Raven (1996)

At one time, Burt Reynolds was the number one box office draw in the world. From 1977 to 1983, anything in which Reynolds appeared made him (and the studios) millions. But after a few flopped films and an injury that caused him to lose weight (resulting in rumors that he had contracted AIDS,) Reynolds’ movie magic slipped away for a time. While he had some success on television, he never regained that box office momentum. Age and changing audience expectations took their toll as well. In the 1990s, Reynolds began appearing in films that would have seemed beneath him only a decade before. Movies like Bean, Frankenstein & Me, and Raven.

Raven casts Reynolds as Jerome “Raven” Katz, a mercenary who carries out jobs for the government. His team — appropriately named Raven Team — has been hired to retrieve a computer decoder from a Bosnian military camp. His employers, The Four Star Group, a shady assemblage of politicians and CIA officials, want to sell the decoder to the Iranians for a big payday. Katz decides to take the decoder for himself. When Katz’ protégé, Duce (Matt Battaglia,) confesses that he wants out of the team, Katz tries to entice him back with the offer of going into business. The money they could get for the decoder on the black market would have them both set for life.

Duce refuses and steals half of the decoder, leaving Katz with an unsellable piece of hardware. The mission fails as both Duce and Katz are presumed dead. Neither piece of the decoder is recovered. A year later, Duce assumes a new identity in California. Katz tries to track him down to convince him to cough up the missing decoder piece. The Iranian customer who wanted the decoder in the first place puts pressure on the Four Star Group who never delivered on their deal. A collision course seems inevitable. And predictable.

With a cast consisting of one bonafide Hollywood star and a bunch of B-list actors, Raven never amounts to anything but a generic direct-to-video action flick. And that’s exactly what it is. Reynolds can act circles around his cast mates and he proves it in every scene. Although he’s clearly here for the paycheck, he’s not challenged in the slightest by the script’s ham-fisted dialogue. Reynolds breezes through his scenes with a charm that makes it easy-to-forget he’s the villain. Or, at least, he’s supposed to be.

Ostensibly, Duce becomes the film’s hero. Yet, thanks to Matt Battaglia’s wooden acting, he seems barely capable of tying his shoelaces. Vying for the audience’s empathy exceeds this actor’s meager thespian skills. A plot twist in the latter half of the film does his character no favors either.

The rest of the players fall into three categories: generic politician types, generic soldier types, or plastic-looking bimbos. Unsurprisingly, most of the women are cast simply to take off their clothes. Duce’s girlfriend, Cali, is played by Krista Allen, who once played Emmanuelle in a series of soft-core porn movies. (She’s since gone on to star in a number of soap operas but the filmmakers’ clearly weren’t looking for a powerhouse actress here.)

While it’s not completely terrible, Raven possesses nothing worth recommending other than Reynolds’ performance. Thankfully for him, Boogie Nights — and the acclaim that it would bring — was only a year away.