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QUESTION: How does a film merit two different titles like "The Librarians" and "Strike Force"?

ANSWER: The film is sooooooooo bad that the filmmakers couldn't even decide on a title!!!!

This film is a hodgepodge of martial arts, death wish-vendettas, melodrama, romance, and other cliché film techniques. The story focuses on a vigilante group called The Librarians led by Agent Simon (WIlliam Forsythe). The group is hot in pursuit of a nefarious, multi-lingual, pockmarked creature named Marcos (Andrew Divoff) who captures women and holds them hostage in the lawless urban world of south Florida.

Burt Reynolds appears as a cameo in this film, and his scene is entirely extraneous to the action. Burt delivers a long monologue in one of the strangest drawls I have ever heard. This may have been Burt's attempt at an Irish dialect, but the overall effect is a kind of perverse imitation of Marlon Brando in "The Godfather."

Also appearing in this film is Erika Eleniak, who has infiltrated the inner circle of Marcos' bizarre world. Erika's character kick-boxes her way into an alliance with Simon. The Librarians and Erika will become a powerful strike force against evil in a film that has been delivered directly from the editing room to your cable TV converter box.

I'm not going to bother mentioning any of the plot - this is strictly a B movie on its way to obscurity. The shock to me, though, is seeing what has become of some of the actors in this film. Erika Eleniak, never anything you'd call a thespian anyway, seems to have morphed into Anna Nicole Smith (in her Big period). Daniel Bernhardt - I almost shed a tear. He's always been a favorite of mine because of his martial arts prowess, as seen in the Bloodsport series (also B movies but, if you like martial arts, eminently watchable). Here, he is a shell of his former self - sure, he's older, but doing the mercenary thing and not even looking interested ... I just don't get it. Don't these people invest? William Forsythe is another "heavy" that I've always liked, but his last several roles are what you would call "mailing it in". I'm not going to even mention Mr. Reynolds - his gig here amounts to a throwaway, nothing more. The only winner is Andrew Divoff, as usual a creepy, evil, pockmarked villain with a sandpaper voice that can curdle milk - the best kind! This is a movie you watch for laughs. There's nothing else to it.

Boy, this one was quite a chore to sit through. The first and second act move at a snail's pace with drawn-out dialogue / exposition scenes that really don't add up or go anywhere. The camera work is boring, being shot in the typical bland, "flat" look of 90's action films. Only this was made in 2003, so there's little excuse for that. And Burt Reynolds' bizarrely random cameo only added to the incoherence.

Daniel Bernhardt is always awesome, though he's not in the movie much. He does have a cage fight with Matthias Hues at one point, but it's done pretty poorly so there's nothing much to see.

However, the climax is fairly well done for this budget and genre and definitely helped save it from being a complete waste of time.

William Forsythe and his team of mercenaries call themselves The Librarians because their hair remains perfect while they run around being shot at by people firing machine guns. I suppose. They have just lost one of their small number rescuing a small girl and are commiserating with the satchel of money they got, when old friend Michael Parks reaches out to them. His grand daughter has been kidnapped by Nazi drug dealer Andrew Divoff, and he's not a nice Nazi drug dealer. He's from Argentina! They have to go to Miami, talk to Burt Reynolds and engage in mixed martial arts fights, because that's how you do it, apparently.

Forsythe not only stars in this, he helped write it. Co-writer and director Mike Kirton also includes lots of shots of young people dancing in very crowded discos, because why not?

"Strike Force" AKA "The Librarians" is strictly routine B-movie action fare about a team of mercenaries who are trying to locate a kidnapped girl (the granddaughter of the team leader's best friend) and bring down a powerful and sadistic crime boss operating in Miami. The locations are well-shot and the action scenes get as crazy as the budget will allow, however the good guys are just too outnumbered for the outcome to have much believability, and the fight choreography is nothing to write home about. Andrew Divoff makes a convincingly slimy and hateful villain, while Erika Eleniak is a knockout in more ways than one (I don't want to spoil her best scene, but it involves a barrel full of water). Nice to see Matthias Hues again - but is it just me or did they cut out his final scene? And why is Burt Reynolds - even if he appears in only 1 scene - not credited in either the opening or the closing credits? He shouldn't be ashamed of his involvement - he has appeared in worse films than this! (**)