Cyberjack (1995)

“After tonight, God will be lucky if I return his calls!”

In the not too distant future, Nick James is circling the drain. Several years removed from an incident where a bad decision during a police stand-off got himself nearly (and his partner definitely) killed in the line of duty, James is now a barely functioning alcoholic, who lost his job as a cop, is currently in hoc to his bookie for an exorbitant sum of cash, money he lost betting on his hometown baseball team, money he does not have, which finds him currently striking a bargain with a friendly security guard to hide out for the night at Quantum Industries, where he works as a janitor -- sorry, as a custodial engineer, in an effort to save his kneecaps from being broken.

Now, James (The Dudikoff) is fairly friendly with most of the staff at Quantum, recently budding a bond with one of their chief research scientists, Dr. Alex Royce (Kaiser), over a dead car battery and their mutual love and die-hard loyalty to the Neptunes -- that aforementioned shitty baseball team (OF THE FUTURE!).

Meantime, Royce works in tandem with her father, Dr. Phillip Royce (Fraser), as they try to perfect an "organic computer virus," which is your garden variety bits and bytes contagion they have merged with some *ahem* 'neurological protoplasm' because of SCIENCE!. (Well, actually, it was designed to be a Super Anti-Virus but my eyes kinda glazed over during the expository sci-babble here, so, yeah, moving on…)

But despite pressure from an over-eager CEO, the younger Royce is leery over the project's effectiveness and feels more RnD testing is needed. The elder Royce, however, feels it's almost ready to launch. (Three guesses on whose side the CEO will be on?)

Well, turns out someone else thinks it's ready to roll, too; a criminal mastermind named Nassim (James), who, coincidentally enough, was the perp' who killed James' partner; and he plans to steal the virus for his own nefarious purposes. (Purposes you won't believe even when I reveal them later.)

Which brings all of our characters together and the audience up to speed when Nassim and his band of Class of Nuke 'Em High (1986) rejects clandestinely infiltrate the Quantum building, eliminate all the security personnel, and that spineless CEO, with a ruthless efficiency before rounding-up all the remaining staff into the Royce's lab, where he makes his demands known.

Ah, but remember -- and unknown to Nassim and his goon squad, there's an extra player lurking in the building. Someone looking for a little redemption, a little revenge, and the score of the Neptunes’ game. Someone who is handy with a monkey-wrench, and knows just how to use it...

It's not often a direct to video knock-off opens with a preamble credited to Dr. Stephen Hawking, but here ya go. The 1990s truly were a glorious time of conjecture on where computers would take us -- someplace bad or someplace good, depending on who was doing the screenplay. Also, by 1995 the internet was just starting to stretch its legs, “virtual reality,” “cyber-crimes” and “hacking” were new buzzwords, and yet, even some ten-plus years after TRON (1982), no one in the movie-making business seemed to understand how computers actually worked.

Still more fiction than science then, over 90% of this cinematic cyber-conjecturing was total horseshit at the time; but it was ah-mazing to behold and to revel in its horse-shittiness. Here, for Cyberjack (1995), the notion was to merge man and machine. E'yup. Nassim wants to inject the Royce Virus into a microchip implanted inside his head, which, in theory, will either kill him or turn him into an ersatz Brainiac / Master Control Program that will allow him to infect everything to satiate his lust to rule the world! [Insert maniacal laughter here.] Like I said: horseshit.

Don't get me wrong. I love this movie, and Michael Dudikoff something fierce -- known in my household simply as The Dudikoff, who abides. As the legend goes, it was while being spotted waiting tables at Beachbum Burt's in Redondo Beach, California, by a fashion editor for Esquire that launched The Dudikoff's career; first as a model -- most notably in a Coppertone sunscreen campaign, then as an actor.

