The Silencers

THE SILENCERS (1996)

Directed by: Richard Pepin
Screenplay: Joseph John Barmettler
Starring: Jack Scalia, Dennis Christopher, Carlos Lauchu, Lucinda West & Clarence Williams III

The PM Entertainment days of the late 80s and all through the 90s were halcyon days for action fans. When they hit their stride with decent budgets and high action quotas, PM Entertainment churned out some of the best stunt filled American action B-movies. Video stores had a new release from the studio every couple of weeks with titles like Rage, Recoil, The Sweeper and Cyber Tracker 2 delivering crazy action awesomeness. The Silencers was one of their biggest flicks: at least it seems to be due to the amount of stunt filled awesomeness on show.



This nutty sci-fi action flick sees Jack Scalia (who also popped up in equally nutty but awesome PM Entertainment sci-fi action flicks T-Force and Dark Breed) as a maverick secret service agent charged with transporting a top-secret alien cargo from Los Angeles to some place out in the desert. He’s also dealing with having let the senator he was guarding die (seen in the first massive action scene that opens the film), a divorce, his issues with authority and the fact he doesn’t believe in little green men. Well he soon does when said transport gets attacked by up-to-no good alien types and the cargo being transported is in fact an alien dude: in the form of ridiculously haired Dennis Christopher (who is hilariously named Comdor!!). The two become buddies, go on the run, try to stop the evil alien dudes opening some kind of portal which will bring on the enslavement of earth and cause much (much) vehicular mayhem and gun blazing destruction.



This is just pure set-piece cinema. The sci-fi slant is relatively flimsy with the alien dudes really only having weird eyes and emitting some kind of sonic boom on occasion to blow shit up with. Otherwise, they are just gun toting, car destroying dudes much like anyone else in the film. Considering this is a low budget film we sure do get a lot of impressive stunt packed nonsense. From a gun battle that turns into a foot chase, that turns into a subway shootout (complete with exploding miniature subway cars) to numerous excessive gun battles, explosions, dangerous looking car stunts and head on collisions: The Silencers is rammed to the rafters with awesome action. Not least the attack on the transport that sees the destruction of many cars, a tanker and in one very over-the-top but inventive moment, a helicopter as well! Awesome.

Ignore the fact that the message of the film is to try and resolve conflict without violence when the whole flick is nothing but excessive violence and destruction and simply enjoy the well handled mayhem, the tongue-in-cheek humour and a relentless barrage of pistol popping, ammo spewing, car flipping, action soaked greatness: PM Entertainment style.