Guaranteed on Delivery (2000)

Here's a prime example of priorities being out of whack. You have Oliver Gruner and Jahlal Merhi in the same movie. Oliver Gruner is a very good martial artist- he's after all, a former French marine, champion kickboxer, and for 120 bucks, you can have one hour of personal fitness training with him-, and a convincing leading man. Jahlal Merhi looks and talks more like the guy behind the counter of your local Iranian convenience store or Jewelry shop (Merhi is a a jeweler in real life), a guy who has zero discernible martial arts skills and looks like he sleepwalks through his lines. Who do we cast in the lead? Jahlal Merhi, of course. For the "normies" out ther, Jahlal Merhi and Oliver Gruner are two of the original poor man's Jean Claude Van Dammes (in Merhi's case, he's also known somewhere as "Beirut's Steven Seagal" LOL). To team up these two titans of DTV cinema had to happen eventually, and it does, here in 'G.O.D.' and the Circuit movies. Where could you go wrong pitting these formidable opponents- the French kickboxer turned personal trainer and the Iranian jewelry store owner turned movie producer? Unfortunately, the results are anything but 'Point Break' explosive.Merhi plays Ray Stanton. Ray used to be a cop in his country, but the movie opens with him lamenting to his wife about how he has been forced to be a security guard now. His wife really wants to bring him a tuna fish sandwich at work, and she gets killed in the gun fight at the beginning of the movie by Gruner and his boys. Because of the chaos, David Carradine has to take Rays gun. Flash forward five years later, Ray has started a delivery company called Guaranteed on Delivery (G.O.D.). He is hired by the very same goons who killed his wife to unknowingly transport this model chick Gruner has stuck in a trunk to her human slavery ring buyers. He finds out the truth, gets the chick out and delivers a tree trunk instead. Now, along with Carradine's help, Merhi has to get the girl to safety before Gruner figures out the switch and delivers a beat down on their sorry asses. I complain about Merhi being the lead, but I can sort of (only sort of) understand it. Despite being a former French cop, his character is supposed to be an everyman of sorts. After his wife's death, Ray now- literally- lives in a van down by the river because "roots hurt like hell" when he's lifted out of them. He also banks at the local urine stained tunnel because "locals think it's haunted," wisely keeping his rolled up hundreds in a coffee can in a hole in the wall of the tunnel. I haven't seen a Merhi film in years, and this garbage is permeated with his sense of humor. Now I'm starting to remember how bad 'Fearless Tiger' was back in the day. Repressed shitty movie memories come back to haunt me. This is just bad, guys. I mean, it makes 'Tiger Claws III' look astounding in comparison. For a DVD that has three guys with heavy firepower on the cover, there are maybe two weak shoot-outs the whole film. The rest is weakly choreographed fist fights sprinkled here and there all from Merhi himself. There are lots of people who don't believe Jahlal is trained in martial arts, and I'm almost prone to believe them after watching this. If you're a David Carradine fan, he's only here for maybe 15 minutes tops (in his defense though, he wanted Merhi to finish up the bad guys quickly so they "could have a nice, quiet lunch" WTF?). He plays Merhi's boss from the security agency, and the vacant, "gimme my paycheck already" look he has on the dvd cover and menu says it all. The chick Gruner is trying to sell into human slavery, Justine Priestley, is pretty, but she doesn't do much either. There's a mildly amusing scene where she has to interrogate a baddie with bolt cutters or something, but nothing else.Again, Oliver Gruner is the bad guy in this; a likable one, I'll give you that, but he's only in maybe four scenes, and he doesn't use any of his martial arts skills. You don't hire Gruner to talk, you hire him to be a freakin' cyborg and kick people! But Merhi produced this, so he's the lead. Look kids! You too can be a martial arts star, just start your own jewelry business and put up the money for your own films. To be fair, Gruner was hilarious in this, having the best line in the film: "We're gonna find her, find him! Recover the money... And STOP USING THE YELLOW PAGES!" He wasn't given too much to do, except be a suave Eurotrash artist who hires his younger, more academically promising, brother to work with him to get through school.This is one of the most non-action "action" films I've ever seen. Never mind the various plot-holes and bad pacing (how could Merhi have come face-to-face with Gruner at the bank shoot out five years earlier, and yet fail to recognize him when hired to transport the cargo and not have anything snap in his mind until the last ten minutes of the movie?). Avoid at all costs, go watch 'Nemesis' or 'Tiger Claws' again. It could've been explosive with two of the original poor man's Van Dammes in the same movie, but falls flat (much like the Circuit movies). On second thought, just go watch 'Stone Cold' if you want GOOD bad action.