Warhead (1996) User Reviews (9)

If you feel you might have too many brain cells, check out Warhead!

[tarbosh22000 · 4/10 · 27 March 2012]

When the diabolical villain Kraft (Lara) takes over a missile silo and threatens to launch an ICBM at Washington, only one man can stop the madness: Jack Tannen (Zagarino), of course. He assembles a team which includes Jessica Evans (Giordano), an MIT-educated scientist. Kraft kidnapped her father and forces him to help him, so Jessica has her own reasons to go on the incredibly dangerous mission to take down Kraft and his army of no-good-niks. Will Jack and Jessica succeed? In the first part of Warhead, we can tell director Mark Roper, director of Queen's Messenger (2001) and Marines (2003), among other DTV action outings, was trying to ground his movie in serious, topical themes. Raw news footage of neo-Nazis and references to such events as Ruby Ridge and the Oklahoma City bombing make the viewer think Warhead is going to be a gritty, "ripped from the headlines"-type film. However, once the silly action scenes begin, and Zagarino and Lara show up, we know we're in for something else entirely.

The stars (and possibly some of the same sets) of Armstrong (1998) reunite! Zagarino is sub-Lundgren once again, and the dark haired, dark-featured Lara cast as some kind of white supremacist is just odd. Lara's forced "quirkiness" falls flat. His "seriousness" is, well...not so serious. And if they were going to make his political views abhorrent, they should have done a better job. His positions on taxes seemed right to us. He's pretty ahead of his time, that Kraft.

Sure, Armstrong wasn't the best movie in the world, but it had Richard Lynch. Elizabeth Giordano, who teams up with Zagarino all the time (including Deadly Reckoning, 1998), doesn't add much to the equation. Because Warhead is filled with the aforementioned silly action scenes, as well as goofy dialogue, and relentless clichés, we can honestly say this movie is stupidity at its most dumb.

But it's important to remember: you absolutely know that going in. Whoever acts shocked that a Zagarino/Lara vehicle is dumb should probably have their head examined. If you're in the mood for something very dumb, Warhead fits the bill well, because for most of the movie, it's just stupidly funny and reasonably entertaining. To expect more - or something else - would be wrong.

Somehow, even the Jetskis with missile launchers attached to them seemed too little too late. That being said, the stuntwork should be applauded, but Nu-Image is really hit or miss. They're not a powerhouse like PM.

If you feel you might have too many brain cells, check out Warhead.

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Well it is a bomb...

[fmarkland32 · 2/10 · 24 August 2006]

Frank Zagarino stars as a marine who must save the world from a terrorist who is looking to use a nuclear weapon on the US and being that Zagarino is the only man who can stop him and...ZZZZZZZ Frank Zagarino and Joe Lara are what happens when a movie wants Dolph Lundgren and Lorenzo Lamas (I must admit Lorenzo Lamas as a white supremacist leader would have been hilarious) but can't afford to do so, they just grab two lookalikes that have less acting ability but the same muscles and voilà you have Warhead. Warhead is a lame movie because it doesn't know how to milk suspense in anything, from it's first shootout until the would be heroic disarming that may or may not save the day, there is no suspense in any of it. Also Warhead for some reason is fairly well budgeted for what it is, so i'm not sure what exactly what they did wrong but all blame falls into the director's hand since he can't competently stage action or suspense. So an action movie without either suspense or excitement, is a movie well worth avoiding.

* out of 4-(Bad)

Good late night fun

[Tom62 · 7/10 · 21 February 2003]

I've seen the film last night on German TV and I must say that I liked it. Sure it contains plot holes, where you could drive a tank through (like the silly hacker war), but in general it is great evening entertainment. Fast and action packed, it is like a rollercoaster drive that keeps you glued to the screen every minute. So all I can say is, grab a couple of beers, don't worry about the plot and acting; and just enjoy it.

Director Mark Roper does a great job

[DarkQuickening · 8/10 · 7 September 2007]

Mark Roper's directing style often reminds me of John Woo and that's not a bad guy to emulate. Cool slow motion, stylized gun fights to a dramatic score. This movie also had the Woo like quick flashbacks and a slow-mo white bird, another Woo trademark. The actors here do a nice job. A lot of them appear throughout the fun Operation Delta Force films, also by Nu Image. Frank Zagarino will never be confused for Bruce Willis, but he does a fine job as the leader of a U.S. Special Forces unit. Mark Roper is definitely one of the best low budget action movie directors around, along with Issac Florentine. I hope Nu Image lets Roper do another one.

