Review: Dark Mission: Evil Flowers

CIA boss Sparks (spaghetti western and low-budget ninja movie veteran Richard Harrison) sends agent Derek Carpenter (Christopher Mitchum) to South America to bring down a local drug baron (Christopher Lee). Cristina Higueras plays Lee’s daughter. Brigitte Lahaie is Carpenter’s local contact who as a score to settle with him.

 

The bad boy of sleazy Euro cinema Jesus Franco (“Vampyros Lesbos”, “Eugenie de Sade”) went PG-13 with this obscure 1988 action movie of sorts. It’s this awkward thing where the only people who will even have an inclination to check this out are Franco fans, but a lot of those Francophiles won’t like it for how mild it is. This isn’t an exploitation or horror film, it’s a low-budget action film with actually not a whole lot of action in it until the finale. If anything the film probably would’ve benefitted from the usual Franco touches of zoom-happy camerawork, and large helpings of sex and violence. Here it feels as if Franco were a mere director-for-hire.

 

I don’t actually mind the film – it’s competent enough – but it’s also blandly anonymous. Anyone could’ve been at the helm. The plot and characters are fine, the performances are generally OK, but it overall lacks excitement and energy. That’s not good for an action film, though the climax is relatively fun and explosive. It’s actually rather bloody for a film that got a PG-13 in the United States. Christopher Lee is his usual professional self playing a somewhat convincingly genial and paternal villain (no great stretch), and Cristina Higueras is the best thing as Lee’s daughter and the love interest of Christopher Mitchum (who is just OK here). Interestingly loopy role for Brigitte Lahaie as Mitchum’s rather hostile contact in Peru.

 

Certainly better than its IMDb score of 3.3 suggests, this 80s Jess Franco film has a pretty decent cast and OK script, but never quite grabs you. It’s supposed to be an action film, and since it fails on that front I can’t quite recommend it. However, I was expecting a lot worse, to be honest. I’m just not sure there’s an audience for it at the same time, and its currently obscure status probably suggests I’m right (that low IMDb rating comes from only 280 users). Franco wrote the screenplay with Georges Friedland, who scripted “The Panther Squad” and Franco’s awful “Fall of the Eagles”.

 

Rating: C+

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