Blast

It seemed like a normal "Die Hard" theme movie; terrorists take the Atlanta female swim team hostage and the only one who can save them is the ex-athlete turned janitor Jack Bryant. It also gets personal for Jack when one of the hostages is his wife. I mean his background isn't like the other ones (he not a ex-cop, ex-army, ex-FBI etc.), but he still a bad*ss! The action scenes were pretty good and I've seen worse ones. This one called "Skyscraper" was a really bad "Die Hard" theme and I think this one did a better job in my option of it. I think this was pretty good and I would watch it again.

Greetings from Lithuania.

"Blast" (1997) doesn't have anything that will want you to see it or f by any chance you will - to remember it longer then one minute after you will watch. Even Rutger Hauer, who is a very compelling screen presence in almost everything he does couldn't save this flat, predictable and very lazy flick. I don't usually watch this kinda movies now, but at the time i owned this in VHS format, and somehow stumble on it in my attic - this is the only reason i'm writing this now to inform you - don't watch it, don't waste your time on it.

Overall, there isn't really anything to say about this very poor "Die Hard" rip-off. You definitely have seen this movie without seeing it many times in much, much better movies. Just a poor flick.

Linden Ashby stars as a janitor (Okay this was done in Virtual Assassin and Nightsiege:Project Shadowchaser II, Enough with the kung fu janitors who used to be secret service agents or something!) who is an ex-secret service agent who protects the swim-team from terrorists looking to nuke the U.S (What terrorists aren't?) and of course our hero wades through the disposable terrorists with the help of a wheelchair bound Rutger Hauer. The cast alone shows promise; Linden Ashby, Rutger Hauer, Thom Mathews and Andrew Divoff. However their efforts are in vain as Pyun never figures out how to use them effectively. Mathews in particular is a good martial artist, so why not have him as one of the henchman, ensuring us a fight sequence between Mathews and Ashby. I mean it would be better then seeing him like a prissy swim coach. Blast however makes the worst mistake of being just plain tedious. Aside from the ridiculous finale that sees Rutger Hauer as a sword wielding paraplegic, Blast is the worst type of B.movie a brainless bore with no redeeming value. Still, Rutger Hauer's presence saves this from my lowest rating possible.

* out of 4-(Bad)

(1) hire out your local family swimming baths for the day

(2) hire a bunch of pretend weapons, some balaclavas, and a bank of CCTV monitors

(3) get 30 random people off the street and divide them into 3 groups. Tell one group they'll be the terrorists, one group they'll be the swimmers/victims, and one group they'll be the cops.

(4) randomly walk among the groups and film them doing whatever they want for a couple of hours, then edit the footage down to about 90 mins

(5) find Rutger Hauer, put him in a small dark room and film him mumbling to himself for a while. Add that to the footage you got in step (4)

(6) get some generic 'important' sounding backing music with plenty of orchestral creschendos and marching drums, and play it non-stop over the whole thing.

et voila, your very own Blast. Enjoy!

There isn't much to be said about this movie. Certainly nothing to add after all these comments. I wouldn't even consider bothering unless I've found a strange bonus.

That bonus is music score. This movie caught me as background curtain while writing some data on my machine. Momentarily I've detected excellent score from Anthony Riparetti.

Never even heard about this composer. Indeed movie offers nothing unseen in this genre. But Riparetti done his homework. And homework made with great aplomb. From the first sequence to the end, he follows, communicates and captures visual essence with superb dynamic of his music. It compliments every scene. No, he doesn't offer profiled theme like Mancina offered in Speed. But, it clearly shows that he is one capable composer, at least for this genre - for this be the first score I've ever heard from him.

In fact, I was sure there has to be some score/soundtrack available from this movie. Alas, no such luck. Low profile movie and it would be miracle to actually generate even one single available track.

Anyway, if you would like to learn how to superbly dosage electronic music in any action movie, this is the movie for you. Forget the story, ego-trips that such genre generates all the time. For sake of music, do watch it, you wont be disappointed in this department. Guaranteed!

It is a great irony for such prosaic movie to own such a fantastic score. This score would superbly compliment some A class action movie. But, life supplies such ironies all the time I'm afraid.