With budgets spiralling and realism dwindling, it's a wonder Rutger Hauer stays in the film business. I mean has he actually made a good movie in the last ten years? Not that I can remember at any rate. NEW WORLD DISORDER is a predictable, cliché-ridden, aggravating thriller with silly, over the top and unrealistic action scenes (most of them consist of guys just shooting wildly with machine guns) and cheesy dialogue. Without Hauer it would be a real stinker.
I guess it goes without saying that you have to be a fan of the actor to get a kick out of this movie. Recent years have seen Hauer's waistline expand to an alarming degree yet you may find it odd to note that he has EXACTLY the same hairstyle in every single one of his movies. I have a feeling he refuses to cut it. Hauer may not be an A-list star (in fact now he's probably down to a D-list) but he always gives fun performances in his films and this is no different. Mainly he does comic relief as he pretends not to know what computers are (one "hilarious" scene has him trying to plug a mouse in) and he even gets to dance. Check out his bizarre fashions with a different bow-tie every day.
With Hauer acting like a buffoon it needs a respected actor to bring back some credibility to the film. Enter Tara Fitzgerald. Tara, what the heck are you doing here? This isn't your kind of thing and you stick out like a sore thumb. Your American accent keeps slipping when you raise your voice and you really are embarrassing yourself. Go back to what you're good at (i.e. hard-edged period dramas or whatever). It's a shame to see this undeniably beautiful actress making a fool of herself to this proportion but that's what money will do.
The bad guy is played by Andrew McCarthy. Not to be rude but he's a rubbish villain and totally nonthreatening. The cyber-element of this film quickly becomes tiring too. Once again we are presented with Hollywood's unrealistic view of computers (websites loading at a touch of a button in the 1990s) and lots of pseudo-scientific dialogue which doesn't make much sense. It's all just an excuse for action and shooting anyway so it strikes me as kind of pointless. Maybe it's impossible to make a good action film on this low a budget. I don't know. In the end I was struck by the preposterousness of watching two foreign actors both pretending to be Americans in a film made in Luxembourg. It makes you wonder what the world is coming to.
I guess it goes without saying that you have to be a fan of the actor to get a kick out of this movie. Recent years have seen Hauer's waistline expand to an alarming degree yet you may find it odd to note that he has EXACTLY the same hairstyle in every single one of his movies. I have a feeling he refuses to cut it. Hauer may not be an A-list star (in fact now he's probably down to a D-list) but he always gives fun performances in his films and this is no different. Mainly he does comic relief as he pretends not to know what computers are (one "hilarious" scene has him trying to plug a mouse in) and he even gets to dance. Check out his bizarre fashions with a different bow-tie every day.
With Hauer acting like a buffoon it needs a respected actor to bring back some credibility to the film. Enter Tara Fitzgerald. Tara, what the heck are you doing here? This isn't your kind of thing and you stick out like a sore thumb. Your American accent keeps slipping when you raise your voice and you really are embarrassing yourself. Go back to what you're good at (i.e. hard-edged period dramas or whatever). It's a shame to see this undeniably beautiful actress making a fool of herself to this proportion but that's what money will do.
The bad guy is played by Andrew McCarthy. Not to be rude but he's a rubbish villain and totally nonthreatening. The cyber-element of this film quickly becomes tiring too. Once again we are presented with Hollywood's unrealistic view of computers (websites loading at a touch of a button in the 1990s) and lots of pseudo-scientific dialogue which doesn't make much sense. It's all just an excuse for action and shooting anyway so it strikes me as kind of pointless. Maybe it's impossible to make a good action film on this low a budget. I don't know. In the end I was struck by the preposterousness of watching two foreign actors both pretending to be Americans in a film made in Luxembourg. It makes you wonder what the world is coming to.