Armstrong (1998)

Wow! Such a good movie.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Well, seeing as there is no mind boggling plot involved with this movie and other reviewers have given the full story away, together with the fact that they have said all I would say.......there isn't much left for me to put in writing. The film itself is quite an entertaining 95 minutes, but could have been so much better had a lot of the acting not been so wooden. Wooden acting from the lead (Frank Zagarino) and overacting from the villain (Joe Lara) are major problems. The script is pretty lame, the action scenes slow and contrived. Excellent character actor Charles Napier couldn't even save the day. I have no idea why it was certificated 18.......maybe the certification criteria has changed somewhat since 1998. There is not a lot of swearing and hardly any gore so all I can think is that the certificate is due to leading lady Kimberley Kates' elongated chase scene wearing (on top) just a wet see-through blouse clearly showing off her silicon. All that being said, I still found it watchable. It's not the worst film I've seen.

Even for a Menahem Golan film, this one is REALLY BAD. Horribly written dialogs are reminiscent of porn films. Kimberley Kates' acting is terrible (although, with such bad script and obviously no directing, it is hard to blame her for just going through the moves). The same applies to Frank Zagarino's acting, which is just a tiny tad better than his co-star's. One-take scenes are just slapped together. If you watch it as a cold-war-movie parody, you might actually get a laugh or two. Otherwise, use the two hours of your life doing something else (pretty much anything, like cleaning the basement, will be better than watching this).

OK so the Russians are developing secret nuclear missiles and are selling them to the American Mafia, who only want to buy them so they can use them to trick the Russians into blowing themselves up. The best scene must be when the main character, who looks like Lee from Steps, jumps out of a window (to avoid a grenade). He magically turns into Phil Collins in mid air, and lands (once again as Lee) on a Van conveniently placed below. He then gets up and runs back up to his apartment, while the baddies run down the stairs on the way out - How they failed to meet en route is a complete mystery, he must have used the lift and the baddies had read the script and knew they would have to use the stairs! Also the grenade has done so little damage to the apartment that he should have just stayed in there in the first place! Really good b-movie!

There used to be a time when you could stumble across a movie in a bargain bin and it be realized as a masterpiece. Occasionally the path of cult classics discovered by today's audience. Now, however, with the vast amount of low budget movies being made these days it seems there are too many diamonds lost in the celluloid rough.After watching 'Armstrong' countless times I was still unsure of how to take it. Excellently choreographed spoof (to top all others including 'Airplane!') or baneful and calamitous one-take-per-shot "action" adventure.I'm still confused but I urge you to check it out. It made me laugh and it made me cry.