THE THIRD SOCIETY (2002)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
When even the main actor (who's also the director) refuses to be given top billing in the credits, you know you are watching movie badness at its zenith. Perhaps "The Third Society" is not as bad as any standard revenge tale with a female lead as the pistol-packing action hero but it certainly qualifies as the newest addition to the good/bad movie leagues of extraordinarily unintentionally humorous badness. And yet this is one of the most enjoyable of all the B and Z-grade pictures I have seen in recent years, so read further.
We have J.A. Steel as Cassandra Alexandra Reynolds, a low-profile LAPD detective and terrorist specialist who is also a martial-arts expert (specifically a Muay Thai kickboxer). She is after the Asian Mafia who (for unexplained reasons) had shot her mother to death (Cassandra had witnessed her murder as a child). Thus, Cassandra and her sister were put on the Witness Protection Program. Presently, Cassandra is known simply as Jones, a detective who hates paperwork and kills a dozen drug dealers in two weeks, while her sister works for some anonymous firm. Unfortunately, Jones's sister has been kidnapped by the Asian Mafia and the top leader wants Jones dead. So Jones dresses in a flashy bike uniform and rides that bike throughout the rest of the movie, kicking and firing weapons left and right.
Granted, director J.A. Steel had limited budgetary constraints and limited time to make her action flick really fly. But consider what happens in the film. There is a gratuitous sequence in a bar that simply marks time (though it allows for some brief fighting with the Asian fighters until Jones simply mows them down). Another sequence is set at an airport field where Jones rides her bike at ferocious speeds while three cars driven by the bad guys head in her direction unaware it is the lead character. Huh? That outfit and bike certainly stand out, unless the point is that the bad guys can't see through tinted windows? So while Jones unloads her gun and the bad guys get away, she kidnaps a helicopter while her boss and the air-traffic controllers tell her to land. Double huh? Then we have not one but two shower scenes where an FBI agent makes a rather rude entrance and surprises the naked lead actress. Apparently, she is not too upset by this but she also never kisses the guy once (maybe the agent was just trying to be buddies but then he later insinuates he wants more). And there are the flashbacks to Jones's mother's murder, shown one too many times.
J.A. Steel is seemingly uncomfortable in the lead role, and we never sense her inner rage at her mother's murder. She also seems to enjoy killing the bad guys, specifically anyone who uses the martial-arts. Curiously, on the DVD's behind-the-scenes special, she shows more charisma and humor than in the movie. But Steel obviously draws on humor to make this whole flick as silly as possible. Her character actually sways every time a bullet is fired at her and misses her (Rambo never swayed!) And there are at least two occasions where she plays dead after being shot. Still, she looks fetching when her hair is wet.
Shannon Clay as the blonde sister, Erica, who is an expert at transferring a billion dollars to different accounts, shows more finesse and presence than Steel (one wonders why they didn't switch roles). She is terrifically funny in a kitchen scene where she wants to be hospitable to the assassins by making coffee. It is a Tarantinoesque moment and delivers the biggest laugh in the film.
"The Third Society" is unintelligible trash and often hokey and haphazard in the editing and acting departments. The photography is gorgeous (particularly the presumably Asian waterfalls in one shot) but the slow-motion shots of guns being fired could have been staged better. Well, heck, the whole movie could have been staged better. And yet, I found myself laughing all the way through it. I had a good time but like most good bad movies, it is difficult to say if this was intended as a parody of those 80's action thrillers or as a very humorous postmodernist take on them (either way, I'll say that there is no way anyone could take it seriously). For a slow Saturday night where you have pizza and beer handy, "The Third Society" will long be remembered by me as the greatest movie ever made to watch with pizza and beer.