His first big break came playing one of Tom Hanks’ bosom buddies in the raunch-com, Bachelor Party (1984). This was followed by Radioactive Dreams (1985), Albert Pyun's most-Pyunical hard-boiled post-apocalyptic musical of ever. (But, not as bad as you'd think.) Now, The Dudikoff always had the looks of a leading man, and the moves to be an action hero. (He's well-versed in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu). But acting wise, he's somewhere on the scale between Lorenzo Llamas and Jan-Michael Vincent, meaning he's just fine when he's cast in his comfort zone as the quiet loner who is called upon to bust some heads.

Which made him a perfect fit for Cannon Films, where the Go-Go Boys -- Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, teamed him up with Steve James for American Ninja (1985) and American Ninja 2: The Confrontation (1987) -- he would skip out on third sequel but would return for American Ninja 4: The Annihilation (1990). 

The Dudikoff was also on the short-list to replace Christopher Reeve in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) if negotiations for Street Smart (1987) fell through.

He was also in the running with Scott Leva to play Peter Parker / Spider-Man in Cannon’s notorious but ultimately aborted five-year attempt to bring the comic-book wall-crawler to the big screen as the 1980s came to a close and Cannon Films self-destructed in bankruptcy. 

Beyond that, The Dudikoff was mostly cast in a string of cash-ins and knock-offs like Avenging Force (1986), which was his take on The Most Dangerous Game (1932); or his Platoon (1986) clone, Platoon Leader (1988); and The Hitcher (1986) begat Midnight Ride (1990), with Mark Hamill taking over for Rutger Hauer (-- don't laugh, it's better than you'd think and kind of a dry-run for his take on the Joker); and then there was his gang-banger version of The Dirty Dozen (1967), Soldier Boyz (1995); and The Hunter (1980) becomes the hunted in Moving Target (1996).

But the best of that bunch, hands down, was Cyberjack -- a/k/a Virtual Assassin, which not only apes Die Hard (1988) with a vengeance, and is set in the dystopian future of Paul Verhoeven's Robocop (1987), it also steals several terrible ideas from Johnny Mnemonic (1995) and The Lawnmower Man (1992). Noodle that line of code for a bit, fellow programs. Yikes!

Still, I think it's one of his best efforts. Sure, The Dudikoff was no Bruce Willis, but then Nick James is no John McClane either when the shit hits the fan. Hiding out in the holographic lab and thoroughly distracted by a hologram set on "Bump 'n' Grind," our hero is blissfully unaware of Nassim's hostile takeover. And once he does find out, James’ first notion is to flee the premises as quickly as possible. However, the terrorists and the building's compromised automated defense systems prevents this.

Thus, once our reluctant and barely sober hero is pressed into service, Cyberjack doesn't stray too far from John McTiernan's template; but let's give due credit on some of the tweaking the production and FX team managed to pull-off, rather deftly, to stir-up the sediment to obscure the obvious, including several nifty scenes involving more of those holograms and a well-executed go-motion robot drone the (eventually) alerted police send in, who first mistakes James as one of the bad guys, meaning Nassim, the automated building, and now the cops are all out to get our hero. What's a drunken janitor to do?

I'll tell you what he does: flexing those old cop muscles, mixed with his janitorial know-how, our boy systematically eliminates Nassim's rainbow coalition of goons; highlighted by an outstanding full-body burn when the first bad guy gets the hell Molotov'd out of him, and surviving two brutal encounters with Meghan (Hasfal-Schou), Nassim's Nubian gladiatrix, decked out in leather shorts and a metal breast-plate and not much else. (Grace Jones-lite, my ass. She was awesome and then some.) Meanwhile, after her father sacrifices himself trying to destroy the virus with a self-destruct protocol, Alex now has only one hour to abort these fail-safe measures and save the virus or Nassim will keep killing off all the other hostages.

