User Reviews

Dean Cain stars as an ATF agent who teams up with a formerly paroled racist and ex-militia mad man Frederic Forrest (How does one go from Apoclypse Now to this?) who take down a plan to assassinate the president (or some high profile official) with a missile (not sure if it's nuclear because these generic flicks run together for me) and Jennifer Beals as Dean Cain's back up leads an all out assault against the leader of the militia (Another talented actor, Stacy Keach!) Actually I was puzzled as to whether these militia men were white supremacists or if they were just playing army, one thing is for sure the movie is completely hopeless. How bad is Militia? So bad it rips off stock footage from Terminator 2 (!), American Ninja 2 (!!) and Delta Force 2 (!!!) and somehow manages to be a disgrace to all three films. Militia is along the lines of borrowed action and the lengths they go to disguise the stock footage as their own action is truly hysterical. Indeed had they put as much attention in concealing their stock footage, into making a good movie, this movie still would've sucked. All in all a terrible movie.

* Out of 4-(Bad)

The movie started out with an inaccurate portrayal of a law enforcement search warrant/raid. It indicated a military raid, complete with gunships and rockets. Buildings, without regard to the occupants or threat, were destroyed in a typical Hollywood fireball. Not only is this a poor reflection on law enforcement tactics, it depicts the ATF exactly as many of the radical militia groups believe them to be.

The film also showed the militia persons as dangerous radicals . Many are and deserve the attention they get However, most are actually law abiding persons with just a prepared-for-the-worst view. They believe the government is selling out the Constitution. We are heading toward government by foreigners. With the current state of affairs(Clinton, China, NATO, Los Alamos,etc) it's easy to see why.

Having been in law enforcement for almost 20 years, I have dealt with federal agents before. Yes, they do sometimes have the holier-than-thou attitude and charge into situations better handled other ways. Waco and Ruby Ridge are perfect examples of ignorance in tactics. But most of the time, they do things in and orderly, detailed, plan to avoid the confrontations this film eagerly inflates.

I believe the film reflected poorly on both ATF and militia groups. It was obviously biased and definitely anti-gun. This is so much the norm these days for Hollywood. Bad mouth gun owners and Second Amendment rights, yet show all the bloody gun battles possible in the film just to make a buck.

Like another reviewer I also saw this late at night with nothing better to do. ( I should have looked some more) I would like to add some more details to the rip-offs of scennes. Of course everyone noticed the T2 scene, but when they left the building in the SWAT van you could actually see a large man with sunglasses driving. Also at the end when they blew up Monte's House (Stacey Keach) the explosion was from the drug kingpin's house in Clear and Present Danger. 1 out of 10 stars...

Man, it kills me to see the direct-to-video fare that Jennifer Beals has been starring in recently. This predictable grade-C flick is passable only because it rarely takes itself too seriously. Jim Wynorski is the master of camp mediocrity, and so we see Fredric Forrest spoof his "terrorist looney-toon" persona that was hysterical but chilling in Falling Down, and Stacy Keach and Dean Cain try their hardest to not let us know they'd rather be anywhere else than on the set of this movie. That brings us to Jennifer. Why, oh why, is this gorgeous actress with passable chops whiling away her time in trifle like this and Turbulence 2 (or was it 3?).

Anyway, I watched it all the way through and if you ask me next week about "Militia" I promise you I won't remember ever having seen it. In the meantime, Corkymeter rates Militia 2 (out of 5) stars. (Yes, it rates higher than "Woo" because it knows it's piffle). Jennifer, Jennifer, Jennifer...

I gave this film a 4 only because my favorite Superman actor, Dean Cain, was in it. The acting isn't that bad but everything else is, the premise, the plot, the pace, the predictability, etc. All movies require some suspension of disbelief, but there were too many things going on here to seem believable. In fact everything seemed contrived. My nagging question the whole time I was watching this was "Who financed this mess?" Was it some venture capitalist with nothing better to do with his money? Was it friends of Stacy Keach, or Jennifer Beal, or Dean Cain? Was it the Writer's Guild trying to help some unemployed members? How could decent actors get sucked into a film like this? This whole film seemed more like a second rate cop show from the 60s than a movie from this millennium. Don't waste your time unless you are a die-hard John Beck (Deputy Director Anderson) fan.

