Crackerjack

As blatant a Die Hard clone as one could envision, Crackerjack follows police officer Jack Wild (Thomas Ian Griffith) as he arrives at a remote mountain resort for some rest and relaxation – with the loose-cannon-cop’s vacation cut short after a group of armed terrorists, led by Christopher Plummer’s Ivan Getz, storm the isolated building and immediately take the various revelers hostage. It’s an inherently entertaining setup that’s employed to pervasively underwhelming effect by director Michael Mazo, as the filmmaker, working from a script by Michael Bafaro and Jonas Quastel, has infused the movie with an almost relentlessly low-rent feel that’s exacerbated by a variety of elements – including the amateurish performances, artificial-sounding dialogue, and laughable special effects work. The inept atmosphere ensures that one is simply never able to able to work up any interest in the protagonist’s ongoing efforts, with Griffith’s energetic yet far-from-charismatic performance standing in sharp contrast to Plummer’s impressively smarmy turn as the film’s megalomaniacal villain. And although the movie does boast a couple of admittedly decent hand-to-hand fights, Crackerjack is, by and large, devoid of precisely the sort of engaging action sequences that would’ve made it far easier to overlook its myriad of deficiencies – which ultimately ensures that the film is unable to become the guilty pleasure Mazo has clearly intended.

*1/2 out of ****