KIM NEWMAN’S VIDEO DUNGEON
The good, the bad, the ugly of DTV — all must be judged by our Dungeon Master
The mall-set Security is a nostalgic take on ‘Die Hard in a…’ which yielded the likes of Sudden Death, Cliffhanger, Under
Siege and many direct-to-video efforts in which slightly fading or up-and-coming stars did the John mcclane act in varied locales and a variety of character actors enjoyed playing flamboyant villains.
military veteran eddie Deacon (antonio Banderas) lands a low-pay gig as a night security guard in a mall. Naturally, on eddie’s first night, things go south... a convoy escorting a key witness to a trial is ambushed and wiped out, and traumatised kid Jamie (Katherine de la Rocha) stumbles into the mall, then passes out. Charlie, who would be more plausibly benevolent if he weren’t played by sir Ben Kingsley doing a dead-on evil Welsh Richard Burton accent, shows up claiming to be the kid’s father, and shift boss Vance (liam mcintyre) is just about to hand the kid over when she screams… so eddie takes charge, and finds himself defending the mall from an inconceivably large army of killer mercenaries out to ice the brat before she can testify that the mob did something bad to her parents. screenwriters John sullivan and Tony mosher don’t fuss the set-up details too much, because the meat of the movie is Banderas rallying a small group of slackers and the kid to improvise weapons and fend off the hit squad as director alain Desrochers (Nitro) stages fine B picture action. an intense Banderas unbends when the film embraces ridiculousness... which coincides with the arrival of sir Ben in one of his showboat roles. Kingsley gives great villain. Security is a pleasant throwback to an earlier era of hard-man exploitation.