With the clock ticking, as his men are slowly whittled away, Nassim realizes the fly in his ointment is no ordinary janitor and who he really is. James does the same, realizing this is the same man who tried to kill him, killed his partner, and ruined his life. But before he can reach the lab, Nassim manages to inject himself with the stabilized virus, which, one, doesn't kill him; and two, gives him the ability to shoot green laser-beams out of his eyes; and three, allows him to use his new skills to hack into the cybernetically linked-up S.W.A.T. team that just broke into the building, turning them all into a brand new batch of heavily armed witless minions.

But Nassim has no intention of stopping there. Nope. He's still bent on infecting the world -- and all he needs is a proper uplink with only one half-dead, beaten-to-a-pulp man and a plucky scientist left to stop him.

Now, as much as I love The Dudikoff, I think I might love Brion James even more. The veteran character actor was always a welcome sight on my screen and was one of those guys who was seemingly in everything before we lost him in 1999. (Just scroll through his IMDB credits and boggle.) Every good hero needs a great villain, and here, with his ever-evolving accent, hilarious asides, and maniacal relish, James is clearly having a ball as the ruthless Hans Gruber surrogate, Nassim.

Of course, Cyberjack wasn’t alone in sniffing around John McClane’s jock-strap as the huge financial success of Die Hard spawned a whole new genre: Die Hard on a [fill in the blank]. You had Die Hard on a train -- Under Siege (1992), Die Hard on a bus -- Speed (1994); and Die Hard at a hockey arena -- Sudden Death (1995) Here, we have Die Hard OF THE FUTURE!

Still, no matter how hard you try to hide it with all the lasers, holograms and drones, the central premise of Cyberjack has been rock stupid. Then, this plot-granite gets even harder for the whackadoodle climax, which ends just like you know it will. But, again, the film manages to go the extra mile to overcompensate for its own predictability. And for that, props to all involved for trying a little harder and squeezing just a little more out of every dollar in the budget -- or in this case, every loonie.

Filmed in Canada and financed with Canadian money, this was another film shot expressly for home video. (Admittedly, most of Dudikoff's output for Cannon followed the same pipeline.) However, without the crutch of crappy CGI, DTVs of this era don't quite carry the same stigma of the Asylum or Swhy-Fwhy originals of today. Prism Entertainment was another home video enterprise that briefly got into the production business, netting genre fans not only Cyberjack, but Galaxis (1995), Sleepstalker (1995), and Project: Metalbeast (1995).

First time director Robert Lee does an admirable job of managing the film's momentum, which never lags once it gets going. And checking out his credits found him moving up, sort of, as an AD on the likes of Freddy vs. Jason (2003) and Shoot 'Em Up (2007). Most of the film's producers broke in providing vehicles for Shannon Tweed and fuel for Cinemax's steamy late night line-ups -- they didn’t call it Skinamax for nothing, Boils and Ghouls, which would explain the origin of that stripper-hologram and the prerequisite T'n'A shot. Credit also to production designers Linda Del Rosario and Richard Paris for making something out of nothing and the FX team of Gitte Axen, Andy Stevens, and Gary Paller for turning nothing into something not only passable but fairly effective.

On top of all of their endearing efforts, however, it is The Dudikoff and James -- and Kaiser and Hasfal-Schou, who push this particular knock-off into the win column for me. Will it do the same for you? Uh, Maaaaaybe? To find out, Cyberjack is currently out of print on DVD but is dirt-cheap used. Last check, there were also a couple of versions streaming on YouTube. As always, your bit-rate may vary. 

Originally published on July 29, 2014, at Micro-Brewed Reviews.

Cyberjack (1995) Everest Pictures Inc. :: Prism Entertainment Corporation / EP: Masao Takiyama, Barry L. Collier / P: John A. Curtis, Robert H. Straight / AP: Christian Bruyère, James Thom / D: Robert Lee / W: Eric Poppen / C: Alan M. Trow / E: Derek A Whelan / M: George Blondheim / S: Michael Dudikoff, Suki Kaiser, Brion James, Topaz Hasfal-Schou, Duncan Fraser, Alvin Sanders