Yes, I am a Dean Cain fan. However, unlike the others that posted before me, I HATED, despised, and won't recommend this movie. Heck, I wouldn't recommend this to someone I hated! I must confess Dean's hair gel was the major player in this movie. Never mind, the ridiculous Rush Limbaugh-like DJ played by Stacey Keach. I respected Mr. Keach more when he co-starred in "Up in Smoke" with Cheech & Chong. Office Stedanko (sp?) was a hell of a lot more believable than Stacey's Militia character.

Oh yes, let's not forget Dean and his glorious Hair Gel, for a minute I was going to burn my "Dean Iz Hot" card. He wore the same hairstyle throughout the whole picture. Again, he sure looked purty.

i love really 'good' bad movies (silverado, wayne's world 2, and terror in tiny town, amongst them), and this one isn't bad enough to be nominated. it is not a worthless effort, it's just not a good one, in any way that i noticed.

i apologize. i said that it isn't awful. but it is.

no reason to watch, 10. chance of hidden meaning to elevate, 0.

it's a great movie to impress your first date with your knowledge of basic good and bad, 10 (it's so obvious in this flic, lady, or dude)

please use this flic to impress somebody else, because it will not have any good lasting effect on you. thank you.

I loved this great action film. All the cast worked well together. It was great to see Dean Cain in this action movie. I wonder if he did his own stunts, i would love to know. Frederic Forrest (who incidently appeared with Dean in "The Stone Boy") and Stacy Keach were also very good. Jennifer Beals gave a satisfactory performance. But i have to state that i am a complete Dean Cain fan. His performance was very good. He gets better every film he does. I think he is slowly getting rid of his 'Superman' image and this will certainly go a long way to break that mould. I personally cannot see why this film did not have a wider release as it is a film that i would (and have watched) more than once and yet is has only been released on video here in Britian thus depriving a wider audience of seeing Dean Cain's many talents not to mention the fact that he is a most outstandlingly handsome and sexy man. All in all i rate this film with 4 stars.

This TV-movie premiered locally on HBO last Friday night(August 4). I was favorably impressed with it.

Frederic Forrest(played mystery author Dashiell Hammett in the Zoeotrope film "Hammett" with finesse and style) played an imprisoned militia and right-wing fanatic. Dean Cain(also of the "Superman" TV series), played an ATF agent who had captured him. Stacey Keach played a malevolent and reckless militia movement leader with chilling authority.

In today's "politically correct" climate, it would have been easy to portray all of the militia-men as morons or thugs. HBO's production, however, deftly distinguished between degrees of fanaticism and various types of men. The result was more dramatic, more thoughtful and more optimistic than a standard "PC" piece of **** would have been.

In the wake of its errors at Ruby Ridge and Waco, the ATF and the FBI have already taken to heart the implicit message of this fine film--even paranoids want and deserve their "day in court".

I just happen to catch this the other night on either The Movie Channel or Home Box Office, I'm not sure which. Anyhow, it was a great action / suspense movie that's for sure. I've always been a Dean Cain Fan, don't worry ladies I'm not out to steal him; I respect him as an actor and a gentleman and yes, he is a rather handsome one at that. Back to the movie, The story follows our man Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Agent Carter out to stop a plot to destroy the president (where'd they come up with that story? :) ), a little predictable but it had a rather believable and modern twist to it.

Overall 3.5 out of 5

The story was decent, but so much footage was ripped from other movies that it was kinda like watching a greatest hits movie. Going into this film, I knew it was low-budget, so the cheap SFX is understandable. Still a decent story....but there were also a lot of plot twists...maybe they should have named it Double Cross....

Bad acting, lousy special effects among other things, transform what was suppose to be an action movie into one of the best comedies I´ve ever seen.

I specially like the parts where they took scenes from Terminator 2, Rambo: First Blood Part II and Delta Force 2 to make them part of this film.

For a good laugh, I strongly recommend to watch this one.

