Brainsmasher: A Love Story (1993)

Although some people would have you think otherwise, 1993’s Brainsmasher: A Love Story is a unique film phenomenon: the career of a b-level celebrity and a c-level director perfectly intersect in their respective primes. Well, actually, for Andrew Dice Clay, his day had come and gone sometime in the late 80s, but 1993 wasn’t too bad a year for him. His cinematic magnum opus, The Adventures of Ford Fontaine, was only a few years behind him, but he was still getting regular work as a stand-up (he had two successful TV specials out the same year as Brainsmasher), and his failed but steadily-promoted TV show “Bless This House” was just a glimmer in a CBS executive’s eye.

As for Albert Pyun, he too had hit his creative peak. The first of many Nemesis movies was still fresh on the mom n’ pop rental store shelves, the uber-redundant sequels were more than a year away from impact, and Knights, Dollman, and, most of all, the infamous Captain America were all recent proud additions to his resume. When two such prime sub-culture icons like Pyun and Clay cross paths, like Venus crossing the path of Mars, what wonders will result? Brainsmasher: A Love Story, that’s what.

You’d think that, since Andrew Dice Clay is the bigger name than Albert Pyun (except maybe in some special circles like…well, mine and Nathan’s), the movie would be made more to fit Andrew Dice Clay’s image than even the director’s quirks. On the contrary, Pyun stuck to his artistic vision and so this is very much a Pyun movie, celebrity comedian or not. There’s plenty of badly choreographed martial arts, a microscopic cast, and lots and lots and lots of dark, poorly lit, urban sets. The only thing missing were cyborgs or androids or whatever Pyun chooses to call them this week, but I’m sure he slipped one in there when I was on a bathroom break and…er, forgot to hit the pause button on my VCR.

We do get to see plenty of Andrew Dice Clay in the character he plays, Ed Molloy, a nightclub bouncer nicknamed the ‘Brainsmasher’ because he’s good at his job (apparently there are subtle levels to the art of bouncing). At first he’s our protagonist and our narrator, but about fifteen minutes in Pyun gets bored with that idea and drops it, so in the long run he’s just our protagonist. While just working an average night, a beautiful woman Samantha Crain (Teri Hatcher) slips past him. Samantha, a supermodel, is on the run from a killer sect of ‘Red Lotus’ Shaolin monks. See, Samantha’s sister, Cammy, is a world renowned botanist who discovered a 2,000-year old flower that’s supposed to bestow the power to reshape reality to anyone that eats its petals, something the monks’ leader, Wu (yes, I know, original…), wants desperately. Cammy hoped to load the rose off to Samantha, but Wu intervenes. Cammy gets away with the flower after asking Samantha to meet her at a church the next day, but, because the monks figure that a supermodel will be much easier to capture (seriously, it’s a plot point) and they could trade her in for the flower with her sister, the monks pursue her. Hence she rushes into Ed Malloy’s life. Naturally they detest each other at first, go into an uneasy friendship, leave each other, come back together, and fall in love, all while being pursued by these seemingly invincible monks.

And, yes, even though the choreography is kind of bad, the monks are unbeatable: they can kill anyone with only a few blows (except our hero and heroine, naturally), catch bullets with their fingers (except when, you know, it’s not convenient for the plot), and massacre an entire club (this was actually much appreciated to this viewer, as they also kill a crappy band displaced from the 80s that’s been performing throughout the nightclub scenes). All these invincible warriors pursuing an experienced fighter and a helpless (until halfway through the film) woman through dark city streets call to mind a certain sci-fi/action classic starring the current governor of California and, hey, there’s even a scene where an entire police precinct gets attacked, but I’m sure it’s all just a coincidence.

Anyway, even with a guy who made his career in the stand-up circuit in it, the jokes are tired and predictable (hey, Pyun, not Clay, wrote the script), but they’re mostly delivered with the expectation that they’ll get a chuckle, and that makes all the difference See, like b-movies in general, bad jokes can be somewhat amusing if they at least have a sincere delivery. There a couple of gags that work – the appearance of Liz Sheridan (best known as Jerry Seinfeld’s mom in “Seinfeld”) as Ed’s irate mother, for one, and the monks' confrontation with a 300-pound female pro-wrestler. Unfortunately, for every gag that at least bemuses, there are ten that don’t. Wu and his gang are constantly frustrated by the fact that Samantha refers to them as ninjas. Frustrated by this, Wu cries out, “We’re not ninjas!” It’s a little funny the first three times, but after twenty variations it starts to wear thin (it also feels like Pyun is making fun of his own tendency to confuse cyborgs with androids and vice versa). Something else that raises this film above Pyun’s standard fare is the cast. Say what you will about Andrew Dice Clay, but he is a genuinely decent actor with a developed sense of comedic timing. Although the swagger and street tough attitude of his on-stage persona are on display here, Ed Malone isn’t just a showcase for Clay’s act and Clay ends up giving the character a little more depth and sincerety than the script deserved. Teri Hatcher’s performance isn’t too remarkable for better or for worse, but she does well with what she has. Yuji Okumoto seems to be having fun, but the script muddles up his role and he can’t seem to decide if he’s a slapstick caricature or an authentic villain. The real treat comes from Deborah Van Valkenburgh, Cammy, who is sorely underused here. Although her character is rendered inconsistent by Pyun’s script, she doesn’t entirely phone in her part and, in fact, gives a few good moments as an Indiana Jones-esque heroine.

As for Pyun, the usual ‘flaws’ are there. I mentioned that he doesn’t get the character down pat for Cammy or the villains – the latter especially tilt awkwardly from comic straight men to credible threats. The ending raises plenty of questions, like how is Cammy able to ward off the monks with bullets if they were established to have been impervious to them? I mean, Wu does manage to catch a few, but she’s able to take two of them out with gunfire before that. Why did Pyun just suddenly drop the narration from Ed, especially since Ed talking was how the entire movie was set up? Why did Cammy endanger Ed and Samantha’s life if she knew the flower she gave Wu was a phony all along? For that matter, why didn’t she eat the damn flower herself and zap Wu’s ass? If she does think the flower’s too dangerous for anyone, even her, to have, why does she think it will be safe in a museum? As you can see, we have the usual Pyun approach to plotting, but, in the end, this actually isn’t too bad a film. At least, it stands above Pyun’s other ‘classics’, like Captain American and Nemesis 3: Prey Harder.

Choice Quotes

"I don't want to be a martial arts thug forever. I have ambitions!"
-Wu

Want more Pyun? Then go see the horrors he has wreaked on my fellow Fusioneers over here.