Silent Assassins

I enjoy the occasional crappy 80s action film, and with its cheesy cover depicting a pistol-packing Linda Blair scowling alongside washed-up Flash Gordon star Sam Jones, Silent Assassins piqued my interest enough for me to cough up a couple of quid for it on eBay. Unsurprisingly, this low-budget action flick, from directors Lee Doo Yong and Scott Thomas, proved to be almost as bad as I expected it to be, and, as a result, it was reasonably entertaining stuff.

Jones plays gum-chewing super-cop Sam Kettle; Blair is his long suffering girlfriend Sarah, who wants her man to give up his dangerous job. After a brush with death whilst chasing CIA-agent-turned-bad Kendrick (Gustav Vintas), Sam finally agrees to hang up his gun. However, when Dr. London, a top biochemist, is kidnapped by Kendrick (along with an innocent five year old girl), Sam is reluctantly drawn back into service.

Assisted by the girl's uncle Jun Kim (Jun Chong), Sam attempts to track down his evil nemesis before Dr. London is forced into revealing the details of a secret germ warfare formula that could result in the death of millions.

Firstly, it must be mentioned that, although the cover of the DVD suggests that Linda Blair's character is every bit as tough as her man, this is just not true, and fans of the actress hoping to see her kick ass will most likely be disappointed. Blair spends most of the film trying to convince Sam to quit his job, or canoodling with him under a duvet (and we don't even get to see her norks—shame!).

Still, even without Blair taking part in the action, Silent Assassins is just about worth a look (if you enjoy iffy B-movies, that is) thanks to some wonderfully bad acting (Vintas as Kendrick is exceptionally hammy, cackling and whooping with glee as he goes about his evil business), plenty of violent action (there are some surprisingly nasty moments involving axes and samurai swords), some fun martial arts scenes, and a very daft finalé which sees Jones blowing up almost everything in sight with a rocket launcher (that amazingly never requires reloading).