THE DEVASTATOR (aka Hostile Takeover, aka Office Party) (1988)
Canada
Director: George Mihalka
Starring: David Warner (Eugene Bracken), Michael Ironside (Larry Gaylord), Kate
Vernon (Sally), Will Lyman (Smolen), John Vernon (Mayor)
Music: Billy Bryans, Aaron Davis
Viewed: Streaming Amazon Prime
Transfer quality: Bad
A man takes three co-workers hostage while working overtime on Thanksgiving weekend. He has no demands. –IMDB
This short description should have come with a spoiler alert, because that was pretty much it.
Man, this was a long slog. I had to pause this more than once to check that I was watching the right movie.
There’s a moment towards the middle of this where I got excited that I would get to see “The Devastator,” when Police Chief Smolen (Will Lyman) rues the Mayor’s (John Vernon, Animal House, Savage Streets) decision to bring in the SWAT team for assistance and refers to SWAT commander Garlas (Anthony Sherwood, Terror Train, Heartbreak High) as “Robocop.” I actually woke up and sat up in my chair a bit, hopeful that this shallow attempt at a “deep” philosophical movie was going to ride off the rails into something amazing. I was sadly mistaken, however, as Garlas turned out to be just a cut-rate Billy Dee Williams trying, very unconvincingly I might add, to out strut Chief Smolen. So no Devastator, terrible soundtrack, and an atrocious transfer…seriously, the only redeeming value of this film is that it gives you the ability to link Scanners to Animal House in a game of 7 degrees of Kevin Bacon.
I suppose rebranding this film as “The Devastator” achieved its goal of suckering me into wasting an hour and a half of my movie watching time, but I wasn’t happy about it. I’m not even convinced this is a legit title, as IMDB lists the possible titles as Hostile Takeover and Office Party. Screw you, Amazon. (DC)
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Nate Wilson: NW Devon Cahill: DC Heath Row: HR Matt Average: MR
BAD TRANSFER 