action here also surprised me as his action scenes are roundly poor. I appreciate that the time restrictions had a part to play with that but it is hard to be forgiving when, for instances, people falling out of windows to their death is done by focusing on the hero's face while we hear "aargh" in the background! I have not seen any of Pyun's films that spring to mind but from this I can understand why people hate him! Which leads me to question then why so many well-known people got involved (some of them for practically seconds of screen time). This site puts the budget at an estimated $25,000,000 and, given so little of it is on the screen, then I can only assume that the starry cast all got a pretty slice of that pie for a few days work. Luckily only their time is wasted here because none of them are showing sufficient talent to claim that that has been wasted.Sizemore is a point in case as he mopes his way across the screen with a performance that suggests he was asleep seconds before each and every take. Seagal does the same and mumbles lots of "deep" stuff, confusing mumbling with being cool. There is no chemistry between the two men and watching their scenes together is akin to watching two rocks. Hopper turns in a performance so abysmal that I assume he got paid loads. His accent is terrible and it wanders throughout the film – next time he sees Speed I hope he feels some guilt about Ticker. Always a sign of quality, the film has a handful of hip hop stars here in the shape of Nas, Ice-T and Chilli. Nas is awful and his early death is hilarious. Ice-T and Chilli are in it for seconds and I do wonder why they bothered (other than the aforementioned payday). Pressly does nothing – not even her normal "sexy trailer trash" thing. The lack of quality runs deep; Greene can't even do a "painting by numbers" character justice and the only reason I can think for Halsey's terrible accent is that he is doing the acting equivalent of jumping on a grenade for Hopper – making him look good by comparison.A terrible film then, one that doesn't even the very basic things you expect from a "straight-to-video" action movie. The story is poor, the action badly done, the direction simplistic, the performances rubbish and the whole package cheap and derivative. Don't waste your time with this – it is telling that simply by viewing it, I actually invested more time and effort than many of those involved.

...or maybe not. Because the last thing we need is another CYBER TRACKER-movie or something like it. All I'm saying is that Albert Pyun should stick to making cyborg-movies (remember NEMESIS, anyone?) instead of straightforward action flicks like TICKER. Even Pyun's BLAST, a poor DIE HARD rip-off, was better than this.I suspect the whole budget of TICKER went to the paycheck of Seagal, Sizemore and Hopper. And those three hombres are probably the only reason to watch this dull movie. I say probably, 'cause the only one playing it straight is Sizemore. Seagal tends to get zen & philosophical too often, instead of beating the crap out of the bad guys. When he eventually does kick a few punches, it's edited so badly that you don't even see his moves. And Hopper's accent switches from Irish to American and back all the time. It's like he didn't even try.There's not much wrong with the story, except that it's average. Alex Swan (Dennis Hopper) and Claire Manning (Jaime Pressly) are scientist/terrorist buddies. When Claire gets captured by the police, Alex starts randomly blowing places up throughout the city in order to get her released. It's up to detective Ray Nettles (Tom Sizemore) and bomb-squad-specialist Frank Glass (Steven Seagal) to stop him. So, it's a straightforward plot with a little twist near the end which you may or may not see coming, but either way, you won't care about it.The overall execution of TICKER is careless and miserable. I simply can not believe that when you're making a movie about terrorist-bombers, you don't have a budget big enough to afford some explosions. They rely on stock-footage for this ( from Dolph Lundgren-movies amongst others, so I've read), which totally screws up the continuity. For instance, in the openings scene police forces infiltrate a mansion occupied by terrorists. But when it blows up, it's a total different building; it looks like a farmhouse or something. Other example: when Hopper's car gets blown up, you can clearly see the scene takes place at the docks (there's water and all). But in the shot where the police arrives, they seem to arrive at a park (you can see trees and grass). How in the world did the filmmakers think they could get away with that? And what's with the extremely crappy blue/green-screen-effects when Hopper's driving the car? When he stops the car, it's like they suddenly paused the traveling background. It stops so fast, that in reality Hopper and Pressly should be glueing to the window. And that's not the only law of physics that's being broken in this movie. During the final climax, Seagal seems to be able to stretch time by talking zen. One minute easily becomes 30 minutes in order to give him and Sizemore enough time to dismantle a bomb. Bizarre, since this is not an X-MEN movie.So why am I giving this movie 3 stars? Easy: One for Sizemore, one for Seagal and one for Hopper. And that's just for them being in it, not for their performances. Otherwise it would have been: One for Sizemore, period.Anyway, see it for yourself if all this sounds unbelievable. Best thing is to skip it, though, and see the more than decent movie BLOWN AWAY (starring Jeff Bridges and Tommy Lee Jones) instead. I only have one final request for Mr. Albert Pyun: Please do make a sequel for TICKER, and bring back icy-cold cutie Jaime Pressly, but this time as an indestructible, merciless cyborg.