Jay Andrews aka Jim Wynorski. Most people would probably think "Who?" after hearing the name but if you know a thing or two about B-movies, you'll probably be aware that this guy is the master of modern day Grade Z cheese. Yes, his work is on par with the infamous "Grade Z" Sci-Fi turkeys of the 1950's. Under many different aliases over the years, he's directed a number of dreadful so called horror films with tons of pointless nudity, outrageously bad sexploitation flicks starring the likes of Julie Strain and Nikki Fritz and finally, hilariously bad "Action" movies made up of stock footage from bigger budgeted movies often starring has-been actors in the lead which he usually does under the alias "Jay Andrews". Militia happens to be just one of those.

To date I've only seen two of the "Jay Andrews" patchwork movies, this and Extreme Limits. This is a better quality movie in the sense that it isn't quite as cheap as the latter. There are about 3 original explosions and they actually hired helicopters here. WOW! Isn't that something? Compared to Extreme Limits however it is something, as it just used (extremely grainy) stock footage from Cliffhanger and Narrow Margin for helicopter scenes. However, what made Extreme Limits so unintentionally hilarious was the fact that it was the cheapest looking thing I'd seen outside of an Ed Wood movie, so the fact that this doesn't look quite as cheap kind of makes this a bit less fun to watch. But this is still pretty awesome in it's awfulness. The opening scene uses footage from Delta Force 2 and Rambo: First Blood Part 2. I am 100% against taking whole action scenes of stock footage from other movies. If you don't have the budget, then don't do it is what I say. The first thing that makes it obvious what's stock footage and what isn't is the fact the new footage is shot in dry California countryside, while the footage from these movies is jungle scenery. There are countless errors like this but more later. Later we are treated to Terminator 2 footage. Some advice Jim, if you insist on using stock footage in your movies, try to find some relatively obscure footage that people haven't seen. Terminator 2 was a highly successful movie and nearly everybody has seen it, so nearly everybody will recognise that. And besides, why would you want to watch an action scene you've seen in a far superior movie all over again in a movie that is inferior in every way? On the positive side, the new footage is edited together with this relatively well and isn't nearly as obvious as any of the scenes in Extreme Limits but the fact that everybody has seen Terminator 2 makes it obvious. In another scene, there is a brief chase in which Dean Cain and Frederic Forrester's characters jump from a moving truck which cuts to a scene of a truck crashing and exploding courtesy of footage from American Ninja 2. There was nothing remotely good about the original American Ninja 2 footage which was a relatively low budget movie itself and this particular scene could have been emulated very easily on a small budget. Just goes to show how little effort went into this project. Not only that, but both vehicles are different colours. And the patchwork only gets worse towards the end. I'm not quite sure where this footage comes from, but it is hideously grainy and the difference in quality is absolutely obvious. And again, we have the scenery conflicts. At one point we are treated to two missiles being fired at a building from stock footage, which we are meant to believe is the building Dean Cain and Stacy Keach are inside, yet we saw them walking into a completely different building earlier on. I can only assume that they thought we would have forgotten about that by then. Unfortunately, I had not.

The performances are largely terrible. Dean Cain and Frederic Forrest don't look like they're interested in the film they're in at all. Jennifer Beals is very pretty, but has almost nothing to do in her part. The award for the worst performance by far goes to Stacy Keach, who hams it up in a totally over the top character who spends most of his time sitting on a chair and only interacts with 2 or 3 characters.

Extreme Limits directed by Jim Wynorski as Jay Andrews has to be the most hilariously bad movie I've ever seen. Militia disappointed me in the sense that it wasn't quite as bad as that one, but this is still awful, Grade Z cheese of the worst kind and for that, it's still hilarious to watch.

I'm stunned by how many commentators here think this film features footage either mimicking scenes from bigger budget films or that the filmmakers stole these scenes and put them in their films. The studios routinely offer footage from their movies as potential stock footage for others to use. The early episodes of the JAG TV series were filled with footage from the Jack Ryan/Tom Clancy movies. It works better if the footage is from big budget flops or if only brief sequences are used rather than entire scenes as is the case in MILITIA and it helps if some attempt is made to hide anything obvious that might tip off a viewer as to the source of the footage (the Cyberdine sign being an example here)but there's nothing new about using stock footage to make your movie look bigger than it is. It's been done since the early days of film. If you want a real laugh check out RAPTOR from the same director which uses tons of footage from the 3 CARNOSAUR movies. At one point some soldiers walking (supposedly) through a warehouse pass life preservers on the wall. The reason being that this is footage from CARNOSAUR 3 which took place on a ship.

