Sudden Death

The descriptions of writer / director Sig Shore's harsh, exploitative revenge outing "Sudden Death" being the female version of "Death Wish" and especially "Death Wish 2" is pretty accurate, but in the way it doesn't make it any better. I was somewhat disappointed in this one. I didn't find it to be all that powerful and edgy in conveying the character's torment and the attack scenes less effective because of the protagonist's careless actions of the situations she puts herself into and its choice of music throughout was off putting. Other than the first demoralizing opening attack on the protagonist that transforms her, the rest (involving our victim searching for payback on her attackers, but stumbling across other thugs) felt silly and made the sequences rather cheesy in the execution. Especially the use of slow-motion, but definitely the tacky soundtrack choices. The exercise at times feels unwieldy, but what is has going for it is the use of actual New York locations giving the dreary atmosphere some dirt and grit. It's a grungy look that works. However its grim nature seems to lose out when its came down to the final chase sequence that falls into a generic climatic action cliff-hanger. The performances are one-note. Denise Coward holds her own, but I didn't find her character to be all that well written and there was real disconnect there. The predictable plot is very run-of- the-mill and the unconvincing cop (A brooding Frank Runyeon)/ victim relationship felt like nothing more than filler to the overall picture. It's somewhat unfocused, but it didn't pretend to be anything else then what it set out to be and nor did it shy away from its ugly side.