Arnold Schwarznegger dons Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven persona of a brooding down-and-out, craggy-faced former lawman who has Mel Gibson's Lethal Weapon habit of pointing loaded guns at his face. The fact that our ex-cop has a double-barrelled name like Jericho Cane tells you this is a film with Biblical overtones.Satan has already arrived and taken on the body of a suave Wall Street banker (Gabriel Byrne) who's in search of the chosen woman who will bear his child and open the doors of Hell.The chosen girl is 21-year-old Christine York (Robin Tunney) who, not surprisingly, doesn't exactly fancy the idea of coupling with the Devil. So, she finds a saviour in the unshaven Cane, who hasn't quite recovered from the brutal murder of his wife and daughter. The security specialist, who amazingly has a military arsenal at his disposal, must save the girl from the biggest baddie of all time. That, amidst a generous dose of special effects. But all the FX in the world can't make up for the film's hokey plot, right from the millenial midnight yarn. In fact, Schwarzenegger himself echoes it. "What is this, Eastern time?" he incredulously asks Father Kovak (Rod Steiger) about the significance.The film's cliched plot gives you enough time to figure out how Austrian immigrants retain their accent even after two decades in Hollywood. ("I was just pudding the pieces together," he says at the start of the movie).And just when the mayhem of flying bullets and high body counts starts, we're already echoing neophyte Schwarznegger's plea in a church: "Please God. Help me!"Though he tries very hard, Schwarzegger is awful. Gabriel Byrne looks like he stepped right off the sets of Stigmata, a remake of The Exorcist, where he played a priest. He has one decent scene where he attempts to strike a Faustian bargain with Schwarznegger. "We're the new management," says the market-savvy Satan.Soon Schwarznegger and Tunney are on the run from Byrne and a lot of the scenes seem suspiciously similar to Terminator-2, with Byrne playing the indestructible liquid-metal T-1000 character and the Austrian Oak playing the saviour of the Holy Family.And Schwarzegger's exit which tries to recapture his dramatic departure from T-2 falls flat. Helmed by Peter Hyams (The Relic and Capricorn One) this one is only for hardcore fans of the action actor.
