The Chaos Factor (2000)

Wonderful character development!

best movie i've ever seen.

Absolutely Fantastic

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

This was one of the last PM Entertainment movies to be made with studio founders and executive producers Joseph Merhi and Richard Pepin still around; they exited the company not long afterwards. As it turned out, they got out around the right time, because the quality of the studio product was starting to go downhill, including with this movie. It's not one of the worst PM Entertainment made in the years before (like "East L.A. Warriors" or "Shotgun") or the few years afterwards (like "Con Express"), but unlike the movies the studio turned out during its glory days, it feels very uninspired and mediocre. For one thing, the apparent and sudden slash to the movies' budgets is very apparent. The movie has to resort to using footage from "Rambo: First Blood Part II" and a long car chase sequence is made almost entirely from footage from the Steven Seagal movie "Marked For Death".The script offers nothing new, not just for the fact that a climatic plot twist is ripped off from the movie "The Odessa File". True, the script for a film like this doesn't really matter - the action scenes are the main attraction. But unlike the movies made by PM Entertainment a few years earlier, the action comes across as very generic and nothing special. You sense that everyone involved is phoning it in instead of really trying hard.Even die hard fans of PM Entertainment movies will most likely find this tiresome. Rewatch "Last Man Standing", "The Sweeper", "Executive Target", or "Rage" instead.

Jack Poynt (Sabato Jr.) is a military man who specializes in 'demo excavation', in other words, sweeping mines out of Cambodia and saving the local villagers. Jack Poynt's life changes forever when he comes across an Army medic's diary that was written during the Vietnam War. It turns out that a fellow soldier named Maxwell Camden (Ward) committed all sorts of wartime atrocities. Now, in the present day, Camden is a big muckty-muck in the government and he will go to great lengths to stop the diary from going public - including sending his goons (one of which is Sean Kanan) out to torture and murder people. Along the way, Jack crosses paths with a ruthless, beautiful female assassin that seems like she belongs in another movie named Kim (Park). But the two will have to team up to defeat Camden and the baddies before a big arms deal goes down between China and Vietnam...and time is running out. Will Jack make his Poynt? Find out...The Chaos Factor is kind of a middle-of-the-road affair. On the one hand, it's a PM production, so there are plenty of car chases, explosions, shooting scenes, and a decent amount of action. It's also not overly junky in the production values department and there is some nice cinematography from Jacques Haitkin. On the other hand, it's supposed to be a serious-minded drama at other times - a governmental thriller with the haunting echoes of the Vietnam conflict infusing it all. Not that that would be a bad thing, of course, but all the drama is undercut somewhat by the odd choice to have footage from Seagal's Marked For Death (1990) all over the action scenes. Tip to filmmakers: if you're going for seriousness, don't resort to Seagal footage spliced into the movie.Adding insult to injury, the footage doesn't match very well. You don't have to be particularly eagle-eyed to know when we've whiplashed into suddenly watching a car chase from Marked For Death. Presumably, if you're watching the Chaos Factor, you've already seen Marked For Death - has anyone watched them the other way around? Regardless, this was the directorial debut of Terry Cunningham, so perhaps we should cut him a bit of slack, almost like you would for someone learning on the job. Thankfully, Cunningham had good people around him like Haitkin and Fred Ward who could dress things up significantly.We enjoyed most of the scenes with Susie Park, mainly because that's when the movie becomes out-and-out action. Sean Kanan strongly resembles James Spader, and fan favorite R. Lee Ermey is underutilized...but would you believe he was cast as an Army Colonel? I know, wonders never cease. That brings us to Sabato Jr., who is a solid leading man for these types of things...though it should be noted that (in this movie at least) he has a tramp stamp. We don't believe we've ever seen a male action hero with a lower-back tattoo before. Much like how the Seagal footage undercuts the seriousness of the movie, Sabato Jr.'s tramp stamp undercuts our confidence in him as an action hero. It starts off as Sweepers (1998), becomes Broken Arrow (1996), them becomes No Way Out (1987), then becomes Yes, Madam (1985), all with a dusting of a Steven Segal movie from ten years previous. If this sounds like something you're up for, well here it is. The DTV world in 2000 was a confusing place indeed.

The film starts out with an interesting premise but disappoints as it progresses. The situation from the Vietnam War that starts us off is compelling enough, but the story then goes off in several directions and can't decide which one it wants to develop. As other reviewers have noted, it recycles themes from several other movies and in the end almost becomes predictable from its reworking of these plots. I kept expecting to see Jon Voight (a la "Odessa File"; if you've seen it, you'll figure out why) pop out but had to settle for the mostly unknown cast. Despite this, the movie is fast paced and full of action and presents mild, if not very mindful, entertainment.

Every film student should watch "The Chaos Factor" as a study in how to take a pretty good premise, write and direct it poorly, and come away with an uneven, not very satisfying film.War crimes were committed in 1972 in Cambodia. The bad guys thought they covered their tracks, but a diary turns up in 1999. Then the fun and action begins. Too bad it wasn't written better.