Richard Griffin is one of the more prolific filmmakers working today. He released three features last year, already has one under his belt as finished this year, plus he’s got one in pre-production, another in post-production and he’s in the middle of filming. So yeah, Griffin tends to get work out. The results are pretty mixed, but I have to applaud and admire his work ethic. His newest movie hitting DVD shelves is Future Justice, which to the best of my knowledge is his first stab at sci-fi.
Python Diamond, played by the film’s writer Nathaniel Sylva, is one of Earth’s most notorious criminals. After being frozen for a number of years in a prison located on one of Saturn’s moons, Python is defrosted and forced to join a group of five military police who are heading to Earth for a mission. The mission is to check on that status of Earth which has suffered nuclear war that has wiped out most of the planet. Python and the military police find a group of survivors and help them do battle with a gang of thugs wanting to steal their supplies. Essentially this is Griffin’s take on Escape from New York.
Future Justice is exactly the type of movie you’d expect to see on the SyFy channel. In fact, SyFy would be wise to strike some type of deal with Griffin. At the rate he puts out movies on the budgets he has, I’m sure he could give them some quality programming. At the very least he could fill out the 2:00 AM time slots. What do you say SyFy, do you want to set up a meeting with Richard Griffin?
The first 60 minutes or so of the movie is a bit slow. You have a few shootouts and a couple fights here and there and plenty of cheesy dialogue. You get the typical spiel about how the Earth ended up in this nuclear warzone and what everyone had to do to survive. Everything that happens in Future Justice is something we’ve seen happen elsewhere. It’s the last 15 minutes or so that pick up and the movie gets a little more fun. We learn of a mutation from that nuclear blasts that contributed to destroying most of the human race. While this is still not a new concept, Griffin is pretty apt at incorporating B-movie practical effects and he does exactly that with the mutated creature we get.
This mutated human looks pretty awesome. It’s basically a guy with his face melted off. It actually reminded me a bit of The Incredible Melting Man. Granted, the effects offered up in Future Justice come nowhere near the level of greatness achieved by Rick Baker, but they seem to take inspiration from his work and that’s always welcomed. As soon as this creature appears, it attacks someone and a limb is torn clean off. This is a nice bit of fun that actually surprises you, jumping out after the movie has been stuck in a bit of a lull.
As far as performances go, Steven O’Broin steals the show as the film’s main villain, Gazeebo. He really fits the part and is reminiscent of baddies from the 80’s. He could be one of the thugs in something like Death Wish III. Even the name Gazeebo fits the part. I have to assume Griffin was attempting to channel that era of bad guys and since those are my favorite type of movie bad guys, I dig it.
There are a few scenes in the movie that really make zero sense. One in particular, and this is a minor spoiler so heads up, is of one of the military officers turning on their captain and shooting him in the head. Now this guy is a dick the entire movie, so I get hating him and even shooting him in the leg or something would be acceptable. But killing him? That seems a bit much and comes way out of left field. The captain’s biggest problem is that he hates Python Diamond, but is that so unreasonable? Diamond is an incredibly dangerous criminal. I just can’t buy that a military officer would kill her commanding officer because he’s mean to a criminal. Just doesn’t add up.
Another thing hurting Future Justice are some of the characters we have to deal with, a few of which that are incredibly annoying. One is a pot head named Victor. I think he’s maybe supposed to provide some comic relief, but I cringed whenever he was on screen and unfortunately he had quite a bit of screen time. Screw that guy.
At the end of the day Future Justice isn’t Griffin’s best effort, but it’s likely not his worst and it is an attempt at something new for him as a filmmaker. I can’t say I’d go out of my way to watch it again, but hey, if it comes on SyFy at 2:00 AM on a Wednesday night/Thursday morning, I’d consider giving it another go. I’d have to see what informercials were on first, but Future Justice would be in the running I’m sure.
Future Justice is available now on DVD in North America from MVD Entertainment Group.