Maziun
This movie is known under titles "Aniol smierci" ("Angel of death") , "Beyond forgivness" and "Blood of innocence". The main star here is Thomas Ian Griffith (brother of actress Melanie Griffith) who never made a success and forever will be associated with third rate action cinema. The cast also includes the cult actor Rutger Hauer ("Blade runner") and John Rhys Davies ("LOTR" trilogy). Polish movie fans will also recognize some familiar faces like the very attractive Joanna Trzepiecinska (the love interest) , Artur Zmijewski (the brother of main hero) and Leon Niemczyk (the priest). This movie is a combined American-Polish effort. The main hero is American with Polish roots and the action of the almost entire movie takes place in Poland. It felt very refreshing , since action movies usually take place either in USA or more exotic/popular countries.I'm from Poland , so I had great fun watching familiar places and faces appear on the screen. However outside of that there isn't really that much to say about this movie. The acting is very OK (especially Davies is truly charming) , the plot makes sense and the dialogues aren't bad. The problem is this is genuinely forgettable movie. The plot isn't anything different you haven't seen before in thousands of "cop on revenge" movies , the characters are one dimensional , the budget is obviously low and the action is very anemic. It's your typical undemanding straight to VHS (straight to DVD nowadays) 90's action flick. Maybe I'm too harsh for it , because I have seen MUCH worse movies and if you want some undemanding movie to kill some time it's not a bad choice.Action junkies should be satisfied. People with higher standards should look for something else. I give it 2/10.
sol
***MAJOR SPOILERS*** After his younger brother and fellow Chicago cop Marty, Artur Zmijewski, is murdered by a couple of hoods over a minor parking dispute older brother Frank Wusharsky, Thomas Ian Griffith, goes into action knocking off two of the three hoods involved in Marty's murder. Marty's actual killer Mr. Scarface, Alekasnder Wysocki, managed to escape to his native Poland.Taking a leave of absence from the Chicago PD Frank shoots down to Warsaw to find his brother's murderer who he soon finds out works for the, an outgrowth of the Soviet Unions 45 year occupation of Poland, Russian Mafia. Frank being a Polish/American himself has no trouble, with his broken Polish, communication with the local Warsaw authorities and finds out that the Mafia leader is a guy known only as Zelepukhin, Jan Prochyra, who works out of the Praga a black market on the other side, across the Vistla River, of Warsaw. It's then that Frank goes into action causing the Praga to become a free fire zone with some dozen persons getting killed and wounded but his primary target Sacreface, who did most of the killing, escaped in the confusion.It's later that Frank finally tracked down the elusive, like a slippery eel, Scarface who for some strange reason, in him possibly knowing that he's the bad guy in the film, just stood there, with a submachine gun at hand, and allowed Frank, who at the time was unarmed, to blow him away! You would have thought by then that the movie was-Thank God-finally over but seeing that barley a half hour went by you knew better! It's after Scarface's demise when the real action starts with Frank getting involved with the hot shot head of surgery at the Warsaw General Hospital the sexy and outspoken Anna Morszytn, Joanna Trezpiecinska, who's dad just happens to be the the Chief of the Warsaw Police Department! To make things even worse for Frank the Polish head of security just happens to be Anna's boyfriend Bjeski, Andrzes Zilnski, who feel that Frank is overstepping his bounds in his trying to get, now that Scarface is history, Russian Mafia Boss Zelepukhin!***SPOILER ALERT*** After a number of wild shootouts explosions and a real exciting martial arts slug-fest, as good as anything you'll see in a Bruce Lee movie, taking place in of all places a Warsaw meat packing plant we find out-finally- who the villain in the movie really is. The stuffy and full of himself Dr. Lem played by an almost unrecognizable, in him gaining-or just letting himself go-as much as 50 pounds for the part, Rutger Hauer! Dr. Lem a former KGB man is now a full-time greedy "Capitalist Pig" who's now into the trafficking of human organs, hearts livers & kidneys, and making a real good and profitable living at it. The only problem is that those whom Dr. Lem gets the organs from aren't that eager to give them up! And to make things even worse for Frank soon slated to be Dr. Lem's latest human organ donor! If he likes it or not!Nice photography of Poland as well as having John Rhys-Davies in the movie for comic relief as the indestructible, in him taking a licking and keeping on ticking, Sgt. Shmuda of the Warsaw PD. You can see that Rhyes-Davies took the whole movie as the practical joke for what it seemed to be in him, in his acting, not taking it seriously at all. It's the only way he could both live to survive the film as well as not crack up laughing during the scenes he's in it. As for movie's hero Frank Wusharsky he ends up going to his Polish family's hometown of Nisko-at the foot of the Carpathians Mountains-to savor the pirogi made there which is considered to be the best in all of Poland!
JimFK
This flick was interesting to me as I'm studying Polish, and it's rather humorous to watch a generic straight-to-vid actioner unspool in Warsaw, although it's never convincing when hundreds of Poles take it upon themselves to spray machine gun fire at Griffith, or when a whole meat -packing plant decides to show their karate moves, Polish style. Hauer is good as always, and the unique scenario makes it relatively watchable, but there's nothing plotwise you haven't seen a thousand times before.
