Connors’ War (2006)

Directed by: Nick Castle | 86 minutes | action | Actors: Anthony ‘Treach’ Criss, Nia Peeples, Ed Anders, Sage Brocklebank, Warren Derosa, Claude Knowlton, Blu Mankuma, Jeff Sanca, Garwin Sanford, Darryl Scheelar, Dan Shea, Elias Toufexis

At first glance, ‘Connors’ War’ by director Nick Castle (‘Dennis the Menace’) has a promising plot. Like many action movies today, it partly revolves around the American secret service, in this case the CIA. Partly, because the only real lead role is for Connors (Anthony Treach Criss), the blind ex-special agent who has been trapped. The film immediately starts in medias res, tension and action immediately from minute one and that is promising: after all, a good start is half the battle. Unfortunately, after a somewhat chaotic scene that reveals how and why Connors is blind, the action remains minimal.

Lead actor Anthony ‘Treach’ Criss starts off well, but slowly loses his persuasiveness and weakens by the minute. The co-star and obligatory female beauty is Amanda (Nia Peeples), one of the researchers who injects the mysterious serum into Connors’ eyes (which, by the way, is portrayed rather plastically). Why and how exactly she ends up in Connors’ team remains unknown. Besides that, she’s a terribly standard dumb blonde type, who sometimes gets the blood out of your fingernails; especially if it undermines what little action there is. The other characters are also not high-flyers in terms of quality, but for a B-movie it is okay: it is more the characters they have to play that don’t do the film any good. The biggest disturbing factor, however, is the use of language; the script is full of (unnecessarily overused) four-letter words, and Connors especially can’t say a sentence at the beginning without an aggressive tone and swear words. It seems as if writer D. Kyle Johnson wanted to give it a bad boy twist, but it doesn’t quite fall into place. He apparently changed his mind halfway through, because then sharp or funny dialogues suddenly appear between Connors and Amanda, who only manage to provide vicarious shame. It is therefore unclear whether the film is undermined by the lousy acting, or whether the acting (and the film) is so disappointing because of the terrible dialogues.

The action scenes are positive. The few (unfortunately, unfortunately) out there are generally well-developed and manage to get you almost – but not quite – on the edge of your seat. For an action movie, action is crucial and that’s what the ‘Connors’ War’, as mentioned, lacks. The bad and especially not funny dialogues only break the story more. So short but sweet: ‘Connors’ War’, mission failed.