Movie

Crackerjack 2 (1997)

Sequels often feature better female villains than the original, and that’s the case here. Crackerjack (1994) was basically Die Hard at a mountain ski resort, with Christopher Plummer doing a rather meek Hans Gruber impression as German baddie Ivan Getz. The villain and his trigger-happy mercenaries occupy an entire mountain just to get their hands on a repentant mob boss’ diamonds. Surely there’s an easier approach to getting rich.

The B-grade action movie is a complete rip-off of the 1988 classic and doesn’t pretend otherwise. Jack Wild is a lone cop with family members among the hostages, and Getz shows no concern for human life, whether it be civilians or his own men. Sole female villain Alex (Dorothy Fehr) acts tough, crushes a nut and shoots some innocent guy, but her involvement is standing around while Getz does the talking. In the end, Alex gets a “blink and miss it” death when she’s blown away without so much as a one-liner.

Thankfully, the villainess in Crackerjack 2 is far superior. The film has a trashy, cookie-cutter plot, but at least there’s something going for it. While the second film appears to be a train-set Die Hard clone (it was titled Hostage Train in the US), the action mostly takes place in a sealed-off tunnel. Convenient when you need nondescript concrete rooms to hide a low budget.

Thomas Ian Griffith must have been unavailable for the sequel as the main character is now played by Judge Reinhold. If you’re wondering who that is, he was Eddie Murphy’s sidekick in the Beverly Hills Cop films. One assumes B-movie action regulars turned the producers down, though Reinhold is passable in all fairness.

The setup is by the numbers. The terrorist Hans Becker (Karel Roden) murdered Wild’s wife, and now plans to extort investors on the same train as Wild’s fiancée Dana Townsend. She’s played by Carol Alt – a former swimsuit model – so expect scantily clad scenes to keep the viewer’s attention until the action kicks in. Once it does, it’s revealed that Becker is not the main villain. That would be Michael Sarazzin as some guy called Smith (probably an alias, but never confirmed), who poses as an innocent passenger but abandons the ruse so soon it’s pointless.

This is a generic cut-and-paste affair. Villains are way ahead of the incompetent authorities, and only Jack Wild can save the day. Special forces attempt an airborne assault only to get blown up along with a decoy train. The baddies have an escape plan, which involves killing the hostages. For comic relief, there’s a model train enthusiast who exists solely to provide information. Just like the first Crackerjack, the plot reads like a Die Hard ripoff checklist, and without Jasmine, the movie would be unbearable.

Villainess

Jasmine (Katerina Brozova)

The prologue is the expected loud action sequence that introduces the feud between Wild and Becker, and also an incompetent boss who arrests the hero for obstruction of justice. Jasmine is absent for this, but shows up for the aftermath at the villain’s hideout. The villainess claims a captured businessman was “no fun” moments before she garrotes him live on camera. The kill happens off screen, but this is already an improvement on the first Crackerjack film.

It’s a little while before Wild discovers the hideout and the man’s body (he was busy having sex with Dana and fighting off Becker’s thugs). Turns out the dead guy was supposed to meet Dana on a train, except Becker takes his place and mails the snuff video to the authorities with a fake ransom demand. Wild – with the help of a helicopter pilot friend – gets on board and ends up trapped in the tunnel system with terrified hostages and terrorists. Does any of this sound familiar?

With her introduction over, Jasmine helps Smith interrogate the investor prisoners. She’s one sadistic henchwoman who likes to pull out teeth with pliers. Plural, because Jasmine takes a tooth from the wrong side and is overjoyed at doing the whole thing again. Perhaps the investor should have taken the hint and provided his bank account details. This guy isn’t smart, however. Not only does he insult his wife when she’s threatened by Smith, but also threatens Jasmine after she drags him back to the cell. Does this idiot realise the villains don’t need him anymore? A point the henchwoman is happy to clarify by shooting him in the back.

The next investor in the hot seat is reluctant to give up his details too. Jasmine’s persuasion method this time is sexually assaulting the man’s wife / girlfriend. The hostage squirms uncomfortably as Jasmine squeezes her legs, and eventually the investor caves in. Pity for the villain’s tech guy, Krill – he was enjoying it.

Meanwhile, Wild finds his way into the hostage room, but nobody wants to escape. Perhaps they’d rather be tortured by Jasmine? Once Wild has annoyed Becker and taken out a few of his thugs, it’s high time the two met. Wild sneaks up on Becker and has him at gunpoint. Does he shoot the man who murdered his wife? Of course not! Otherwise, the hero couldn’t be captured and have a bomb taped to his chest.

Smith and Jasmine consider Becker and his thugs expendable, so they speed up the countdown and flood the tunnels with water from a reservoir. Just so Wild can obtain the disc with the investors’ financial data, Krill is sent with one man for protection. The bodyguard goes down after one punch, and the techie puts up little resistance. Smith isn’t too happy with Krill’s failure, so Jasmine gets a second strangulation kill. She clearly gets all excited and sexually aroused, but the camera cuts away to shots of Wild struggling to escape. Another mostly off-screen murder, then.

After Jasmine takes Dana hostage to trade for the disk, the others decide it’s a good time to leave. The final confrontation takes place in a shaft. Jasmine mouths off to Wild, but then it’s her turn to get shot in the back. Smith really doesn’t believe in sharing his ill-got gains.

The villainess’ death is a disappointing end to what came before. Don’t get hopes up for a good climax. Smith gets tossed down the shaft by Dana, who finally uses the self-defence training foreshadowed earlier. And the heroes survive an explosion with little more than blackened faces.

Honourable Mention: Prominent Henchwomen

Rush Hour 2 (2001) – Hu Li (Zhang Ziyi)

This action-comedy sequel pitted detective duo Lee and Carter (Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker) against Chinese triads in Hong Kong, though they were causing chaos in America by the end. Asian martial arts actors often get cast as villains in Hollywood productions, and Zhang Ziyi – of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame – plays the enforcer to chief baddie Ricky Tan (John Lone).

Events play out with no major surprises. A female customs agent (Roselyn Sanchez) with questionable loyalty undresses while the cops stake out her Los Angeles apartment. Hu Li shoots Tan on his yacht and apparently kills him, but the old staged assassination ploy won’t fool seasoned viewers. Why would they bother with a backstory about Tan and Lee’s former partner?

Hu Li doesn’t get any direct kills, despite having a fair chunk of screen time. Her major acts of villainy are setting off bombs in buildings, acting cold and mean, and knocking out the two heroes with high kicks. She also skewers an apple with a throwing knife, if you count that. All the encounters – mostly between Hu Li and Carter – finish with effortless victories for the villainess.

The main action set piece – where Hu Li finally does some serious fighting – is set in a Los Vegas casino. The villainess tapes a grenade in Lee’s mouth while gloatingly holding a detonator, which leads to an inventive brawl with the hero desperately trying to remove the explosive. With Carter’s help, Lee survives this messy situation and goes after the big boss while his partner takes on Hu Li. The fight is played for laughs, but Carter holds his own (mostly by accident) against a much more skilled opponent. Somehow the loud-mouthed cop wins, and Hu Li ends up impaled on a decorative spear.

If that “demise” was disappointing, then get ready for worse. Hu Li survives her injury to show up at the villain’s penthouse holding a bomb. Why would an icy, composed woman suddenly become hysterical and suicidal? A stupid plot device to add in a gigantic explosion and one final stunt sequence.