The local crime boss is using a skinhead gang to capture members of a Chinese gang so that their organs can be harvested. A local cop gets a little too nosy and is snuffed out by a pair of hitmen employed by the crime boss. His step brother, Hawk, travels back to the United States from his native England to attend the funeral and decides to dig a little deeper into his step brother’s death.
Hawk has some help from a Chinese buddy who knew his brother as well as his brother’s former partner, a blonde chick prone to lecturing Hawk on staying out of her investigation while standing around in a bra and leather skirt. Most of Hawk’s help though comes from the fact that he’s the very best British Special Forces marine ever! In short, this is your typical Gary Daniels movie. Thank God!
Gary (White Tiger, Riot) is forced to call upon all his training in his quest to defeat the evil Garr, save the local Chinese population from being involuntary organ donors, screw the ice princess cop, and most importantly of all, overcome the lame Canadian-made film he somehow got tricked into appearing in!
We even get to watch him honing his talents as he spends his opening scene in the movie shooting a training video for his special forces crew! After busting in through a window, rolling around and shooting folks, he stops to give some tips on how to subdue a guy in such a way that your vision of the situation is not restricted and so that you could still use him as a human shield if need be! Why didn’t that get released on DVD instead of Hawk’s Vengeance?
News of his brother’s death cuts short Gary’s status as the British Jane Fonda of counterterrorism tactical workout videos and he ends up in whatever American city Montreal was filling in for.
About two seconds after the funeral Gary is in a local bar getting teased by a bunch of liquored up hilljacks. They’re saluting him, giving him the finger, and making lewd gestures to his lady. I could practically taste the vicious beatdown that was coming just as surely as Gary would be standing around without a shirt on for no reason at some point in the film! Taking out the trash from a local bar is just Gary’s way of stretching before the real workout begins!
The real battle lies ahead with the Death Skulls! That’s the area skinhead gang who have been kidnapping Chinese folks, including the brother of Gary’s new Chinese sidekick!
Gary figures where the Death Skulls’ hideout is (a nasty, falling down building with “The Crypt” spray painted over the front door), but how in the world is he ever going to infiltrate it? He can’t just go kickboxing his way inside, can he? Well, he probably could, but where’s the fun in that? So it’s off to the costume rental store!
I’ve always thought that these movies where special forces guys are running around on unofficial revenge missions were a little light on the whole “let’s put on a whacky disguise and trick the bad guys” angle. How many times have I sat there watching Olivier Gruner or Don “The Dragon” Wilson lighting up some dumb thug’s face with their feet while thinking how much better it would be if they were doing it while dressed as a circus acrobat or a nun?
Gary Daniels movies though are all about action movie fans living their dreams! And so we are treated to Gary knocking on the The Crypt’s door dressed as a fire safety inspector!
I thought two things when I saw it begin to go down. One was that no way in hell would a bunch of skinheads be crazy enough to let a fire safety inspector guy into their secret headquarters to check the smoke alarms.
It turns out that Gary’s special forces training also includes the ability to assess how crazy a bunch of skinheads are because they do in fact let him in and install a working smoke detector, despite the fact the entire building is almost ready to collapse!
Then they go ahead and accept a box of complimentary cigars from Gary before he leaves! Naturally, all their smoking triggers the smoke alarm which causes it spew out a bunch of knock out gas! Incredibly, when Gary comes back to search for clues, all he comes up with is a flyer promoting the skinhead band, Hatebeast! Even more incredibly, it’s just the clue he needs!
Oh, and the second thing I thought when this crazy plan unfolded? Surely, this will be the most ridiculous disguise Gary wears in the movie! Wrong! That would be the time he and his Chinese friend were disguised as Hasidic Jews for their plan to start a gang war between the Death Skulls and Garr’s crew! Oy vey!
It’s great that Gary’s in top form as usual, but he doesn’t even have to carry the whole load in this movie! A significant portion of the movie’s entertainment is provided by the hit man tag team made up of the old fat Don and the young, dapper Blade.
Don is looking forward to getting out of the business so that he can retire to Costa Rica. He even carries a pamphlet extolling the vacation virtues of Costa Rica in his coat pocket! For his part, Blade likes to dress well and spend time combing his hair!
There’s also a running gag throughout the movie that whenever Don and Blade get into a fight with Gary, Blade accidentally injures Don! First Blade accidentally chops Don’s fingers off. Then Blade accidentally slices part of his ear off. Finally, fed up with getting cut by Blade, Don takes Blade’s knife from him before they go confront Gary for the last time! And what happens? Blade accidentally shoots Don to death! Double oy vey!
Hawk’s Vengeance easily satisfies the government’s recommended daily dosage of senseless violence as it features Gary at his most sadistic! Gary interrogates a skin head by strapping him to a board smeared with home made napalm, gets his information, and lets the guy blow up anyway! What’s great is that when his cop girlfriend finds out he torched the guy, she slaps him and calls him a lying piece of shit! That’s women for you, Gary!
Gary also fires a homemade bazooka at a guy and even carves a dude’s head with a surgical saw. Heck, just to show she isn’t a priss, his girlfriend uses a pair of defibrillators on a woman doctor to electrocute her! But, Gary’s not about to be shown up! After failing to stomp the evil Garr’s hands so that Garr can fall off a high rise to his death, Gary just shoves Garr’s head into a big spinning fan on the roof instead! Man, how did these British guys lose the Revolutionary War?
© 2014 MonsterHunter
