Rapid Fire - Awesome nineties action flick

Like many, I only really found out about the late (and very great) Brandon Lee after his tragic role in ‘The Crow.’ Tracking back through his earlier work, this was undoubtedly his best (other) film.  It really does sum up what was great about nineties action films and, sadder still, shows just how good Lee could have been if he had lived after The Crow wrapped.

Lee plays a student who witnesses a gangland murder and requires police protection to stay alive.  However, the police seem about as good at protecting him as a roomful of toddlers.  But, luckily for the hapless boys and girls in blue, Lee is much better at protecting them when the gangsters return!

By today’s standards ‘Rapid Fire’ may be considered as a little too cheesy and not dark enough.  That could be true.  If you only want to watch dark and serious action epics then you’re better off with a Bourne film or Daniel Craig’s Bond incarnation.  I would say that Rapid Fire doesn’t take itself seriously, only it does, but only in that way that most eighties/nineties action movies did, i.e. they had a sense of disbelief and light-heartedness that today’s movies don’t. 

The police are spectacularly incompetent and the villains are deliciously villainous, therefore it’s great fun to watch Brandon Lee punch, kick, flip and generally right all the necessary wrongs for ninety minutes.  He may not have quite honed his martial arts skills to those of his father’s, but he was definitely getting there and there are – naturally – plenty of fun fight scenes involved.

In fact, if I could sum up this film in one word, it would be ‘fun.’ It’s a nice little popcorn action film that doesn’t require any major thought to go into appreciating it – just a love of ‘pre-serious’ action classics.

And if you can sit through the weird-montage s*x scene without visible questions marks appearing over your head then you obviously ‘get’ this film (or whatever the director was trying to say) more than me!

8/10 The Force is definitely strong with this one