This is really just the god damndest sequel ever. Hi there. Every Man Has His Price reintroduces us to British secret agent Alec Price, whom we last saw in Smiert Spionam. In this new adventure, Price finds himself in the secret headquarters of a French guy named Jean Luc Débrouiller who is selling weapons to terrorists. Basically, Price is there to steal some computer files as evidence, so that someone can tell this guy to stop selling the weapons to terrorists, and that we don't care what he does with the weapons, just stop selling them to terrorists.

The main difference between this movie and Smiert Spionam is the way they shot the locations. Smiert Spionam was shot entirely on real locations, but the realism was diminished because suburban streets and houses had to double for more exotic locales. So in Every Man Has His Price, they shot everything entirely in blue screen with digital-or-CGI backgrounds. So that if they needed an airplane hangar, they had an airplane hangar. As a result, Price's whole world looks like a video game, which might unbelievably end up taking some people out of it even more than the less impressive locations in Smiert Spionam. Then again, the look of it is very unique and might very well appeal to others. So you may find yourself watching this movie in a room with people who sound like this:

SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF GUY: "Wow, this is pretty awesome!"

NON-SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF GUY: "What the hell is this?"

GUY EVERYONE MAKES FUN OF: "Did they get a real airplane?"

Perhaps the greatest irony of the all-digital-or-CGI locations is that, while it makes unthinkable feats (such as a finale with jets, missiles, and explosions) thinkable, it also makes simple shots of a guy in a hallway or elevator extremely fake-looking.

For those of you still thinking about a few sentences ago, when I said the movie looked like a video game, I submit further thoughts about this statement-- could this explain why the Dastolis used the same two guys to portray endless waves of henchmen? Was this a hidden message about the expendability of man? Or is there a cloning plot afoot that the movie doesn't even address? The cloning plot would serve to explain why Sean Samson (who died in Smiert Spionam) and Jean Luc Débrouiller are both played by Adam Schenk. Or why all those little red-haired guards look suspiciously like a certain deranged bellhop, as well as, oh, just half the cast of Smiert Spionam. This is only a problem because it seems that the Dastolis had been trying to maintain some semblance of continuity, seeing as how they brought back the original actors for Alec Price, Nigel Remington-- even the stupid Bartender.

And about this Bartender. At the very end, the Dastolis take the footage of the Bartender turning toward us and reverse it in order to get him to turn back. For some reason, the Dastolis did this rather than get footage of the actual actor turning back. What is the message behind this? Even more baffling is the prominent use of Robert Dastoli. Here's a guy who looks exactly identical to Alec Price (Robert and James are twin brothers in real life) and the Dastolis take great precautions to cover his face in a ski mask when Robert appears in the beginning as a Terrorist, but then at the end, when he plays a couple of guards about to die, he's just there with his face out in the open. And not only that-- they decide to throw two Roberts into one shot. TWO ROBERTS IN ONE SHOT. Just for the hell of it. Almost like they want us to notice. Observe this dramatization:

JAMES: "Robert, I'm putting two of you into this one shot."

ROBERT: "Why?"

JAMES: "Because I can! This is how much I care, bastards! Two Roberts!"

ROBERT: "You'll never get away with this."

JAMES: "But I already have. Oh, don't look so shocked."

ROBERT: "You're gonna render this file obviously?"

JAMES: "Yes, fucking idiot."

What are these Dastolis trying to tell us? The clone theory, which came from my little brother, is so far the most workable hypothesis.

So what else is different from Smiert Spionam in this movie? Well, there's the acting. Thanks to two guys I've never heard of named Jon Ginsberg and Mike Lydon, the acting in this movie takes a dive faster than Dan Wiznitzer's career. These two guys portray a Military Official and British Head of Intelligence, respectively, as if the direction was to act like two morons who don't know how to act. These guys make Tom Berry look like Orson Welles. Another disappointment when you compare this movie to Smiert Spionam is the only fistfighting scene. Alec Price runs into the only Guard who isn't a little redheaded boy, played by Stan Wawrzonkiewicz, and they beat the hell out of each other in what can only be described as an awkward imitation of a fight. But I wouldn't be so hard on it if I didn't have Smiert Spionam's Price/Crimson smackdown still fresh in my mind from the other day. Thankfully, the fight is followed by one of the greatest moments in cinematic history-- the return of Nigel Remington (Jake Nabel). Move over, every guy who has ever played James Bond.

The main thing this movie has on Smiert Spionam is the fact that Alec Price gets into a jet and flies around killing people in the jet, which he never even came close to doing in the first one.

Here is what the Dastolis have to say about Every Man Has His Price:

JAMES:

"Every Man Has His Price was made to right the wrongs of Smiert Spionam. It was a massive step forward, even though it still suffered a few of the same problems. Funny thing is we intended to solve what we thought was one of the biggest problems with Smiert Spionam (locations) by shooting it all bluescreen. But then while we were making Every Man Has His Price, our biggest desire was to make an action film using all real locations. That was part of the genesis for Under the Gun."

ROBERT:

"Because of the bluescreen and the conditions that we were shooting it under, Every Man Has His Price had the most reshoots of any movie we've made. There would be weeks where we'd go out in our backyard to shoot the same shots of James in front of the bluescreen every single day. And we'd never get it bright enough or blue enough. We didn't have that problem with any of the other bluescreen stuff later on, especially once we realized a couple years later that we should be doing our bluescreen work inside with controlled light. Needless to say, the whole Every Man Has His Price shooting experience was an intersting one."

I suppose they do put it into perspective better than I do. Considering the amount of work this must have taken, it really is an amazing piece of work, and a massive step forward. The Dastolis learn something from every project, and always seem to impress on some level while doing it. I also really enjoy watching their movies, no matter how many things wrong I might point out while writing reviews about them. In short, Every Man Has His Price more than justifies its own existence.

But that will never explain the two Roberts in one shot.