The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

When a team of terrorists take over a water filtration plant and start holding hostages from a tour group, only one man can stop the madness: police detective David Chase (Fahey, not the guy who created The Sopranos playing himself). He has to go up against not just the main hostage taker, the unbalanced Montessi (Coates), and his team of underlings with wacky code names such as Sparky (Dwyer) and Pogo (Potts), but the TRUE mastermind of it all, the sinister Turner (Busey). Luckily, Chase has a few tricks up his sleeve to deal with the baddies before they contaminate the water supply (he only has about four hours or so), and he has teamed up with Melissa (Moss), a plant worker, to save the day.It's Die Hard (1988) in a water filtration plant (I just filled in the blank from our Crackerjack, 1994 review). Off the bat, we know this is going to be an odd one. Starting with, believe it or not, some close-ups of Gary Busey's teeth as he talks to no one in particular, with some pounding music behind it, very soon we see something we know isn't good: nefarious-looking men in overcoats and sunglasses walking in slow motion. Those have to be the bad guys. Kim Coates puts in a noteworthy performance as Montessi. He must have known he was doing the role many people have done before, so he tried to change it up. He has all these little jokes, strange vocal inflections and tics to try to put a spin on the "hostage taker" part. He does wave his gun around a lot, but he at least tried to do it differently, which is a good thing.Jeff Fahey has a cool jacket and cool hair, and generally just seems "too cool" for the supposedly urgent situation. We always like seeing him. Carrie-Anne Moss is on hand as the romantic interest/sidekick, and we don't normally see her in DTV product such as this, so that was a nice change as well. Gary Busey is his normal, unhinged self, and from the bad guy team, Karen Dwyer as Sparky stands out from the crowd.However, this came out in 1997, meaning the influence of Quentin Tarantino must have proved too hard to resist for the filmmakers. For no apparent reason, instead of action scenes or plot points, characters just start talking about The Jeffersons and Good Times. That now seems somewhat embarrassing, and unnecessary. We don't want pop culture references, especially apropos of nothing. We'd rather hear Jeff Fahey try to woo women talking about his brie omelets. (Don't forget, we've already seen teams of men walking in slow motion that have code names...but I'm sure Reservoir Dogs, 1992 never played into the equation here).For a goofier-than-usual, shot-in-Canada DTV product, Lethal Tender (gotta love that title) is actually pretty entertaining.For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

Its suppose To be Under Siege in a Water Plant.. But it ain't... Its a really Woeful action Movie and thats what i love about it... (Kim Coates) is given the freedom of the entire movie to act like a complete dick. but he does a good job ..and he's made a fan outta me. He leads a team of incredibly dumb terrorists into a waterplant and will pollute the water unless blah de blah blah.... Cue (Jeff Fahey) the Worst Hero ever...Jeff spends most of this movie talking about his brie omelette's and generally Hiding behind (Carrie Ann Moss )..Yes Folks John McClaine he Certainly ain't .. He Kills 1 Terrorist ( a female one at that) .. and he shoots her in the back !! (Gary Busey) Pops up as the Brains behind the Terrorism...Then he Gets greedy and starts Killing his own men...Which is a good job , becoz i don't Think Fahey was up for it... Fans of Busey will Enjoy his moments on screen.... Yeah its a Dodgy piece of Junk .....But it gets my seal of approval Busey & Coates keep it entertaining and although the Action is "Z list" standard the Unintentional comedy element is Top Notch 10 outta 10 for this Bad Boy

This movie had the characteristics of a B-movie, but had a very good plot. Jeff Fahey put on a very good role & the bad guy had a big ego. The fact that I didn't fall a sleep watching this movie after a hard days work, proofs it's not that bad at all & it's really worth watching.

This film was pretty typical. It had its good moments, and it had its bad ones. Jeff Fahey was the biggest negative; a flat and wooden actor, he did nothing to help the movie. He was the stereotypical cop, cheeze-filled and all bravado, but he lacks the charm to pull it off. Too many great actors have done it better.Kim Coates was impressive, he reminded me a lot of Gary Olman in The Professional (though not as good). He brought most of the character into the film, though his band of cronies were all quite amusing.The dialogue was rather amusing, probably the best part of the film. Except for the occasional mandatory cheeze line typical of all second rate action films, the dialogue kept the movie rolling along smoothly.Carrie-Anne Moss was hardly a standout. Compared to some of her other roles, this one was just plain horrid. Her fight scene with Karen Dwyer (who was quite cool) was so horribly fake. And Karen Dwyer's character (Sparky) *should* have kicked her ass, instead of some lame ecuse about being able to fight due to five older brothers in a one-bathroom house (blah-blah-blah)Gary Busey was his wonderfully psychotic self; this could have been his most amusing role since Lethal Weapon, but his character was under-developed. In fact, most of the characters were under-developed; characterization was a real weak point.As well, the film was *just* too long. The final scene was pushing it, and was also anti-climactic after a fairly strong buildup (it just kept going and going and...) As well, this pushes the ‘bad guy keeps the good guys alive then decides to kill them using a more painful and easy-to-escape choice of death' boundary pretty far. After Fahey and Moss escape the first time, never mind the three to four times afterwards, any self-respecting baddie (*especially* Coates' character who liked using his gun) would've just put a bullet in their heads.Overall: Fast-paced, fun action. Often unbelievable, but hey, it's a cheezy low-budget action film, who cares? Fun to watch; I'd recommend this on an ‘all the good films are out' night. 5/10.