THE MINION (Jean-Marc Piché, 1998)

[Jox]

It's "under consideration".

[dolphage]

I hope NOT! For the sake of DL's good name I want to bury this piece of sh*t. Together with Last Patrol and the whole bottom half of Dolph's catalog.

[Mosquito]

I hope NOT! For the sake of DL's good name I want to bury this piece of sh*t. Together with Last Patrol and the whole bottom half of Dolph's catalog.

Indeed.

[savagesketch]

I hope NOT! For the sake of DL's good name I want to bury this piece of sh*t. Together with Last Patrol and the whole bottom half of Dolph's catalog.

Indeed.

I don't think THE MINION is the lowest point in Dolph's career... It's not a great film by any means, but it is Dolph trying something different. For the lowest of low points in Dolph's career, I'd without question say AGENT RED and THE LAST PATROL. Without question.

[leigh1975]

Minion may be at the bottom of the Dolph filmography, but it's far from unwatchable...

[Mosquito]

I think it's mainly really boring. But yes, the absolute bottom was The Last Patrol. What a total mess.

[Jox]

Didn't we cover this dozens of times already, why digging this up over and over?

(By the way, I gracefully uploaded the making of THE DEFENDER (as well as a few others) for those who don't have the right editions but nobody seems to care, reply or think it's more interesting or cooler, than the good old debate "what's worse, THE MINION or THE LAST PATROL"... It's like when people ask questions about infos are on the site, not that it matters that I've been spending the past 10 years digging and posting thorough and rare infos but few are those who really went trough it... Sorry about the rant....)

Okay then, since that's what we're on, who did watch THE MINION, THE LAST PATROL or shall add AGENT RED (beginning to end) more than once or twice to make these assessments?

[Tom]

The Minion and Last Patrol had potential but so little actually happened in them. Not sure how much they could really have done with Agent Red, which was essentially a remake of a film Dudikoff did twice. It seemed they made it first and foremost because it could be done very cheaply and using stock footage to make it look bigger. Thankfully those films don't seem to be in fashion anymore. In the late 90's and early 00's those sort of stock footage based action flicks were everywhere.

I watched Patrol again the other day. Parts of it I really like. I like Dolph's character. I like that there's time spent to give some dimension to the other characters, and there's a good mix. The major problem though, is that there's not enough of a story, and very little happens until the end. Patrol is an interesting failure to me, because they were quite close. A few extra million, a little bit more complication in the middle and a decent action set piece and it could be one of Dolph's better films, certainly of that era.

[leigh1975]

I'd be interested in seeing this again, It hasn't been available here since the VHS days, so I haven't seen it in a long time. Has there ever been a widescreen version of this shown, even on TV, like Bridge Of Dragons has? BTW, not sure what The Minion board has to do with Last Patrol...

[dolphage]

I wasn't suggesting that The Minion is as bad as Last Patrol, I'm just saying it's in the bottom half of DL movies and I would actually prefer it they didn't re-release it.

If only the top half of DL's catalog got the blu-ray treatment it would be a pretty impressive selection of action movies. People would know they'd be getting quality if they picked up one of his blu-ray's.

The Minion is one of those films where you feel like there is a really cool movie lurking behind the cheap, boring piece of sh*t that you're watching. The basic story could have made for an awesome action flick.

[Jox]

Has there ever been a widescreen version of this shown, even on TV, like Bridge Of Dragons has?

Again, no... that's one of the very few left (with BOD for those couldn't see this British HD WS version) without one single widescreen edition...

[leigh1975]

Completely off topic, but I want to know! Considering the fact that I'd quite like to own all of Dolph's filmography (Including Minion; and yes, I have two versions of Last Patrol ), and we're talking about films that we wish wasn't released, or whatever, I have a question for Jox! Is there a film of Dolph's you don't own through choice, or at very least own the least versions of because you aren't very keen? I'd be very interested to know what your collection looks like, how many versions of The Minion do you own, for instance?

[Jox]

Hahaha good questions: you don't wanna know!

[leigh1975]

Sadly, I do! I have no life!

[Jox]

The number of editions I own for each film varies and it doesn't depend on the quality of the movie... sometimes it's just trying my luck on technical specs or special features, sometimes it's for a different cover, or just scholar comparison, completism and acquisition...

I have 6 versions of THE MINION among which 3 of the newer cut (released in Germany & HK), other three of the US, French, and Canadian (with trailer) editions.
(this is not counting the VHS x2 I think - it's in storage).

The less discs I own must be for FAT SLAGS (obviously so) and THE PEACEKEEPER (the French one is the only proper widescreen - and I just got the US one because I wanted a cover with the original English title). As for the most copies I have, it must be RED SCORPION (8 DVDs + 4 Blu-rays + 2 or 3 VHS and a couple laserdiscs too for the collection)

But I get a lot of used copies from ebay or Amazon when I don't feel necessary to pay full price.