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After breaking up a massive illegal ammunitions deal amongst several of the city’s top crime lords, Blake finds himself with one part of the mystery unsolved. Why was one of the buyers offering up five computer discs? What could be so valuable? They discover the code to a massively popular Virtual Reality game called “Expect to Die.” Purchasing millions of dollars worth of weapons with a videogame doesn’t make much sense, so he and his partner set out to investigate. What they find is a series of clues leading them to a surprisingly mysterious mad scientist type developer that just may be making the game a little too realistic. Could it be that if you die in the game, you die in real life?

Alright, it sounds like I’m giving a lot away, but I’m really not. And if you’re watching a movie like this, you can’t “Expect to Be Surprised.” This is schlock of the highest degree. Lebanese born, Canadian martial artist turned filmmaker (if that doesn’t scream genius, I don’t know what does) Jalal Merhi stars as Blake, the toughest cop around, despite the fact that he’s starting to look kind of old and is about a foot shorter than every one else on screen and apparently doesn’t know how to reach for a gun as well as he knows how to roundhouse kick. He also directs this tale of caution in a dawning technological age where maybe it’s not such a good thing that anything is possible, considering there just might be an evil video game programmer with bloodlust and an axe.

As much as Merhi would like you to, it’s just impossible to take anything serious. Let’s be honest, the only reason anyone would watch this trash is to laugh at it to feel better about themselves. You may have never made a movie, but chances are you could make a better one than this. It may not be as unintentionally funny, but it’d be better. I just want to get this straight. You’re willing to show weird looking boobs and take the “R” rating, but shooting someone doesn’t make blood come out? You’ll spend money blowing up five cars in a row in slow motion (they were conveniently right next to each other after all), but can’t pony up the money for some corn syrup, red dye and squibs? You’ll spend time choreographing some really lame fights, but you won’t work on filling in some of those plot holes? Trust me, I could go on longer than the movie lasted.

There’s a reason most of these people never worked again. They shouldn’t be allowed to. If you’re even considering watching this amazing piece of cinematic history, all I ask is that you stick it out to the end. You can’t walk away without seeing the tour-de-force climax where Blake goes into the video game to save his wife from muscle man Einstein (not his real character name). Film students: watch and take notes. This guy has a career and you don’t. If you can’t make something at least twice as good for half as much, you should start taking accounting classes right now.

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