Final Impact – 1992 – Lorenzo Lamas

First of all I need to confess that I have kind of a fetish for Lorenzo Lamas movies.  I can’t say what it is about these films that lure me in but there is something there for sure. Maybe it’s the Martial Arts elements that often are there? I don’t think it’s for his acting abilities at least. Lorenzo Lamas is not a good actor. He can deliver lines of dialog but the characters usually stay pretty wooden. That might not be his fault as the low-budget movies he usually appears in are just that – low-budget. Final Impact isn’t an exception.

That doesn’t necessarily have to mean that the films are badly written or anything. But if they are low-budget, something has to have been cheap. It’s usually the writing, acting, special effects and overall production. In other words, all the elements included in movie making. In the case of Final Impact we have seen everything the story has to offer before. The acting is wooden and mediocre as best. Like the Lorenzo Lamas fetishist that I am I still like it though. He has something after all.

But, as I said, there’s nothing new in this plot. Lorenzo plays a has-been kickboxer fighter that now runs a club. apparently he was once very good and he still have a few fans. One of them seek hm out to get his advise about something and soon Lorenzo Lamas recognizes the skill of the this fan and start to train him for a championship. We soon learn that there’s more to the story. Lorenzo was once the champion but was defeated by a thug. That’s the impression I get anyway, a really stupid thug that does everything his manager tells him. This final match approaches.

All the characters are extremely black or white. If you’re a bad guy, you’re really bad. Bad to the bone and really stupid too. if you are a you ambitious fighter, you are very ambitious and cannot let anything stand in the way. If you’re… Well, you get the idea. Everything is taken out of real life proportions. It becomes a cartoon in that perspective.

Seems easy enough to figure out the end right? Well, think again. I was so fooled by the plot that it wasn’t even funny. Yet, or maybe just because of that, I found it really enjoyable. But then again, I might not be representable for the run of the mill movie audience. I like a lot of cheep stuff.