Movie

Decoy (1995)

Moderate budget action with two name actors – Peter Weller and Robert Patrick – each known for a star-making film franchise and a career’s worth of direct to video roles. Jack Travis (Patrick) is a tough mercenary who survived a bullet to the head thanks to some rich guy named Wellington. The shady benefactor has now called in that debt and wants Travis to babysit his daughter while a billion-dollar business deal goes down.

Naturally, things aren’t what they seem. And the title is a clue for those slow on the uptake. Travis enlists his pal Baxter (Weller), an equally crazy guy who’s into the spiritual meditation thing. The two heroes spend most of the movie trekking in the woods and protecting the young woman. Cue annoyingly dark scenes and blurry action shots of people running past trees. But there’s a lot of action for genre fans to enjoy, with few distractions. Decoy is a movie that doesn’t pretend to be something it’s not.

Travis and Baxter discover the woman they’re guarding isn’t really Wellington’s daughter (big surprise), and the whole charade keeps a business rival occupied. That opposition is an even nastier man called Jenner, who takes things by force and has a personal hit squad – and a leather-clad henchwoman – to deal with such matters.

Villainess

Katya (Charlotte Lewis)

Before she dons more appropriate bad girl attire, the villainess shows up at Wellington’s estate in a sexy evening dress. Guards should never trust a beautiful woman, a mistake the front gate sentry learns the hard way when Katya fires a dart from a wrist-mounted contraption. The clever and rather unique device sadly becomes an ornament, since it’s only used in the prologue.

Katya and her team dispose of Wellington’s thugs with ease and leave a video message that sets the main plot in motion. The villainess is obviously Jenner’s “go-to” woman, since he hires her squad to retrieve the daughter. And the savvy operative uses the “minor complication” of Travis to negotiate a higher price. By now, she has changed into black leather, the standard for any self-respecting henchwoman.

To show how ruthless she is, Katya offs a mole in Wellington’s camp with a high-powered automatic rifle. That weapon is useful for clearing dense forestry, and during the prolonged chase that follows. Katya is a female villain with plenty of screen time who prefers violence to talk, though she makes a few snide comments in a posh English accent. Some of her combat tactics are questionable. She often stands in the open and makes herself an easy target, but the chief henchperson is immune to return fire.

The best scene is where the female mercenary and her crew attack a bus the heroes have commandeered. Plenty of bullets are fired with no notable casualties, which only happens in action movies. Katya mixes up the weapons, tossing grenades in a skirmish and a weighted lasso to capture the decoy daughter. She’s a good match for Baxter and Travis… until the disappointing finale.

After resolving a complex romance / revenge subplot, which ends when Baxter offs Wellington, attention shifts to a nondescript office building. This location provides a lot of glass to shatter once the bullets fly. While Travis deals with a lesser thug, Baxter gets the honour of fighting Katya. Don’t expect too much, because the final encounter is bizarrely shot and rather lame.

The villainess is wearing a weird cloth and strap outfit, which looks plain silly. After a brief tussle, the action switches to first person with shots of Baxter throwing punches and Katya kicking towards her off-screen target. After that broken mess, the hero takes the villainess down with a single blow. A pity, because Katya was headed for a much higher ranking spot.

Honourable Mention: Female Assassins / Mercenaries

Timebomb (1991) – Ms. Blue (Tracy Scoggins)

A solo female mercenary on an otherwise all-male team is a common occurrence. While many roles are token, occasionally a villainess stands out. This action thriller stars Michael Biehn – another Terminator actor turned B-movie star – as Eddie Kay, a watchmaker with mental health issues. Turns out he was part of a military experiment to create assassins with false identities, and his former teammates want to silence him.

The programmed killers have code names based on colours, and Ms Blue is as beautiful and deadly as you would expect. Action scenes with the female assassin are rare, but decently staged when they happen. Her best attack is in a parking garage, where she gets into a knife fight with Eddie. She also shows her sadistic side when confronting the heroes in a hotel room.

Ms Blue’s fate is ambiguous, and she’s absent from the final showdown. But Tracy Scoggins has a great screen presence – even for sections with no dialogue – and so earns an honourable mention.