Michael Paré became to the ‘90s action flicks what a coffee pod is to a morning coffee cup on a usual day. It just took him, his guns, and a whole gang of bad guys to entertain action fans for 90 minutes. Merchant of Death (1997) by Yossi Wein is one of the many movies that employed these ingredients.
Paré plays a one-man-army of a cop who lost his parents and sister in his childhood to a group of criminals. Now he seeks to find them and settle the old score with assistance from his buddy cop Will (John Simon Jones) and his romantic interest by necessity – psychologist Dr. Maggie Winters (Linda Hoffman).
Written by Danny Lerner and David Sparling, Merchant of Death comes with a story arc as flat as a dead man’s ECG. There is hardly anything new or interesting about the plot and the only element of interest is Paré kicking ass, shooting the criminals, and blowing up places. The action scenes also lack freshness and are just the repetition of any action movies from those years and prior ones. The dialogue is almost average and the climax is quite anti-climactic.
Merchant of Death has too many weaknesses to pass for a quality movie. And while the fight scenes are not that bad, the movie’s biggest strength and perhaps the only reason why any action lover should watch it is Michael Paré. It is entirely his movie and like the coffee pod of one’s taste, his fans won’t like to miss watching it.
