Sloane

Phillip Sloane, the titular hero of Sloane, is the most lackadaisical, lazy, obnoxiously preppy action hero in cinematic history. As played by Robert Resnick (no, we’ve never heard of him either), Sloane looks like he’d be more in his element tormenting Anthony Michael Hall in a John Hughes’ coming-of-age flick than kicking butt in the Phillipines in this ripe slice of 80s action cheese.

Sloane the movie begins in Manila where three portly thugs, one of whom looks like the Filipino version of Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, invade a home and attack a woman just as she’s exiting the shower (naturally). They subsequently kidnap her and beat her husband to death.

Sloane the character lives on a houseboat in California and teaches Tae Kwon Do. He’s also an ex-cop who spent three years on the force after 17 years living in Manila. Oh, and he’s also the ex-boyfriend of Janice, the kidnapped woman. Thus, it makes perfect sense that Janice’s father would enlist Sloane’s services in rescuing and locating his daughter instead of perhaps contacting the Filipino police or the most relevant embassy.

Sloane is told to meet Cynthia, the sister of the slain man, who is meant to assist him in the investigation. But the petulant brat that he is and also for reasons never entirely made clear, Sloane wants absolutely nothing to do with her. He never fails to vocalize his displeasure with her company and continually degrades her by introducing her to others as Cindy. Still, when Cynthia is attacked by the same thugs, Sloane does spring into action to save her, handily taking out the goons without breaking a sweat nor untucking his Polo shirt from his khakis.

Apparently poor Janice was kidnapped because her husband ran off with a bunch of money owed to organized crime kingpin Chan Se who has a habit of over-enunciating each word like a Filipino George Takei. He’s holding her until she reveals the location of the money. Sloane, on the other hand, seems to have zero urgency in finding her as he’d rather spend his time getting drunk, visiting bordellos and sleeping with now-grown childhood friends. Guess that’s why he doesn’t want Cynthia around. She’d likely cramp his style.

Circumstances do arise to motivate Sloane to finally get off his lazy, frat-boy ass and team up with Cynthia and another childhood friend, Pete, to finally do a little investigating. Sloane’s laissez faire, whiny attitude is best summed up in the following piece of dialogue after getting some information as to Janice’s whereabouts:

Pete: You believe him, Sloane?
Sloane: Fuck, I don’t know.

Eventually Sloane’s inertia is broken just a bit more and he straps on one of those comically oversized Rambo-esque M60s with an ammo belt that never seems to run out of bullets.

To say much more would be to spoil the crackling ending of Sloane but we’d be extremely remiss if we didn’t mention that it involves a subterranean tribe of cannibalistic Pygmies!

Most of the principals of Sloane quit the biz shortly afterwards but director Dan Rosenthal is credited as the post-production accountant on the 2011 Liam Neeson man vs. wild flick The Grey, so that’s gotta count for something.

**1/2 (out of five)