The_Phantom_Projectionist While Jalal Merhi would not officially put his career in action movies on hiatus 'til later that decade, 2001's GUARANTEED ON DELIVERY marks the last action vehicle he'd star in for about 15 years. It's understandable: Merhi was never one of my favorite karate guys, but he had done way better than this in his prime and seems to be running on fumes, here. Despite its cool cast and provocative title, this is a pretty boring action flick that, at best, is a poor version of THE TRANSPORTER.The story: When a security guard-turned-courier (Merhi) realizes that his cargo is actually a victim of human trafficking (Justine Priestly), both of them are hunted by the minions of the perpetrator (Olivier Gruner).There's few things that the film outright does wrong, but nothing it does otherwise ever really clicks. The story is almost completely devoid of surprises. The characters move the plot from point to point, but none of them really catch your attention – even Daddy David Carradine, in his role as Merhi's ex-employer, is forgotten as soon as he's off-screen. The look of the film is flat and the acting's exactly what you'd expect from a Merhi movies.The action's surprisingly minimal, coming from the guy whose movies used to be stuffed with adrenaline scenes. There's some shooting and some punching, but only about three scenes of gunfighting and fisticuffs, each. Carradine doesn't fight at all and neither does Olivier Gruner, leaving the brunt of the action scenes to be carried by Jalal. Though his on screen opponents include kickboxing star Luraina Undershute and the much-missed Darren Shahlavi, none of the fights are particularly good and they uniformly suffer from lax editing.Stay away from this one. Us action fans can do a lot better.

utility_infielder For a movie that boasts starring David Carradine, Olivier Gruner and Jalal Merhi... It's actually not that bad.Merhi delivers his best performance (which isn't saying much) and gives the best fight scenes he's ever had on screen.Carradine is sleep-walking through the role, but is entertaining nonetheless. The guy has a presence that most action star these days would beg to have. And Gruner, well, he is decent. He doesn't throw a single kick or punch in the flick - can the guy even fight? - but he's acceptable as a villain. Nothing special.The real star was the director, who managed to make this an entertaining film despite the low budget. Props to him for making a pre-"Taken" movie before "Taken" even existed. This is a solid action flick with some really good fights and a decent storyline. It's worth checking out if you're a fan of the genre. I remember renting this on VHS when it came out and being quite surprised with it. So much so that I tracked down a DVD copy years later and watch it every now and then. It truly is one of the better direct-to-video action flicks of the time. And that's saying something with Merhi in the lead.

m4898 It's an action movie with the feel of a late 70's, or early 80's flick. There are no computer-generated special effects, no wire stunts, no grandiose mass destruction… much like early stuff from Chuck Norris, Van Damme, or Steven Seagal. Instead, it has equal parts realistic fighting, gun play and rugged American North-West road adventures. This movie came years before Jason Statham's "The Transporter", but the plots are eerily and suspiciously similar: Jalal Merhi stars as "Ray Stanton", an ex-cop, now working as security guard for a bank. When an attempted robbery leads to a violent gunfight that leaves Ray's wife dead, he loses his job and starts his own delivery service, transporting items that no other delivery services will touch. He soon finds that on one such run, the cargo is highly illegal, and his clients are international criminals. He also finds that they happen to also be responsible for his wife's death, years ago. Bent on revenge, Ray teams up with the retired boss from his old security guard company, to bring the murderers to justice. Olivier Gruner does not fight in this movie, but as a slick bad guy, he talks more than in all of his other movies combined… with his trademark European accent, of course. Justine Priestley does a memorable impression of Marilyn Monroe in a thong and a billowing white skirt, and David Carradine is his regular cool, professional self.

Wizard-8 ...and that's about all the positive stuff I can say about this movie. Actually, scratch even that, because the murky and dark photography make my city look horrible. Speaking of "horrible", that's what can be described about everything else in this movie. Jalal Merhi is horrible; not only is his acting bad (sometimes his accent makes it impossible to make out what he's saying), his martial arts sequences are unbelievably amateurish and boring. Olivier Gruner, on the other hand, gets NO opportunity to perform martial arts. Yes, they hired a martial arts actor, and NOT ONCE does he do any martial arts! David Carradine looks badly weathered and ill, sluggishly doing the little he's given. Though running just 90 minutes, I swear it felt more like 150. The movie is so slow, so boring, so uneventful that it soon became agony to watch. Even masochists would have a problem sitting through this. Even die-hard fans of Gruner or Carradine would be better off passing this up. As well as fans of Merhi - that is, if he has any left after the long string of absolutely awful movies he's made during his "acting" career.