Zagarino averts nuclear disaster (again)

[HaemovoreRex · 7/10 · 4 December 2007]

Here's a surprisingly nifty little flick featuring some excellently crafted stunt work and a few highly memorable action sequences.

Direct to DVD action man Frank Zagarino headlines as the leader of an elite special forces group who's sent in to tackle a far right militia type faction led by bad guy Joe Lara. Trouble is Lara turns out to be a decidedly slippery bastard and manages to escape and later seizes control of a secret military base complete with a number of nuclear missiles......yep, ransom demands are predictably very much on the cards here.

Although one quite understandably may scoff at this admittedly cliché ridden effort on paper, a number of very well executed sequences lift this way above the average mark, most notably an ambush atop a bridge in which Zagarino's entire squad are slaughtered in spectacular style.

For fellow fans loving daft plot contrivances also, the ending in this will be sure to please......suffice to say a nuclear explosion ostensibly isn't much to worry about according to the makers of this.....

To summarise; approach this in the correct frame of mind and it may well surprise you. Certainly, it's well worth a watch for B-movie fans.

I'm doing what's right for America!

[sol-kay · 6/10 · 2 May 2007]

**SPOILERS** Bargain basement version of the classic count down to Armageddon thriller "Twilight's Last Gleaming" has a bunch of disgruntled former US servicemen take over this secret missile silo and threaten, after launching one of them that exploded harmlessly in the Navada Desert, to nuke Washington D.C unless their demands are met. Lead by former top black/ops commando Kraft,Joe Lara,the renegade GI's give the government just 12 hours to come up with 1 billion dollars, depositing it into Krafts secret numbered Swiss bank account, and safe passage to a country to be named later.

At the beginning of "Warhead" were given a history lesson on the militia and white separatist movement in the US with film clips of the Oklahoma City Bombing and skinheads and KKK members marching and kicking a** on the streets of a number of US towns and and cities. But in the movie they, the skinheads and KKK as well as white separatists, have nothing at all to do with the story. We soon see that Kraft is, in his mind, a super patriot and even, dispelling his racism, has a number of African/American former GI's in his gang of insurgents.

The crusading Senator Brickman, Frank Natano, who's campaigning to put an end to "Kraft's Commandos" is seen at the beginning of the movie literally thrown out of office when his TV, as Brickman turns the sound down, blows up sending him out his high-rise office window to his death. That's the first of many really cool and explosive scenes that is about the only reason for watching "Warhead" with the story and the acting that goes along with it just too off-the-wall to take seriously even for a moment.

After screwing up at taking out Kraft and his boys at their secret training camp somewhere in Idaho US Army special operation honcho Jack Tanner, Frank Zagarino, who's held responsible for that fiasco is put on hold or behind a desk by his boss Gen. Edwards, Brian O'Shaunessy. Tanner later gets back into action screwing himself and his commandos by being ambushed by Kraft's men in, of all places, sunny and out of the way Hiati with only Tanner surviving the massacre!

Having had all the excitement, as well as lumps on his head, that he can handle Tanner decides to take a sabbatical only to run into, or is it that she ran into him, pretty MIT graduate who also has a doctorate in electronics Jessica Evens, Liz Giordano. It turns out that Liz's dad just happens to be US government computer whiz Dr. Evens, Michael McCabe, who's being held hostage by Kraft, or so she thought. Dr. Evens is the only person who can, by knowing the secret code, launch the nuclear missiles in the silo that Kraft and his boys had earlier captured from the US Army.

Realizing that his country, if not the entire world, is in mortal danger Tanner gets the go ahead from his boss Gen. Edwards in order to take out Kraft and his missile's and again, which seems to be S.O.P for him, almost screws everything up. Not because of his incompetence but that he and his country are being sabotaged from within by not only the top presidential adviser Tim Lansdale, Todd Jensen, who's just doing it for the money, but also by Dr. Evens himself, who was thought at first to be Kraft's hostage. Dr. Evens also believes in the same garbage that Kraft does in that the only way America can be saved from the mess it finds itself in is by first nuking itself!

