A 1991 sci-fi flick that was deservedly panned by the critics, but through the inexplicable phenomenon of bad taste has garnered somewhat of a cult following. It's a renegade cop action film with enough fantasy thrown in to make Dollman one of the most horrifically ridiculous movies you are likely to ever see.
Our gruff protagonist is Brick Bardo (played by Tim Thomerson), one badass motherfucker from outer space. On his crime-ridden but technologically advanced home planet of Arturus, he's a ruthless, unorthodox cop who enjoys nothing better than annihilating bad guys, regardless of the risk to innocent bystanders. Bardo's an unlikely hero who is disliked by his superiors, but he has impeccable timing, an utter lack of fear, and happens to possess the most powerful handgun in the universe, custom-made and one of a kind. Naturally, he's the best police officer on the planet, and he's the only one who has the brains (or the balls) to hunt down Arturus' most dangerous criminal overlord Sprug (Frank Collison).
As with any good adversarial archetype, Brick Bardo and Sprug have faced each other before on multiple occasions. Bardo invariably wins these encounters, claiming a different body part of Sprug's as a trophy each time. When Sprug makes his first appearance in the movie, he is left with nothing but a disembodied head hovering on an anti-gravity platform. Just as Bardo is seconds away from ridding the universe of Sprug forever, his archnemesis hops (or hovers, if you will) into a spacecraft and accelerates off the surface of the planet. Bardo scrambles into his own ship and follows in hot pursuit. In the midst of the chase, the two ships hit an enigmatic "energy band" that somehow transports them both across 10,000 light years to the planet Earth, the South Bronx, to be exact.
Wait. It gets worse.
Apparently Arturus is a wee bitty planet, and Bardo stands just a little over a foot tall in Earth measurements (the tagline of the movie is "Thirteen inches...with an attitude"). However, his diminutive stature doesn't prevent him from rescuing Debi Alejandro (Kamala Lopez-Dawson) from an impending attack by a group of street thugs as soon as he disembarks from his wrecked craft. Alejandro is a young single mother who has made some powerful enemies through her tireless crusade to rid her neighborhood of crack dealers and gang warfare. Predictably, Sprug's ship lands smack dab in front of gangbanger and druglord Braxton Red (Jackie Earle Haley), one of the aforementioned powerful enemies. The rest of the movie revolves around Brick Bardo's attempts to foil Sprug and Braxton's evil plans to destroy the Bronx. There is also a romantic subplot between Alejandro and Bardo, which is only slightly complicated by the fact that he is roughly the size of a Ken doll.
Usually, a film like Dollman relies on extensive special effects to aid in the significant suspension of disbelief. However, it appears that the budget for this movie was rather limited, and the special effects just aren't that special. Miniature Brick Bardo is rarely seen in the same shot as the full-sized Earthlings. Similarly, budget constraints limited the amount of location shooting that mediocre director Albert Pyun could accomplish. Thus, some scenes look like stock footage from other (undoubtedly better) films. For instance, there are occasions where the South Bronx looks suspiciously like South Central.
Dollman doesn't boast any big stars, either, but has a host of actors that look vaguely familiar. Tim Thomerson is a character actor who has become something of a cult hero playing renegade cops in B-movies and bit parts in better films. Bad guy Jackie Earle Haley is better known as a teen star from the 1970s. Kamala Lopez-Dawson made a career out of playing an impoverished Latina before starring exclusively in independent films. Frank Collison, the bodiless Sprug, has been in a surprising number of big budget Hollywood movies, where he is invariably credited with minor roles like "Screaming Man," "Stoner Witness," and "Skinny Cop #3." In short, the cast is a bunch of has-beens and never-weres.
If you're not a stickler for a believable plot, realistic special effects, charismatic acting, or any artistic merit whatsoever, Dollman might be right up your alley. The actors seem to hold no illusions about what a stinker of a movie they've consented to create, and so they relax and have fun with their roles (such as they are). The film is packed with amusing one-liners and implausible situations, made all the more entertaining precisely because the movie is so awful. If you know what you're getting into before you watch it (and how can you not, after reading the back of the box with that ridiculous tagline), Dollman is a good way to waste an hour or so. That's right, about an hour - the movie only runs 71 minutes long, which may be its saving grace.
The screenplay for Dollman is by Charles Band, who has written and produced classic B-movies such as Puppetmaster, Trancers (aka Future Cop, also starring the indefatigable Tim Thomerson), and Demonic Toys. In 1993, Band decided to kill two birds with one stone by creating the combined sequel Dollman vs. Demonic Toys. I have yet to see this dubious masterpiece (released straight to video), but I'm afraid that when you take two movies that both fall into the "so bad that it's good" category and combine them, you risk creating something that's so bad that it's just bad.
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