Over-enthusiastic fan Richard Orchid (Holmes Osborne) is making a documentary on the rise, fall and attempted comeback of former 1980's and 1990's action hero movie star Frank Sledge (Richard Leitch), and Sledge is happy to go along with the making of Orchid's movie.
As a child Francis Allen Sledgewick was dumped at a dance studio by his parents in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. The head of that studio Samantha Jones (Lin Shaye) takes him as a student, and he proves to be somewhat of a prodigy. So after high school, he leaves home and seeks fame in Hollywood. While he's struggling with that, he gained some notoriety as a Chippendale's dancer thanks to the help of the just gay enough manager Glen Jefferies (Nathan Lee Graham). It was that club that turned him into the main attraction and where he also gets the attention of movie producer Russell Gold (Chris Palermo), who wants to replace the former star of "Bloodfight" for a sequel with none other than him. The studio decided to change his name to Frank Sledge. Do you think it's far-fetched to have a dancer use those moves in on-screen martial arts scenes? You shouldn't. Olivia Holt's dancing skills got her that major starring role in Disney XD's "Kickin' It." Anyway, the producers work around all the inconsistencies, and the movie is a big success, and Frank becomes a big star overnight.
On the set of a spoof of "Above the Law," Frank is injured during the fight scene, and the actor he was supposed to be fighting with convinces him that because he's the star, he should get everything his way, and he takes that advice way too seriously as noted by Eric Roberts who played his character's police chief. It's at this point he starts to become both an ego-maniac on the set and a junkie. Everyone is pissed off by his antics, especially female co-stars like Sean Young, Angelina Jolie, Kelly Hu, etcetera. On the set of "Jimbo," he gets so wasted that they have to rewrite another actor's character as having multiple personality disorder so they can use Frank's lines. It's all downhill from there for the big star, and the only thing left to live for now are acting lectures, pizza delivery jobs, and AA meetings lead by ex-comedian Richard Lewis.
I was interested in 18 Fingers of Death because of two people; the hilarious Lori Beth Denberg, and the late Pat Morita. It wasn't worth it. In this case, I was interested because of Kali Rocha, who has a minor part as a receptionist for a talent agency trying to help restart Frank's career. I say "trying" loosely, because the agent (played by Sam McMurray) doesn't seem to be doing that much to get him any decent roles, and Sledge himself sucks now. Either way, Rocha's character has a crush on him, and her boss teases her over it. Frank is all business though, and he takes a pay-scale gig in a movie that will eventually be rewritten completely as the first of the "Rush Hour" series... without him or his female lead.
The soundtrack is dominated by a bad retooling of Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger," known as "Dance With the Dragon." It's supposed to be bad, but you don't care that much, because Leitch (who sings the song), tries to make it a little funnier. So groan if you must at the bad puns of existing movie titles. Or Ernie Hudson's attempts to combine one of his lines from "Ghostbusters" with Richard Crenna's speech about how hard it is to kill John Rambo from "First Blood." Or even (God forbid), the musical version of "The Matrix," with Debbie Allen replacing Laurence Fishburne III. This isn't in the same league as "Take the Money and Run," but it's still amusing enough.
One important note; A tagline for this movie was that "America Needed a Hero." At the time this movie focused on the start of Sledge's acting career, America already had Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck Norris, Clint Eastwood, and Charles Bronson, and had already failed miserably to turn Barry Bostwick into an action hero. So there were plenty of action movie heroes that existed before the mid-1980s.
As a child Francis Allen Sledgewick was dumped at a dance studio by his parents in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. The head of that studio Samantha Jones (Lin Shaye) takes him as a student, and he proves to be somewhat of a prodigy. So after high school, he leaves home and seeks fame in Hollywood. While he's struggling with that, he gained some notoriety as a Chippendale's dancer thanks to the help of the just gay enough manager Glen Jefferies (Nathan Lee Graham). It was that club that turned him into the main attraction and where he also gets the attention of movie producer Russell Gold (Chris Palermo), who wants to replace the former star of "Bloodfight" for a sequel with none other than him. The studio decided to change his name to Frank Sledge. Do you think it's far-fetched to have a dancer use those moves in on-screen martial arts scenes? You shouldn't. Olivia Holt's dancing skills got her that major starring role in Disney XD's "Kickin' It." Anyway, the producers work around all the inconsistencies, and the movie is a big success, and Frank becomes a big star overnight.
On the set of a spoof of "Above the Law," Frank is injured during the fight scene, and the actor he was supposed to be fighting with convinces him that because he's the star, he should get everything his way, and he takes that advice way too seriously as noted by Eric Roberts who played his character's police chief. It's at this point he starts to become both an ego-maniac on the set and a junkie. Everyone is pissed off by his antics, especially female co-stars like Sean Young, Angelina Jolie, Kelly Hu, etcetera. On the set of "Jimbo," he gets so wasted that they have to rewrite another actor's character as having multiple personality disorder so they can use Frank's lines. It's all downhill from there for the big star, and the only thing left to live for now are acting lectures, pizza delivery jobs, and AA meetings lead by ex-comedian Richard Lewis.
I was interested in 18 Fingers of Death because of two people; the hilarious Lori Beth Denberg, and the late Pat Morita. It wasn't worth it. In this case, I was interested because of Kali Rocha, who has a minor part as a receptionist for a talent agency trying to help restart Frank's career. I say "trying" loosely, because the agent (played by Sam McMurray) doesn't seem to be doing that much to get him any decent roles, and Sledge himself sucks now. Either way, Rocha's character has a crush on him, and her boss teases her over it. Frank is all business though, and he takes a pay-scale gig in a movie that will eventually be rewritten completely as the first of the "Rush Hour" series... without him or his female lead.
The soundtrack is dominated by a bad retooling of Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger," known as "Dance With the Dragon." It's supposed to be bad, but you don't care that much, because Leitch (who sings the song), tries to make it a little funnier. So groan if you must at the bad puns of existing movie titles. Or Ernie Hudson's attempts to combine one of his lines from "Ghostbusters" with Richard Crenna's speech about how hard it is to kill John Rambo from "First Blood." Or even (God forbid), the musical version of "The Matrix," with Debbie Allen replacing Laurence Fishburne III. This isn't in the same league as "Take the Money and Run," but it's still amusing enough.
One important note; A tagline for this movie was that "America Needed a Hero." At the time this movie focused on the start of Sledge's acting career, America already had Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck Norris, Clint Eastwood, and Charles Bronson, and had already failed miserably to turn Barry Bostwick into an action hero. So there were plenty of action movie heroes that existed before the mid-1980s.