Andy Sidaris, the poor man's Russ Meyer, returns from retirement with another tongue-in-cheek shoot-em-up populated by former "Penthouse" and "Playboy" models.
At the offices of government agency LETHAL (Legion to Ensure Total Harmony and Law), Commander Willow Black (Julie Strain) learns that information regarding LETHAL field operatives has been leaked. She and assistant Tiger (Shae Marks) set out to retrieve the agents, all of whom are undercover
trying to bring down former CIA agent/professional wrestler/international smuggler Warrior (Marcus Bagwell). Tiger and agent J. Tyler Ward (Cristian Letelier) search for Doc Austin (Kevin Light), who is investigating Warrior's art-smuggling operation in Texas. Willow goes to Las Vegas where, with
the aid of agent Fu (Gerald Okamura), she searches for Shark (Darren Wise) and Scorpion (Tammy Parks), who have infiltrated Warrior's porn-pirating operation. The remaining agent, Cobra (Julie K. Smith), is undercover as a Beverly Hills stripper to investigate Warrior's diamond-smuggling business.
Meanwhile Warrior, who has been tipped off by a double agent known only as "Hard Drive," hires bumbling hit men J.P. (Richard Cansino) and Chaz (Cassidy Phillips) to assassinate the LETHAL agents.
After all of the agents have been rounded up, they meet in Dallas with government liaison Jordan (Justin Melvey) and his assistant Dietrich (Ted Prior). Although they suspect that Jordan may himself be the mole who has feeding info to Warrior, the LETHAL team works to capture Warrior before he can
consolidate the profits from his operations and flee the country. Willow and Fu are captured by Warrior, who plans to kill them in the wrestling ring before he leaves. Jordan is shot and left for dead by Dietrich, who is in fact "Hard Drive." Saved by his bulletproof vest, he helps the others find
and rescue Fu and Willow and capture Warrior.
The above synopsis gives only the main points of a script that is ridiculously overplotted. Writer-director Sidaris seems to operate on the assumption that if enough things happen, viewers will mistake them for a story, but that's not the case. Like all of his films, DAY OF THE WARRIOR is too
tongue-in-cheek to work as an action film, but too heavy-handed to work as camp or comedy. By any measure the performers (you can't really call them "actors") are atrocious, though having been hired solely on the basis of their torso development, they perhaps cannot be held entirely to blame. The
sex scenes are surprisingly perfunctory, as if Sidaris felt compelled to include them against his will. If that's the case, it's hard to imagine what he considers the real raison d'etre of these films. (Violence, extensive nudity, sexual situations, profanity.) leave a comment
