Black Friday (2001)

Pretty Good

hyped garbage

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

The brief alliance between action star Gary Daniels and director Darren Doane resulted in two movies, only one of which got a DVD release. Surprisingly, it was not the conventional, star-studded ULTIMATE TARGET but this oddball experiment wherein the only recognizable name is Daniels himself. BLACK Friday is among the strangest of starring flicks the British Danger Man has in his filmography, and it's far from his best. I'm not sure if I'd declare it one of his worst, but it's definitely not for everyone.The story: When the home of a black ops agent-turned-lawyer (Daniels) is taken over by entities in possession of a devastating weapon, he must break past the government security to rescue his family.Director Doane has not made an action movie, here – he's made an artistic thriller. This rough-around-the-edges adventure carries just enough fighting and shooting to earn the label, but rather than pumping adrenaline, its objective is to see how long it can stretch your attention before getting to its eventual twist. While this twist is pretty decent, it's not worth the wait. The film regularly takes three times as long as conventional movies to depict almost any event – whether it's an investigation scene, an assassination, or a character walking down the hallway – and there are many times when the fast-forward button was my best friend. The feature mixes stark (read: cheap) scenery with a schizophrenic soundtrack to create an uneasy mood that I never got used to, ensuring that I never connected with the story.The DVD cover features Gary holding a sword that's nowhere to be seen in the movie. Beyond this, the sparse action in the film is less disappointing than it is odd. Daniels' initial bout with action coordinator Tsuyoshi Abe is fairly conventional, if longer than the average brawl and paced differently. The showdown with villain Ryan Kos runs even longer – it's at least three minutes long – and is pretty weird for Kos' reliance on an obvious double and an odd sequence wherein the two fighters are suddenly scrapping against a black background. The art show never ends with this movie, even when it comes to something as basic as punching and kicking.For reasons I can't explain, I went into this movie with fairly high hopes. Maybe someone who approaches it with more even expectations will have a better time, but I am pretty disappointed at having wasted mine. This is not a movie for Gary Daniels fans – it's not even for general action lovers. Should this one fall into your hands, treat it as the experiment it was meant to be.

You know, I always feel really sorry for Gary Daniels for not making it bigger than he has. OK, so he isn't exactly a great thespian by any stretch of the imagination but in terms of martial art skills, our Gaz is without doubt, one of the very best the West has to offer. How sad then that he has invariably found himself landed in some rather mundane affairs at best. I also find it doubly sad to compare the wonderful production values of something along the lines of the criminally underrated, Fist Of The North Star to the vast majority of his subsequent efforts. Such is the case of the film reviewed here for instance, which if the truth be told, more closely resembles a student film in terms of production quality. Shot on cheap video stock, this somewhat bland effort meanders along pretty aimlessly, effectively completely wasting Gary's talents with even the fight scenes themselves hardly ticking the boxes.I'll give it credit for a nice twist at about the hour mark but even this can hardly compensate for the decidedly lacklustre direction and excessive 'talkiness' that so permeates proceedings.For fellow Daniels' fans it's probably worth a peek but just don't get your hopes up as this will likely leave you sorely disappointed. A real shame.

Holy macaroni! What a waste. Gary does perhaps 10 seconds of watchable martial arts in this entire movie, so if your're a fan, there is nothing to hesitate about, buy it :)For all you non-fans, stay away, movies like this gives you the inspiration to crash your apartment..Picture quality: Terrible Sound quality: Terrible Acting: Terrible Effects: Terrible Story: Terrible Fight scenes: Terrible Gary: Wonderful, as always.0 out of 10

This film is probly the worst Gary Daniels film to date, although i have seen only the ones his fans seem to love most, u know the 5 pointers and so on. As this is the case i will advise anyone who sees this to instantly turn the box over so no-one else can see the attractive cover which is made up of pictures from his different films, and make the mistake of renting it. Firstly the plot was poor, action was bad, the dialogue was really,really slow and when i thought the movie had finished, after a black screen came up for something like 30 seconds or so,it came back on for another 5 mins which was really wierd. Ther is only two marshall arts fights in this film, the near beginning fight which is real good and the end fight which is real bad. so the odds are u'll despise this film and never watch another Gary Daniels Film again, but my advice is to keep hoping he'll get a new agent or somthing, star in a jet li blockbuster and make us brits proud.