Tags:
Film: The Crow: Wicked Prayer
Year: 2005
Director: Lance Mungia
Writer: Lance Mungia, Jeff Most and Sean Hood
Starring: Yuji Okumoto, Marcus Chong and Tito Ortiz
Review:
This film begins telling us that there is a small town that stays alive due to a toxic mine. It is killing the city, but the mine provides the town with jobs. There are talks of the Native Americans in the town shutting it down to open a new resort casino. There is a gang that is out to prevent this. They are out for revenge and have fashioned themselves to be known as the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Yuji Okumoto is pestilence and he is slowly dying. Marcus Chong is war and Tito Ortiz is famine. Ortiz is a short order cook who poisons food and Chong is crazy, constantly quoting famous generals.
They start an attack and we see someone in the steeple of a church. They have a rifle with a silencer and a scope. They are watching a chain gang and when the call comes in about the attack, a prisoner fakes being sick. The shooter takes out the chain between his handcuffs. The prisoner is David Boreanaz and he is the leader of the gang, known as Luc Crash or death. The shooter is his girlfriend, Tara Reid. The gang is now back together.
We then meet another character. He is currently on parole where he had murdered a high school football star; this man is played by Edward Furlong. He is seeing Emmanuelle Chriqui. She is a Native American and her father is Danny Trejo. He is the one that is leading the push to create the casino. Her brother is played by Dave Baez, who is the local sheriff.
Furlong and Chriqui dated in high school and continued to see each other even while he was incarcerated. Her father and brother do not like it. The townspeople also call him an ‘Injun lover’ or ‘Injun killer’. Furlong is supposed to meet Chriqui later that day, but she does not know that he is coming to propose. Her brother stops him on his way and tells him that it won’t work.
When he gets to where she works, he doesn’t see her. He does see Reid in a mask. We then learn that it is an ambush. Boreanaz and his gang are there. Both Furlong and Chriqui are put in nooses. It turns out that Boreanaz and his gang are out to stop the shutting down of the mine and to succeed in doing this, Boreanaz is trying to become Satan. In order to do this, they cut out the eyes of Chriqui. Reid does a spell that allows her to have them and to see how to fulfill the prophecy. Boreanaz then cuts out the heart of Furlong. Another spell is done and the heart turns to dust. Boreanaz then has a burn on his chest of 666 over his heart.
The two bodies are taken to the local dump, put into an old refrigerator and left. The problem is though, Furlong comes back. He takes Chriqui and leaves her at the store. Her brother comes. He finds the flowers that he saw Furlong had and he believes that Furlong has snapped and killed her. He goes to find him.
Boreanaz and his gang are out looking for a virgin in order to fulfill the prophecy. Furlong tries to kill himself, but he fails. He decides to get his own revenge and stop the gang. Also to make them pay.
Will Boreanaz succeed in becoming Satan and will he stop Trejo? Or will Furlong get his revenge and put an end to this gang?
I have to say that I thought this film did have some creativity. I liked that Boreanaz’s gang took the names of the four horsemen. I found it to be creative. It really doesn’t mean a whole lot outside of Chong who is crazy, always wanting to fight and quoting old generals. It made sense for him to be war. Okumoto does a little as he is sick and dying inside, which is kind of fitting for pestilence. I will also credit this film for getting Reid and Chriqui, as they are both beautiful. Also some of the girls at the brothel in the end are good looking as well.
The first thing negative I will say is that this film is horrible cheesy. The acting is just bad across the board. I really can’t point out one person that I was impressed by. The film is boring and the fight scenes do not make much sense to me. Furlong was a horrible decision as The Crow. The story had potential, but it kind of just plays out. Dennis Hopper is even in this film and this might have been one of his worst roles ever. There was a decent concept and just really wasted it.
I would not recommend seeing this film. I only watched it as I have seen the rest of The Crow films and just wanted to finish out the series. If that is what you are going for, then go ahead, but this film is bad. The only bright stops are the concept of the four horsemen trying to ruin the plans of those that wronged them. Also seeing Reid when she was still hot and Chriqui was good. The acting was bad, the story is pointless and I was pretty indifferent to what was going on. This film was definitely a failure in my opinion.
My Rating: 3 out of 10