The opening scene told me everything I needed to know about this film. I know next to nothing about ATF procedures and militia groups, but I will guarantee you I know more about them than the makers of this movie. The ATF raid on the militia camp was carried out with such ridiculous distortions that I immediately lost the ability to get into the movie. Maybe the makers of this movie should have used me as a technical consultant, and I would have helped them make a movie that wasn't so idiotic and contrived. Why do so many Hollywood movies ignore even trying to depict a sense of reality when they try to represent the actions of police or military or even militia groups? If the militia group was so well-trained, why were they all standing out in the open, making themselves perfect targets for the ATF gunships? I'm really sure an ATF tactical commander is going to order the destruction of all the buildings after the militia members surrender!!! Jeeez what a crock!!!!!

Any interest I might have had in the remainder of this movie was utterly ruined by the ludicrous depiction of the ATF raid on the militia compound. I long for directors and producers who know how to set an air of reality (or at least the illusion of what I think reality might be) for a movie to allow me to immerse myself in it. It's obviously not for a lack of money. It also seems obvious that the makers of this movie were more interested in preaching some kind from some kind of Hollywood pulpit, disregarding the intelligence of the viewers.

Hell...go ahead and make a statement if you want to, but do it without insulting the customer, otherwise you won't even get the chance!

I was just reading the review a previous person put on here. They said they enjoyed it. I think the main reason they were enjoying the movie is because they had just figured they were watching TERMINATOR 2! Now...when people steal scenes from movies it's usually to benefit the movie, or even pun the movie, in this case it's to BE the other movie. I think watching this was the scariest things I have ever witnessed as a movie watcher. Every scene was just a redo of the SAME THING from Terminator. I was actually SO scared that I was impressed at how much one can mimic another movie. > To sum it up...this movie is worth buying ONLY if you watch them side by side with Terminator to just to marvel at it's unbelievable stupidity. Thank you.

I've seen that a few people caught the Terminator 2 scene. However, most of the comments seem to think they re-made these scenes, simply stealing the idea. No....

THEY USED THE ACTUAL FOOTAGE FROM TERMINATOR 2! They edited the idiots in the movie into the scene, poorly, and even included the Cyberdyne Systems sign.

I caught this movie on some movie channel late one night, and was really confused when I saw Cyberdyne show up, and then this travesty of a scene began. How #%!@ing stupid do you have to be to use THAT scene in your movie? One of the most high profile scenes from an incredibly popular movie, and nobody is going to notice? Get real.

Avoid at all costs. If you notice it on TV, maybe watch it to see the horrible raping of the T2 scene and laugh, then see what else is on, I'm pretty sure it was right at the start, if not the first scene in the movie.

Ripoff scenes are one thing, in the sense that an idea or sequence is copied, but actually using footage from other movies since you can't afford big budget large scale action scenes? That's a good way to make people lose any and all respect for the filmmakers ability, and to find something better.

I just stumbled on this page on imdb by chance, after wondering what the heck this movie was called for quite a while, so now I can finally quit thinking about it. Good riddance.

I caught this movie on HBO2. I couldnt believe what i was seeing. This movie is an absolute fake. It actually stole real time footage from Terminator 2: Judgement Day. James Cameron should sue the makers of this film.

I watched the first part of this movie with a dropped jaw - It is an exact copy of Terminator 2 (Going into Cyberdyne Systems to retrieve the chip.) I thought it was a spoof at first. Did I even see the Cyberdyne Systems sign outside the building? A complete rip off, camera move by camera move! I'm scared. The millions of police cars, the police van, the security guard at reception, the second security guard finding the first security guard out of action (and complaining about him not being at his desk before finding him), the swat team, the man with big gun smashing out the window by rolling office furniture out of it and the firing at the police, the helicopter and search-light. Plus all the camera moves and atmosphere was the same... I'm really scared!