Evasive Maneuvers, sees the return of mercenary Vic Gagne (Dastoli. James Dastoli), whom we join as he is making a deal with a man named Remeaux (Drew Lindo). Remeaux is kinda like Under the Gun's Henderson (Charley Vandergrift), except if he was a bloodthirsty psycho in a ponytail. Not one minute into their dealings, Remeaux signals his two guards to shoot Gagne. But it seems Gagne has learned from previous double-crosses, because the goods he has given Remeaux have already been rigged to kill him through electrocution. Once the shock goes off, Gagne stabs the guards and is out the door. Which means that Gagne was going to murder Remeaux no matter what. This is a serious departure from the typical Dastoli Digital hero. I mean, yes, Gagne was a murdering savage in the first one, but at least then, he waited until the other guy double-crossed him first before taking his life (and that of his employees), so that his actions were merely out of coldblooded vengeance, not coldblooded dishonor. Gagne is heading down a dark path. The only other explanation surfaces later on in the movie, when Gagne refers to himself as a problem solver, and the late Remeaux as a problem. Does this mean Gagne was hired to take Remeaux's money AND take him out? Since when is Gagne a hired assassin? This is the most morally questionable hero James and Robert have ever brought to life, and his actions had better be explained in the threquel they plan on making ten years from now.

Gagne escapes the building by forcing a ride at gunpoint from a foulmouthed little lady named Lindsay (P. Sanchez). This leads into the extended car chase that makes up the rest of the movie. I know what you're thinking: Why isn't Kay (Trine Alimena) there ready to drive/fly Vic to safety? Why is his entire team just sitting around at an airfield while all this is happening? The real life answer is, due to James and Robert's new Orlando-based locale, they could only practically include the rest of the team if they relegated them to a seamless cameo shot in Stamford, Connecticut. But the Gagnoverse answer is that Vic Gagne has been driven to madness from his own badass juice, and he didn't even tell his team where he was or what he was doing. Later, he's going to buy them all extravagant gifts with his share of Remeaux's 2 mil, and brush them off when they ask how he could afford them.

Some notes:

- When Remeaux reveals that his bank account password is "frondeur," Gagne distinctly smirks, and it has always bothered me because I don't know what "frondeur" means. An internet French-to-English translator yielded the following results: Frondeur is a masculine noun meaning "slinger." Yeah, I guess that is funny, Vic.

- I've always been amused at the exchange Gagne shares with Lindsay when she says, "I can't do this!" and he replies, "You are doing this!" because James and Robert once told me that in order to get the intonation correct, James delivered the line as if he was actually saying, "You fucking bitch, you are doing this!"

- The whole thing where Gagne stops a helicopter by throwing an umbrella at it? I think they just did that because it was an interesting idea, but if someone were to attempt it in real life, the umbrella would likely open all the way inside out from the wind. And even if he released it at just the right time and it wasn't inside out, it wouldn't fly up toward the helicopter. And if it did, the propellers would just knock the umbrella away like so much debris. I think next time, Vic should climb out onto the roof of the car, jump at the helicopter, grab onto its legs, climb up and kill everyone in it, then jump off and let it crash so that Kay can later make a smartass remark about how much destruction he causes, and Vic can coldly tell her to give it a rest.

Here is what the Dastolis have to say about Evasive Maneuvers:

JAMES:

"Words can't describe the feeling of being able to bring back Vic Gagne, but looking back on Evasive Maneuvers, there are things that we should have had. Gagne should have been running around and jumping on moving vehicles and all sorts of crazy things. Instead we just had him stay in a car the whole time. Not to mention we barely showed any of Padra in the entire film."

ROBERT:

"Originally we didn't intend to do another Vic Gagne movie. While we were making Dark Exposures in the fall of 2003 we got the desire to run around and make another action film. This decision was made a week or two prior to Matt London and Drew Lindo pitching us the gigantic action film ShadowGame (which of course ended up being scrapped). Had we got the ShadowGame pitch prior to when we made the decision to do another Gagne movie, Evasive Maneuvers would probably not have been made."

Well, it wasn't an epic adventure like Under the Gun, but I think it's great that they brought back Vic Gagne, and the chase itself is thrilling and competently slapped together, especially considering they shot it entirely on the UCF Campus. Vic is the most important character in the entire Dastoli Digital canon. I submit that he become the official Dastoli Digital mascot. In fact, when they were making this, I only had one request for James and Robert: to allow me to play a guard that gets killed by Vic Gagne. And I did. Of course, he kills me somewhat indirectly, which is not quite as good, and James and Robert spent the entire day criticizing my performance, but I wouldn't trade it for all the tea in Prague.