Where to watch As Good as Dead
3 Stars
Shane (Michael Jai White), a man with a mysterious past moves to a small Mexican border-town to start over and live the simple life. While there, he reluctantly befriends a troubled local teen who has recently lost his mother and is being recruited by the local street gang. Shane keeps the boy on the straight and narrow by introducing him to martial arts and taking on the role of mentor, teacher and father-figure. As the story unfolds we learn that Shane is much more than a man who moved to Mexico to live the simple life. Shane is running from a complex, violent past that he believes he left behind. As his past catches up with him, he is forced into a life and death struggle to clear his name, save the boy and get back all that he left behind.
Michael Jai White, whom I greatly admire, has starred in or been featured in over 100 movies to date. Even the most hardcore fan would be hard-pressed to have seen all of the man’s film work. I had overlooked As Good as Dead, mostly because of the funky box art and the plethora of Jai White films I already had to catch up on. Then I heard the actor on a podcast discussing the movie and its production, the writing process, and the fighting style present on-screen. It was time to give As Good as Dead a shot.
This film is a surprise in all the best ways. I’ve seen hundreds of B-movies in the action genre, and As Good as Dead is amongst the most enjoyable I’ve seen in years. The story starts like Karate Kid, then has a bit of Rambo: Last Blood, before becoming a kind of buddy pic between two unlikely antiheroes. The violence is consistent and brutal, although CGI bloodspots soften the visual impact. Tom Berenger, playing another corrupt cop, is only in the film for a few scenes; As Good as Dead is the Michael Jai White show, and it’s an entertaining one.
Directed by: R. Ellis Frazier
Written by: Michael Jai White
Starring: Michael Jai White, Luca Oriel, Guillermo Iván