Stone Cold

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Getting this movie turned out to be a pain in the ass. I heard it favorably compared to Roadhouse as a ridiculous, over the top action movie that maybe delves into some self-parody. I put it to the top of my Netflix queue long ago. Netflix indicated that it would be available immediately. Only, instead of being shipped it would sit atop my queue and not go anywhere, delaying the shipments of the movies below it. After a few days, it would suddenly say "Long Wait" or "Very Long Wait." So I would move it down my queue until the wait went away, at which point I would move it back to the top, and the same thing would happen. Finally, after I don't know how many months of this, it actually shipped. I eagerly ripped open the Netflix envelope and pulled out the DVD... only to find that they had accidentally sent some movie with Tom Selleck that was also called Stone Cold.

So for a few months, I gave up. Finally, I decided to risk it again, and this time Netflix actually sent it.

Was it worth the wait? Yeah, but it's no classic. It actually reminded me a bit of Stallone's Cobra (dangerous gang of lunatics trying to assassinate people, rebel cop who is introduced foiling a grocery store robbery), only it succeeds in every way that movie fails. It's good fun, but more along the lines of Commando where there's a lot of great stuff, but it slows down too much in the middle and you get impatient waiting for the awesome shit to start up again. It just doesn't reach the transcendent brilliance of Roadhouse.

Still, I'd totally pick up a cheap copy of it and proudly display it on my shelf next to Knock Off and Commando and hypothetically Double Team if I ever find a copy.