I watch a lot of movies and a fair amount of those you could call bizarre or strange. In fact I’d say I try to seek those type of films out. Out of all the films I have ever seen, I’ve never seen anything that comes close to Dangerous Men. It’s nearly indescribable and something you’ll never forget.

**Now before I get into this, I will be giving spoilers, sort of. I’m not sure how you can spoil something that makes no sense, but you’ve been warned.**

In terms of plot it’s pretty incoherent. There’s a very loose outline of a story about a woman named Mira (Melody Wiggins) seeking revenge on basically all men because a biker killed her fiancé, Daniel (Coti Cook). Mira and Daniel are recently engaged and they’re just getting ready to start their lives together. They go to spend a lovely evening at the beach when a couple of bikers, Tiger (Gorge Derby) & Leo (John Clure), happen upon them. Tiger decides he wants a piece of Mira and orders Leo to take care of Daniel until he’s done. Unfortunately for poor Leo, Daniel is more than he bargained for and ends up choking Leo until he’s dead. Tiger sees that and rushes to stab Daniel to death. Tiger ends up so distraught by the death of his only friend that he can’t even finish raping Mira and sadly walks off the beach. Mira then runs after Tiger claiming she’s glad that “wimp” Daniel is dead.

What?!

Tiger and Mira end up at a rundown hotel and I do mean rundown. Mira, in an attempt to be sexy, tells Tiger she’s going to shower to get ready for him and then proceeds to enter a shower that you’d expect to see in a $25-a-night motel room in Amarillo, Texas. Maybe you’ve never stayed in a $25-a-night motel room in Amarillo, but I have and it ain’t pretty. The tiles are all broken up and you can see the pipes inside the walls, just nasty all around. So Mira gets freshened up in that shower and returns with a towel draped around her. Mira tells Tiger to begin with her knees and then drops the towel revealing full front nudity.

Tiger begins to start kissing and tickling Mira’s knees, which is weird. He moves from her knees to her belly button and then that’s when things get crazy. Mira pulls a knife from her butt cheeks. You literally see a knife in between Mira’s butt cheeks, which are squeezed together to hold it in place. She pulls the knife out and stabs Tiger to death. Logistically, this makes no sense. How did she walk with that knife between her cheeks? At best that seems insanely dangerous. But screw logistics, this is memorable!

Oh and after Tiger is dead, Mira shakes her fist at him just to further salt the wound.

Now that Mira has her revenge she attempts to get home and in order to do so she hitch-hikes a ride from an old British man. This old man seems harmless at first but then he randomly pulls over his truck and attempts to rape Mira at gun point. Mira, the smart girl she is pretends to be into and attempts to seduce the man long enough to pull out her knife, the same one she had in her buttocks, and holds it to this dude’s junk. She then makes him get completely naked and wander the desert while she stills his truck.

The next 5 minutes or so are spent with this British man walking around the desert naked, mumbling too himself. He has nothing to with the rest of the movie and yet spend a good chunk of time with him. It’s so insanely strange. You think maybe he’s going to work his way back into the plot. Nope!

On the other side of LA, at least I think that’s where this movie takes place, Daniel’s brother, who is an unnamed Police Detective, is hassling another police officer to find his brother’s killer. Daniel’s brother, from her on out referred to as Police Detective, is supposed to be on vacation, but naturally he wants to catch his brother’s killer. His fellow police officer, who also goes unnamed, keeps saying, “hey, aren’t you supposed to be on vacation?” I guess Police Detective’s brother being dead doesn’t register as that big of a deal.

Now this other police officer, he gets a call from his girlfriend who complains that he never has time for her. He explains that he’s a police officer and his time is limited. She doesn’t take this news very well and he basically shrugs and is like, “it is what it is.” But then it cuts to the two of them having sex! And then it cuts back to him at the police station. Oh and that police station is just a room with a desk and a chair. The highest production values you’ll ever find.

Then flip back to Mira who is now spending time with prostitutes to kill them but also learn from them? I’m not entirely sure, but she spends a lovely evening with one particular prostitute and the two talk it out until they both end up in tears. So that happens.

We catch back up with the Police Detective who has now made his way to a biker bar because he somehow knows bikers killed his brother. He then wants to find out who their leader is. Not sure why, there’s no evidence that the leader of these bikers killed Daniel, but I guess it’s best to start with the top. He finds out the leader’s name it Black Pepper (Bryan Jenkins) and finds out where he lives. Unfortunately once he gets into a showdown with Black Pepper, Black Pepper wins and runs off. Luckily Police Detective’s sergeant (I guess) shows up and chases Black Pepper into the house of a blind woman. Then the movie ends with a freeze frame.

The movie ends with a freeze frame of three people on the screen who were just introduced into the movie within the last twenty minutes or so. These are not main characters. The blind woman was just introduced in this very scene. She has like a minute of screen time and she’s in the final freeze frame. This doesn’t make sense.

Dangerous Men is the most incompetently made movie I have ever seen, hands down. The Room looks like the work of P.T. Anderson when compared to this. And it’s not for a lack of effort or a film being hastily rushed together. Rad started this movie in 1984 and it took nearly two decades to finish. He put a lot of time and effort into this and it just didn’t work out, at least not in the traditional sense.

The film has a lot of issues with the biggest being the editing. In addition to writer, directing, producer and scoring, Rad served as the editor. I’m not sure Rad edited anything. This is just the footage he had pieced together. The pacing is so clunky and the film jumps around with no flow. I’m sure editing with no plot is hard, but this probably could have been smoothed out some.

Dangerous Men is the latest release from Drafthouse Films and it’s comparable to Miami Connection, though even that film is much better made. Miami Connection for example may suffer from a wide variety of issues from a pure filmmaking aspect, but at least the fight scenes are choreographed excellently. The fight scenes in Dangerous Men? They’re hilariously bad.

So yeah, technically speaking Dangerous Men is a horrendous movie. But oh my god is it a ton of fun. It’s not as fun as Miami Connection but it’s really close. I mean, the chick pulled a knife out of her buttocks, that’s amazing! How can you not love that? For all the issues John S. Rad had as a filmmaker, he certainly wasn’t afraid to try things and we should appreciate that.

Also, Dangerous Men is probably the only movie with a knee fetish. All the sex scenes have these weird moments with knees.

The Blu-ray is an absolute must. There’s a commentary with Bryan Connolly and Zack Carlson, the authors of Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film. I haven’t listened to that commentary yet, but there are three other special features that are awesome. There’s a documentary called That’s So John Rad from filmmakers Tim Skousen and Jeremy Coon (Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made). In this doc Skousen and Coon set out to find other individuals that saw the original 2005 LA run of Dangerous Men. This is a really good look at the cult following behind the film and even features interviews with Rad’s daughter and grandchildren. In addition to this doc there is an interview with Peter Palian, the film’s DP who stuck around for the entire 20+ year production of the film. He gives some wonderful insight on the what it was like to work with Rad. And finally the capper is a full episode of Queer Edge with Jack E. Jett,  a public access television show in which Rad was a guest.

Dangerous Men is a wonder to behold. It represents the best and worst of renegade, indie filmmaking all at once. It serves as inspiration, while also being a cautionary tale. It’s a beautiful mess that you’ll never forget.