To The Limit

PM Entertainment produced very few sequels, but writer/director Raymond Martino brought back actor Joey Travolta (HOLLYWOOD VICE SQUAD) to reprise his role of ‘Nam vet turned vigilante Frank DaVinci from DAVINCI’S WAR. Sharing star billing with John’s less talented brother is an even less talented actor: Anna Nicole Smith, who bears the indignity of failing miserably in two direct-to-video action movies. In SKYSCRAPER, which reunited Smith and Martino with PM a year later, the former Playmate delivered what I believe to be the worst acting performance by a name actress in a professional Hollywood film ever. Now imagine that times two.

Smith’s acting is as natural as her breasts, which are the first part of her body we see in TO THE LIMIT, enjoying herself in a hot tub instead of getting dressed for DaVinci’s wedding. The only things she pushes to the limit in this movie are her bra and our patience. She never makes it to the wedding, as her boyfriend China Smith (Michael Nouri in a one-day cameo) is blown up in his car at the same time a hit team massacres DaVinci’s new wife (Rebecca Ferratti) on the church steps.

Three months later, DaVinci has mostly recovered from his wounds while hiding out from his attackers in Las Vegas. His support system is a bunch of stereotypical Italian goombah mobsters. Collette (Smith) is also hiding out from China’s killers, and she teams up with Frank in Vegas. LOU GRANT’s Jack Bannon plays the bad guy, a tattooed CIA spook named Jameson who giggles a lot, smokes opium, makes hot women whip him during sex, and shoots out his computer monitor.

Travolta, who was also the producer and co-writer, which explains his sex scenes with Smith, wears a New York Giants jacket, though I doubt he bothered to clear the NFL logos. Give Martino the lion’s share of the blame for TO THE LIMIT’s incompetence. The story is complicated and uninvolving, and direction and editing are sloppy (Aprea tells his boys, “I gotta job for you. You’re goin’ to L.A. right now,” and they walk off without knowing what the job is). Of course, being a PM production, the stuntwork is impressive, and so are Smith’s nude scenes. Which are, after all, the reason TO THE LIMIT exists at all.