Supreme Sanction

1999 "Trained To Kill. Marked For Death."
4.7| 1h35m| en| More Info
Released: 09 April 1999 Released
Producted By: CineTel Films
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Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

An elite assassin for a covert Government agency is marked for death after aborting an assignment to take out a journalist who could expose the corruption of the very institution that trained her as their weapon of choice.

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Kurt Stallings An excellent job by the four principal actors and an understated steady style from the director result in a B++ sort of B movie. This is without question a straight to DVD type flick; however, everyone does such a terrific job it overcomes the formulaic sensibilities to achieve that wonderful "gee-I'll-watch-again" status.If you're an insomniac like me, you treasure that sort of thing. There are only so many "Three Days of the Condors" out there; you have to start digging into B movie territory if you are up worrying about work and you want to feed the Jones at 2 a.m.This is a great snack.Kudos to Swanson (the shooter), Madsen (the controller), Dukes (the patsy), and Faison (the fix-it man). Every one of the actors rises above his/her set role (thanks in part to an intelligent script), or more specifically finds the nuances within it that make each one human.Lesser actors would have turned each one of these characters into a stereotype. By walking the tightrope, each of these pros keep the movie tense and compelling. Madsen is properly amoral with a sense of comic distraction captured by the director with Madsen's Hawaiian shirts. Faison side-steps the script's only flaw -- a bit too stereotypical on the "seduce a brother" stuff -- with a smart, sharp persona that is readily believable as the wizard of electronic spy-craft (and street gun supplier).Swanson and Dukes are most impressive as the two critical characters. Both put remarkable nuances, bound by restraint, in their characterizations of the high level, straight military by-the-books black-ops sniper (Swanson) and the nationally famous newscaster (Dukes) that she refuses to kill when she sees his little girl watching. Dukes plays his character's self-righteousness and naiveté just right while maintaining a definite sense of humanity and genuine interest in what's simply right. (The script helps with the inclusion of danger to his daughter as a motivator). His heroic actions in the end are remarkably believable with no separation from his already established TV newsreader persona.Swanson is outstanding. Period. She renders a very believable soldier-turned-anti-terrorist assassin. Her take on this character is cold, tough, but still human. She is committed to simple justice: bad guys should die, good guys, not. And she displays the hard internal struggle of such an agent who confronts -- with fury -- the fact that her own people have her killing the good guys instead of the bad. She doesn't make more of it; she doesn't make less of it. And to the director's credit, there's only enough exploitation of her good looks to state the very simple obvious.Finally, kudos to the script-writer and director on the story itself. Notice that Swanson's character's fall into conscience is not sudden -- it's clear that she's not only responding to the fact that this is a national figure, and a man standing in front of his child, but also that she's already ragged from the previous job of killing an American military officer in front of his wife. She has already started to "question orders." The trained killer who wouldn't necessarily have held up shooting on senseless command once may do it twice - and that's how the film opens.How it proceeds from there is a pleasure to watch.
pooh-24 Kristy Swanson plays an elite hitwoman who is supposed to have knocked off a TV reporter for a group of bad guys,but once she sees this poor fellow at home playing with his kids she decides to junk the whole project and the TV reporter's life is spared.The hitwoman's life is up for grabs as the people who wanted this reporter killed now want her dead for not following through with her assignment.Such is the basis for a movie called Supreme Sanction.Supreme waste of time is more like it.We see Swanson's character beat up,pummel and kill men far bigger than her.And she always one two fifty steps ahead of the group of murders who can't,for some reason,do away with this super hitwoman.Having one woman do away and beat all these men,makes the movie seem so gay.It is too predictable once you figure Swanson's character is going to win out anyway,thus making the film boring and inept.Kristy Swanson is decent actress,who in her younger days was always sexy and easy on the eyes.Supreme Sanction is not one of her better efforts however.
teuthis I love Kristy Swanson movies. She's a beautiful, compelling actress and deserves better than this; but, as always, she does a super job. I do think the director made her character a little to terse and mean, even though the plot called for it. Had he allowed Kristy some margin of sensuality and vulnerability, she would have rounded out her character and added another level to the film. Kristy is athletic and projects herself powerfully. I don't think any actress can equal her in action roles. She can do anything, but she is quite adept at handling physical, aggressive characters. She's believable, and always fun to watch. In Supreme Sanction, Kristy plays a reluctant assassin, who rebels, and is then pursued by her top secret government employers. Michael Madsen, a super actor, is her chief antagonist. She allies herself with her intended target and her computer-genius friend, and they seek to expose the "Agency" and save the target's little daughter. Supreme Sanction is a rather marginal action film with limited atmosphere. After some initial action it bogs down for a while, until the mildly wild climax. But Kristy, and Michael Madsen make it worthwhile. They play well off each other. The director goes a little overboard trying to let us know how mean and incorrigible Madsen's character is. I got the point well before he was satisfied. There are plenty of holes in the plot, so watch this one for the actors; and Kristy's brief disguise as a hooker.
Jason-130 Please give this one a miss.Kristy Swanson and the rest of the cast rendered terrible performances. The show is flat, flat, flat.I don't know how Michael Madison could have allowed this one on his plate. He almost seemed to know this wasn't going to work out and his performance was quite lacklustre, so all you Madison fans give this a miss.