Directors – Patrick Durham & Paul G. Volk, Screenplay – Patrick Durham, Producers – Ken Daniels, Patrick Durham, Judy Durham, Larry Layfield, Amariah Olson, Larry Olson, Obin Olson, Pinkal Panchal, J.B.. Raines, Rebecca Raines, Jonathan Sachar, Shae-Lee Shackleford & Gary T. Williams, Photography – Morgan Schmidt, Music – Sean Schaefer Hennessy. Production Company – Piknik Pictures/Bondit Media Capital//4Horsemen Films/Capital Group Films/Strength Comics.
Cast
Brian Austin Green (Callan McCrae), Danny Trejo (Muerte), Lori Heuring (Lucia), Jumahn Jones (Blackfire), Asa Holley (Nuke), Tim Abell (Riot), Richard Grieco (RPG), Patrick Durham (War), Manu Intiraymi (Drago), Vinnie Jones (Gunnar), Carson Lee Bradshaw (Chaos), Andre Gordon (Ranger), Jenny Cooper (Sloane), Anna Florence (Slayer), Cruze Bailey (Crew), Nicole Matheny (Vera), Lenox Knight (Maya), Mark Sherman (Marco), Laura Contensecu (Lorna), Tom Sizemore (Detective Frank Nitti), Jack August (Detective Williams), Jeremy London (Recon), Lou Ferrigno (Power House), Eric Roberts (Mack), D.B. Sweeney (Claymore), James T. Hong (Mr Woo)
Plot
Muerte gives The Red Amulet of Death to Drago. Using its powers, Drago is able to steal a nuclear bomb. Muerte announces he will detonate the bomb unless the mayor of Los Angeles pays a two billion dollar ransom. Callan and the Cross Team go into action. Nuke determines that in order to defeat the Red Amulet they need to harness interstellar gamma rays to make Callan’s amulet even stronger. To join the fight, a group of retired contractors and Callan’s old nemesis Gunnar are brought into join the Cross team.
This was the third of the Cross films that began with Cross (2011) and was followed by Cross Wars (2017). The films are low-budget ones that concern an action team led by Brian Austin Green that faces various super-villain figures in Los Angeles. The series was directed and written by Patrick Durham. Durham plays the member of the team known as War (except that the team members get so little individuation that I have yet to work out which one Durham is on screen after watching all three films).
Rise of the Villains is fairly much the same as the other Cross films. There are a lot of characters on screen on both sides, most of whom have little distinctiveness or even get referred to by their names on screen. One of the few that does is Jumahn Jones, who offers a repeat of his excruciating comic relief from the previous film. There is a great deal of gunplay out in the wild, intercut with scenes with Danny Trejo and followers back in his lair as he prepares a new villain armed with a powerful artefact. Both story strands are allowed to go on far too long. The Cross team prepare for a showdown that requires them to power-up by harnessing interstellar gamma rays, which for some reasons involves them tapping a laptop on a hillside. There’s a big showdown that involves a lot more shooting in a warehouse.
Members of the Cross team – (l to r) Lucia (Lori Heuring), RPG (Richard Grieco) and Callan (Brian Austin Green)
I had called one of the earlier Cross films a low-rent version of The Expendables (2010). Cross: Rise of the Villains follows the practice of the other films of bringing B-list action stars out of mothballs. Aside from the series lead Brian Austin Green, Danny Trejo gets a whole lot more screen time and Vinnie Jones, the villain from the first film, is brought back and gets a redemption, while there is also a one-scene reappearance from Tim Sizemore’s detective. 1990s pretty boy Richard Grieco is unrecognisable as a gunman behind black hat and dark glasses. This takes the Expendables idea literally and brings a bunch of other 80s/90s actors back to join the fray – Eric Roberts, Jeremy London, D.B. Sweeney and Lou Ferrigno – although clearly Patrick Durham could not afford them for long as they get less than a couple of minutes screen time between them. There’s also an aging James Hong who joins Danny Trejo in a couple scenes.
In one of the stranger developments, this expands on the other films which showed the characters and opening credits in terms of comic-book panels. It is a novelty effect that films sometimes use and I thought nothing more of it then. Here however, it is expanded out and we have a group of characters who have some kind of powers who break into a comic-book store and sit down to read the latest issue of the comic. The comic seems to have a certain interactivity as they keep waiting for events to happen and wonder how they will turn out. Later they say they are in the Comic-Book Realm and call themselves its guardians – at the end of the film, we see it is possible to open a portal between there and the story.
