Created by Nick Ball and John Niven
“No, you can’t play the African fruitbat card!”
In the 2011 cinematic cheesefest, Cat Run, failed chef ANTHONY HESTER and his best bud, perpetually horny party boy JULIAN SIMMS, decide to open up a detective agency in Montenegro, because of course with a background like that, what else would a couple of ex-pat doofuses do?
But the two twenty-something private eyes are seriously over their heads when they set out to protect a sexy, high-end call girl who’s a key witness to a scandal involving a U.S. senator.
Shot in Serbia with more put-the-butts-in-the-seats cynicism than any particular skill or understanding of the genre, this is essentially a misguided comedy dressed up with lots of stuff blowing up, torture and mutilation scenes, wisecracks, bare breasts, nipples and male bonding — more bargain basement Beverly Hills Cop with an Euro-trash twist than Chinatown. It’s so inept that it makes me wonder if the film wasn’t part of some money-laundering scheme.
The two leads are suitably bumbling here (I’d invoke The Hardy Boys here, but Frank and Joe actually knew what they were doing). It also stars Janet McTeer (doing her best Helen Mirren impersonation, as a ruthless assassin), D.L. Hughley (as the boys’ legless assistant) and a lot of people you almost recognize.
Although given how tacky, juvenile and downright peurile this film is, they probably hope you don’t.
And it’s probably telling that McTeer and Hughley, the only recognizable names in the first film, were noticably absent in the sequel, the cleverly titled Cat Run 2. Fans of the original (were there any?) can rejoice, however — Scott Mechlowicz and Alphonso McAuley are back in the leads, and this time they’re back stateside, with Anthony now running a restaurant in Brooklyn and Julian still chasing anything with a vulva when they’re not running their “detective” agency.
The plot? Some nonsense about biologically enhanced killer strippers out to steal military secrets.
Yes, I said biologically enhanced killer strippers.
Need I say more?
FILMS
- CAT RUN |Â Buy this DVD |Â Buy the Blu-Ray |Â Watch it now!
(2011, Lleju Productions)
Original screenplay by Nick Ball and John Niven
Premiere: April 1, 2011
Directed by John Stockwell
Starring Scott Mechlowicz as ANTHONY HESTER
and Alphonso McAuley as JULIAN SIMMS
Also starring Janet McTeer, D.L. Hughley, Paz Vega, Christopher McDonald, Tony Curran, Karel Roden, Michelle Lombardo, Branko Djuric - CAT RUN 2 |Â Buy this DVD |Â Buy the Blu-Ray |Â Watch it now!
(2014, Lleju Productions)
Original screenplay by Andrew Manson and Matt Manson
Premiere: April 1, 2011
Directed by John Stockwell
Starring Scott Mechlowicz as ANTHONY HESTER
and Alphonso McAuley as JULIAN SIMMS
Also starring Winter Ave Zoli, Vanessa Branch, Leonardo Nam, Kamille Leai, Maria Rogers, Lawrence P. Beron, Thomas Tah Hyde III, David Maldonado, Gregory Alan Williams, Peter Malek, Luke Sexton, Preston James Hillier, Dan Bilzerian, Paul S. Ryden, Tim Bell, Quinn Early, Miles Doleac,Crosby Blackwood
