Moving Target

Although his pregnant wife keeps urging Sonny McClean (Dudikoff) to pursue safer employment, bounty tracker Sonny gets tricked by the sob story of two elderly con artists claiming to seek their bail-jumping "son," Jonish Kukot (Patrick Gallagher). In good faith, Sonny zeroes in on Jonish, who is then gunned down by the mastermind who hired the crooked senior citizens. Conked on his head by a masked man, Sonny is set up for the Jonish hit, despite the efforts of Sonny's cop pals, Jake (Aaron Bess) and Racine (Billy Dee Williams), to clear Sonny's name.

Kidnapped by Jonish's uncle, Mr. Tuzla (Len Doncheff), Sonny protests his innocence and vows to catch the real killer. Sonny is slow to realize that Jonish's removal was instigated by Tuzla's son, Danny (Noam Jenkins), due to jealousy of Jonish and disdain for Tuzla and Jonish's policy of gang-world appeasement. Eventually, Sonny recognizes the ring of his assailant--right on guilty Danny's finger. After whacking the senior impostors, Danny and his thugs open fire at the Lamaze center attended by Sonny's wife and gun down Lt. Racine. By the time Sonny cheats death at the hands of Danny's henchman, Boris (Michael Bernardo), Danny has cockily admitted his ambitions to his father and shot him. But Sonny fights Danny and arrests him before his coup can take hold.

Although action addicts will appreciate Dudikoff's body language, they will be less than impressed by the non-eloquent screenplay he tries to translate into excitement. Why is exposition about Sonny's frame-up repeated with so little variety? Why can't action films like MOVING TARGET abandon fossilized cliches like the mobster don who can't believe that his serpent's-tooth child is capable of patricide; or the long-suffering wife clamoring for her endangered spouse's early retirement? With its serviceable suspense and indifferent direction, MOVING TARGET doesn't even try to answer any interesting questions. (Graphic violence, extreme profanity, extensive nudity.) leave a comment