Overrun
Low-budget, often goofy but kinda fun, "Overrun" gives a spotlight to a very atypical action movie star.
At first, I didn’t know what to make of “Overrun.” It’s an action movie filled with lots of shooting, explosions and martial arts, and for the first 20 minutes or so the movie seems dreadfully self-serious. Like something Chuck Norris or Jean-Claude Van Damme would’ve made in the ‘80s.
This didn’t really work for me, as the film looks like it was shot for about 16 bucks and contains a lot of amateurish, hammy acting and cheap-looking special effects. I was surprised to learn that director Josh Tessier is another one in this newish trend of longtime stunt coordinators making the transition behind the camera, because I was just thinking to myself that the stunts and fights aren’t very good.
Then there’s leading man Omid Zader, who’s a very atypical action star. Let’s start with the fact his character is Marcus Lombardi, and the Persian-American actor looks about as Italian as a pizza from McDonald’s. His character is a former military extraction expert now sunk to working for local mobsters, and has to suffer through various set-ups and double crosses.
And there’s the issue of his physique, which is… well, less impressive than we’re used to seeing in action actors. With an ample midsection and double chin, Zader looks more like a guy who spends hours on the couch pounding hoagies then at the gym honing his body. As a result, his various tumbles and stunts have a slo-mo awkwardness to it, like a rhinoceros attempting ballet.
But the movie grew on me as time went on, especially as the comedic elements hovering around the edges started to move to the center. It’s got a weird pastiche of character types played by actors who often seem like they’re starring in different movies.
For example, Johnny Messner as police detective Blake Finning appears to think he’s in a hard-edged police drama, of which he’s the star. He’s all steely gazes and growly dialogue. Ditto for Robert Miano as Ray Barren, the local mobster Finning has been trying to take down for years. Barren never leaves the bar that serves as his HQ, delivering lots of murderous threats while wearing a killer suit — low-rent Scorsese stuff.
The great Bruce Dern turns up as Russian crime overlord Arkadi Dubkova, and I love the fact that he doesn’t try for even a second to attempt a Slavic accent. It’s like, “Hey, I’m Bruce GD Dern and I’m gonna sit here and eat my soup and threaten people and you’re gonna love it.”
And we do.
There’s a young computer whiz, Auggy (Jack Griffo), who helps Marcus out while wearing fuzzy animal cosplay outfits, for some reason. Later we run into Nicholas Turturro as Doc, who’s sort of an older analogue version of Auggy, sitting in his junkyard trailer setting off traps and explosions while offering visitors fried bologna sandwiches.
The plot is pure MacGuffin: Barren orders Marcus to retrieve a briefcase from a mausoleum guarded by the Russians, he succeeds but is then set up for the murder of Dubkova’s son, so now he’s got the police and hired assassins after him.
I knew the movie had segued into pure comedy when the second set of assassins showed up, and it’s a pair of brothers who look like live-action versions of Ratchet & Clank video game characters, right down to ridiculous goggles and a wealth of grenades.
Chris Tallman plays another detective named Walsh, but they call Meatball because he never stops eating. Haley Strode is a beat cop who gets sucked into the chaos, and Monette Moio is the best of the hit-people sent against Marcus.
And then there’s William Katt playing an older burnt-out detective named Dobbs who appears to be working every side of the fence, like a one-man triple-cross. He’s got a hearing aid, an old-timey hat with the front brim mushed upward, and a pronounced limp. Dobbs is always complaining about how he’s cold or misses his dead wife. He’s pathetic but also touching and tragic.
I don’t know what the hell Katt is doing; he doesn’t appear to be trying to play in this movie but create a distinctive character for another, sort of a law enforcement version of Jack Lemmon’s Shelley "The Machine" Levene from “Glengarry Glen Ross.” But whenever he’s on screen, that’s who you’re paying attention to.
“Override” is an action movie where the action scenes are probably the weakest part. And then you’ve got all these oddball characters thrown into a pot who don’t really mix together. It’s a mess of a movie, though one with enough entertainment value if you’re willing to give the boot to your expectations and let it all just roll in.