I have little patience for the "so bad it's good" approach to watching movies; for the most part, a bad movie is tedious and painful to watch, and hard to have fun with. (Case in point: the execrable Troll 2, which isn't hilariously bad; it's just bad, period.) The exception, though, seems to come with films so genuine, earnest, and heartfelt that you can't help but love them in spite of their incompetence. These are films made not for the money, but to send a message - it's just that they're so horrible that the message is obscured by their failings. That's the case with The Room, Plan 9 from Outer Space, and now Miami Connection, a forgotten 1980's martial arts film (sort of) that's found new life thanks to the Alamo Drafthouse. Trying to really explain the plot of Miami Connection is an exercise in futility; somehow, the film manages to contain orphans looking for their fathers, a martial arts rock band (yes, you read that right) with songs about friendship, cocaine-dealing ninjas, angry band managers who start fights over venue losses, a jealous brother who punches every boyfriend his sister meets, and the healing power of Tae Kwon Do. All of this is woven together with all the grace and subtlety of two colliding cars, with scenes that either go on far too long or end way too quickly, acting that doesn't even really deserve the word "act," incomprehensible fights that use slow-motion until it becomes silly, and a story that seems to keep forgetting what it's all about. The result is one of the funniest movies I've seen in years; the fact that it was never intended to be a comedy doesn't change that one bit. With incomprehensible monologues, unending envelope openings, a band that seems to be allergic to keeping their shirts on, and a gleefully insane number of action sequences, Miami Connection is one of those rare gems that are horrible and yet magical in their incompetence. Hating it would be like hating a puppy; it's too earnest, too naive, too simple to truly hate, and too magnificently terrible to ever love. I put it in the rare company of The Room of a truly horrible movie that makes me happy simply by existing; while I spent much of it bewildered and baffled by what I was seeing, I also loved every second of it, and it left me feeling better about the world in general that such a thing could exist.
- Josh Mauthe
- Josh Mauthe