Slam bang ending with Tanner and his men storming the silo as Jessica tries to keep her crazy father from launching the missile that's to take out D.C. Dr. Evens ends being gunned down by Kraft, as he tried to shield his daughter from being shot and killed, who then has it out with Tanner inside the silo as the missile is being launched.

Outlandish finish with Kraft being put to sleep, permanently, by Tanner who escaped by the skin of his teeth from the now sealed silo that explodes in a thermo-nuclear blast with him Jessica and every one else on his rescue team safe and sound! You would think that an explosion of that size, a 20 megaton nuclear device, would have flattened and wiped out everything within ten to fifteen miles from the impact site! Instead we see Tanner Jessica & Co. walk away without a scratch or as much a care in the world? Just think of the amount of deadly radiation, not counting the fire and brimstone, an explosion like that would emit! Yet nothing happened to Tanner & Co. who were only within a few yards of the blast!

Fine low budget action

[Quakerz · 20 August 1999]

I don't know why, but Warhead is one of my favorite movies.

May be it's the typical Mark Roper-action style in combination with the music during the ( long and violent ) action scenes. The story is about a group of ( fashistic ) terrorists overtaking an american nuclear-silo and a secret Special Force, which takes'em out step by step. Especially the shoot-out in the middle of the movie, where nearly the whole Anti-Terror-Unit is killed by the terrorists impressed me. Mark Roper made a extraordinary well job in this scene. Little note for anyone coming from Germany and planing to rent it. Don't do it ! The video version is heavily cut. Check out the version running in TV ( Pro7 ). It contains more of the violence. If you watch both versions you get in impression of how different these versions are. If you've the right connections, buy the US-release or the ( rare ) UK-print.

laughable excuse of an action-movie

[Pucki · 2 May 2002]

Err... whoever told Frank Zagarino that he's the up-and-coming new action hero - time for a job change, pal!

Okay, most "modern age" action heroes have no acting talent, no screen charisma, but Zagarino beats them all (although it was sort of nice to see him playing the good guy for a change).

Pair that with an idiotic script, absolutely ridiculous action scenes and generally annoying (and stupid - take the "ambush" on the bridge as a shining example - if I hadn't sent my suspension of disbelief out to get some air before starting the movie it probably would have killed itself trying to grasp the concept of these guys being an elite special unit) behaviour of each and every character in the film and you'll end with an unwatchable mess (although it's sort of fascinating in a trainwreck-way of things... you just can't keep from looking at it).

Highlight of on-screen idiocy is the "hacking battle" between Evans and his daughter... hey, they could have padded the running time by expanding this exchange of "activate warhead" and "disarm warhead" up to three hours (be thankful they didn't...).

It's a movie that's even too idiotic to be bad in a funny way like so many others - it's just a real real real stupid movie. 1/10

I have enjoyed drooling more.

[j0k3r · 25 March 2001]

This film was absolutely awful. Being a programmer and a computer man, the thing that bothered me the most was the so-called access codes for the ICBM missle launch. I wish it were as easy as 'DESTINATION WASHINGTON' and 'DEACTIVATE WARHEAD'. I also liked how when Jessica (who's hair never was messed up in all the action) was greeted by a giant 'HELLO JESSICA' when she logged in.

Here they all are sitting around the table in the Pentagon listening to the threatening messages from the terrorists and our hero decides to go in. They have 12 hours to comply. Yet, our hero, manages to assemble a team, equipment, transportation, and make it to the carribean in under 2 hours. I must admit that is quite a remarkable.

The fight scenes were awful. I don't know what kind of martial arts experts they hired to correograph this thing, oh wait, they didn't hire any. The fight scenes were slow and predictable. Half the time the gun shots were a half a second before or after the flare from the gun, as well as the re-coil from the actors.

This movie was terrible. I don't know why any of these people acted in this movie. Having done a bit of acting myself, I don't know how anyone could have read that script and been excited about it. I guess looking at the actors filmographies, we can see why they would have taken it.

I give it a 2 of 10