Failure Is Not An Option

Ah Wal-Mart, such a beautiful mess of savings and cellulite.  It's a shame such a fantastic establishment has taken on such a bad reputation in recent years, as some of my favorite impulse buys have taken place here, along with more than a few near-stabbings.  One of my favorite sweet-deal hotspots has always been the Five Dollar Movie Bin.  This mountain of plastic failure houses some of the worst, and therefore best movies ever made, and always draws me in to find a night's worth of entertainment at a criminally low price.  Today was indeed a special day, as I managed to unearth the holy relic that is "The Substitute" 4-pack.  Whoever made these movies is a genius.  Whoever made them so cheap, a saint.

     
 I have only had time to view one of these films so far, though I'm sure the discs will be in heavy rotation in the coming weeks.  I decided to start at the end, with The Substitute 4: Failure Is Not an Option.  The series' swan song takes place at a military academy, in which shady happenings have necessitated the the talents of the world's best (or possibly worst) substitute teacher.  This is where Karl Thomasson (reprized once again by everyone's favorite snack-named assassin, Treat Williams) comes to shine.  A clandestine group of elite neo-Nazi students known as the Werewolves has been holding secret gatherings and plotting to destroy minority owned establishments, and Treat Williams (I use his real name because I'm fairly certain these films are autobiographical) has been called in undercover as a substitute to sort things out.  However, Treat is not the ordinary, obese middle age woman with a lisp who falls asleep in class and wheezes when she breathes kind of substitute.  He's an ex mercenary, who shows in the opening scenes that he has no problem murdering children, at least not until after the fact.  Who better to teach a group of little a-holes a lesson in pain?  Treat practically wrote his dissertation on  the subject.
     From the start, people don't like Treat, or any of his tricks for that matter.  His Nazi students challenge him at every turn in class, he commandant thinks he's gay or something for not hating black people, and the only lady in town ends up doing the no-pants dance with the commandant after totally shooting down Treat.  What's a poor Treat to do?  FIGHT EVERYONE, That's what.  He starts by face smashing the ever loving sweet crap out of the head Nazi kid in the middle of class, which really pisses off the Werewolves, to the point where they try to run him over in their truck and shoot grenades at him.  But these foolish mortals and their meaningless guns only serve to make Treat even angrier than his already near lethal levels of rage.  And you won't like him when he's raging.  The Nazis decide to push their luck even further by blowing up a dam with a sign out front that conveniently labels it as "another minority owned establishment."  It Might as well be a bulls-eye.  After this heinous act of bigotry and poor special effects, Treat has no choice but to take action and bodyslam his enemies into a million racially pure pieces.  But he can't do it alone (he probably could), so he brings on two arbitrary allies, one of whom is completely useless and gets stabbed right off the bat by a fifteen year old boy while trying to fight the most out of place Korean in film history.  His other buddy, who is certifiably retarded throughout most of the film, ends up showing the stabby kid the business end of an E. Honda palm strike straight to the nose, causing instant death and simultaneous bowel evacuations.  Meanwhile, Treat takes on the Korean, and shows him why America won the war over there (wait, we won that one right?) by turning him into Satay with at least ten stab wounds.  With all the loose ends tied up, there's only one more matter to settle: the dramatic showdown with the evil commandant.  This could have been a one-on-one bloodbath for the ages, as we all know by now that Treat and death are best friends.  However, the film's climax takes a weaker approach, and a bunch of students just shoot the commandant to death with assault rifles. Again, and again, and again.  The homophobic rage that seethes inside him allows him to get back up and keep trying to fight, but in the end, he is no god.  That title still rests with Treat Williams.  And although these Nazis may have tried deny one holocaust, T-Will made damn sure that they'll never forget this one.  "Treat" yourself (sorry, I had to do it) and see this movie today.