Ultimate Force (2005)

UFC fighter and former Croatian anti-terrorist police officer Mirko Cro-Cop Filipovic makes his acting debut starring in ULTIMATE FORCE. This modern-day actioner puts him into the role of a Croatian assassin working for a shadowy covert military organization where he gets caught up in a plot to overthrow its leader. It’s a crude, low-budget film from writer-director Mark Burson who claims to have extensive experience working in Hollywood although it doesn’t show where it counts.

While on a mission to assassinate a well-guarded East-Indian VIP, Axon Rey (Filipovic) chooses not to execute a female witness and as punishment for this oversight he is sent by his handler, Janus (Igor Galo), to a remote island stronghold for “reprogramming.” The regimen consists of an unexplained injection and a series of survival-style duels to the death with fellow operatives. Although eventually overpowered by a well-armed Special Forces unit, Axon escapes and rescues fellow operative and former girlfriend Sari (Ruza Madarevic) with the aid of Janus. Convinced that his employer now wants him dead, Axon agrees to fulfill a subversive order by Janus to assassinate their military organization’s leader. In this way, Axon becomes a pawn in an elaborate plot by Janus to take over the organization. As the real intentions of Janus are revealed, Axon is forced to decide who his real enemies are.

Filipovic won’t be breaking out as an action star with this role and it’s doubtful that his established fans will feel any different despite his combat credentials. Unlike most action stars, the 33-year-old fighter is the real deal when it comes to fighting ability. He has extensive real-world training and experience in martial arts and weapons handling as a result of his experience working in Croatia’s anti-terrorist police unit. He has had a successful professional fighting career in kickboxing and mixed martial arts circuits, first in K1 and PRIDE and eventually in the Ultimate Fighting Championship as of 2007. His specialty is a powerful left high kick, which contributed to his rise to become Japan’s PRIDE Open-Weight Grand Prix champion in 2006. This ability makes its way into the film yet it doesn’t make up for his lack of acting experience or inability to project the strength of his physical abilities to the viewer.

The action and Filipovic’s performance are hindered by a bland, clichéd script where the only good decision made was keeping the actor’s dialogue to a minimum. Burson stumbles through misdirection and poor writing to produce a truly abysmal mishmash of unsurprising double-crosses, overlong chatter of no import and lousy island survival action putting Filipovic into a series of stiffly-choreographed duels. The director offers up Special Forces action backed up by real commandos sometimes firing equally real rounds from AK-47s and other hardware. Yet through poor editing, pacing and direction it looks worse than intentionally exaggerated action seen in similar B-movies like SPECIAL FORCES and U.S. SEALS 2. It is clear that Burson has little or no understanding of how to put together or present a successful action sequence and I wonder why he’s even trying when he falls so short. Part of the blame could rest with his action directors who come from real-world military combat and have little or no experience in crafting movie action. There is a world of difference.

Technically, ULTIMATE FORCE is sub-par, even by B-movie standards. It is unsuccessfully shot on digital video. The format and the way it is used in conjunction with modest lighting results in an often heavily pixilated picture that consistently fails to accurately capture nighttime or low-light scenes. Colors are washed out by natural outdoor light. The sound mix has problems as well. A generic, yet adequate synthesized score frequently drowns out foley effects, particularly during firefights. Dialogue is sometimes too low. Camera handling is spotty. The camera team occasionally frames the action well but just as often displays amateurish techniques that lack variety in angles, consistency and any artfulness. Thankfully, cheap digital effects that other B-movie makers use more readily in action films like THE ELIMINATOR are largely absent. Because of the involvement of Filipovic and his buddies from the Croatian military, at least the borrowed military machines, weapons and uniforms appear authentic. Digital effects appear to be limited to some muzzle flashes and squibs.

The added use of real-world locations such as an old abandoned facility of some kind doesn’t keep the moviemakers from cheapening the scenes with misuse of a smoke machine. It looks as if the machine was used to help match real fog that briefly appears in one scene. However, it is quite apparent that the fog is localized to one point of camera and later appears to magically follow behind Filipovic, almost as if someone where trailing him with a coughing tailpipe.

The overall feel of ULTIMATE FORCE is cheap, amateur moviemaking and not the amusing kind. I could possibly live with this had an emotionless, mono-toned Filipovic delivered more than 10 minutes of poorly staged and edited fighting. I don’t think his dialogue even equaled 10 minutes, and the long and dull verbal exchanges from the three real actors in the film are of no help. Filipovic has some serious kicking and MMA skills that completely go to waste. Add to this, poorly paced editing and a miserable script. If you’re a fan of Mirko Cro-Cop Filipovic, stick with his competitive fight footage. There is more excitement and drama to be found in one of his cage matches than in this entire production which continues the trend of taking talented MMA stars and dropping them into horrid action movies not worth a single rental. In fairness, the movie appears to have been largely a production of Croatia, which doesn’t have anywhere near the resources or experience of Hollywood or Hong Kong. I can’t say how well this production holds up to other films or TV series produced in that country but placed within the world cinema arena, it fits near the bottom of the stack along with the likes of made-for-cable action movies starring the likes of Billy Zane.