User Reviews

On the eve of a US-Japan trade summit, a reporter gets a tip that the Japanese-American head of a big aerospace firm will be selling trade secrets.

Intent on getting a scoop, the reporter hires private investigator John Blaylock to help her find out just what information is being handed over.

In the course of snooping, the pair are discovered, but not before they learn that the Japanese contact is a member of the Yakuza.

When the executive turns up dead after an apparent suicide, the pair realise that some very big secrets are being kept by some very important people.....

Oliver Gruner, Jeff Speakman, Jalal Merhi, Brian Bosworth. If you were of an age during the early nineties, these were names you'll recognise. They all had one decent movie, and then went on to make some awful movies.

Much like Griffith, and this movie. I've still yet to see Crackerjack, but I think that will be his defining movie. Yes he was in Vampires, XXX, and Karate Kid 3, but they were not vehicles like this.

The film promises so much, but if your looking for a straight up action film like they used to make, fight, talk a little, fight more, and then fight the main bad guy, you'll be sorely disappointed.

The marketers are to blame for this, name dropping two of the biggest action stars of the time on the cover is a big mistake, as this movie is more like Lundgrens Cover Up than anything else.

The cast are fine, its full of your generic typecasts and the good looking lead, but nothing else really happens.

A pointless movie.

A bit of an average thriller. What suddenly ramps up the movie to pretty good is Thomas Ian Griffith's character, who turns out to be a bad guy. Someone who has murdered people. For evil and dirty reasons. He's even shown brutally killing the female lead, which really spices up the movie for a few minutes. But then it all turns out to be bullcrap and the movie descends back to mediocrity like a broken balloon losing all its air. The female lead isn't all that interesting or likeable either. Which made me root for Thomas Ian Griffith's character even more. And the sudden bloody twist would have done the movie a lot of good had it not reverted right back. It was dramatic and rather unexpected. I was slightly impressed with the dark turn the movie took but didn't completely trust what I was shown. Then the movie quickly showed that my mistrust was well placed.

Erica (Keller) is a reporter trying to get to the truth about an American selling secret aerospace/military aircraft schematics to Japanese rivals. For help, she goes to private investigator Jack Blaylock (Griffith), a man who speaks fluent Japanese, has an array of SpyTech-type devices, and knows martial arts. What are the true motivations of Malcolm Carter (Howard)? We won't say what politician he looks like, but let's just say he "shot someone in the face". When it turns out the Yakuza is involved, all hell breaks loose in the form of restrained fight sequences and plot twists and turns. Will Erica and Jack find the truth? The tagline on the British VHS goes as follows: "You've Seen Seagal and Van Damme. Now...Meet the New Contender". And, yes, in the heat of the early-to-mid 90's action boom, various "new contenders" were trotted out: Jeff Speakman, Richard Norton, Gary Daniels, and now Thomas Ian Griffith. Some from that list are more successful than others. But the problem with Griffith, besides his odd hair, is that he has no personality (outside of his winning smile, of course). With such stiff competition back in the day, it must have proved impossible for Griffith to compete with the action names of the time with no hooks of his own. Nothing sets him apart. It seems Ulterior Motives is an attempt to tone down the action elements and highlight the drama/thriller/romance/espionage themes. Reasonable people can argue whether this was successful, but usually muting the violence, action and stunts is NOT a good idea for the fans.

The movie has an odd, snoozy pace, and the characters could have used a bit more depth. The length and pacing issues should have been remedied by some snappy editing and better music. Or ANY music. Strangely, there is a lack of music in most scenes, and the music there is happens to be subtle and incidental. Some more driving themes would have, and should have been there to quicken the pace. And there's another problem. There is no big, main, evil baddie. Yes, there is an antagonist, but he's a "secret", so there's no real tension regarding the hero, Blaylock, wanting to kill him. As we saw in China O'Brien (1990), lack of a sinister bad guy is hugely detrimental to the action movie formula.

We appreciate the attempt to be "different", but it's pointless to be different for different's sake, especially if the outcome doesn't deliver the goods. Ulterior Motives should have been a Showdown In Little Tokyo (1991), but instead it's a Liberty and Bash (1989). We're sorry if that analogy made no sense. Just see Showdown in Little Tokyo.

Ulterior Motives (a very telling title, really) needed more action and less jibber-jabber. For a much more satisfying T.I.G. (as we call him) vehicle, check out Excessive Force (1993).

for more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com