Currently, "Maximum Impact" has an overall score of 2.1 on IMDB....a truly horrible score. This could easily mean the film will make IMDB's infamous Bottom 100 List....and perhaps it will once it receives the minimum number of votes needed for inclusion.

The film is very unusual in that it appears to be a Russian-American joint effort. But the filmmakers obviously didn't have a lot of clout or money, and so the 'stars' in the film are a lot of C-list Americans as well as newcomers who are even worse. So, if you are a die-hard fan of Danny Trejo, Tom Arnold or Eric Roberts, you might want to watch it...but I couldn't recommend it because of everything else about the film. And, of the three, Arnold clearly has the worst written character.

The story involves a weird criminal/terrorist played by Mark Dacascos (the 'Chairman' on the "Iron Chef America" series). He wants to provoke a world war by assassinating the US Secretary of State (Roberts) as well as kidnapping the Secretary's REALLY annoying granddaughter. So, it's up to the American and Russian secret police to stop the baddies.

In addition to poor acting, the script is filled with incredibly bad dialog and ridiculous characters. There's really not much good I can say about it other than its nice location shoots. This and some polish mean that I cannot really give the film a 1...though 2 seems reasonable and well earned.

The U. S. Secretary of State is in Moscow for a negotiation. After a failed attack on his helicopter, his granddaughter runs away with kidnappers in pursuit. Agents of the CIA and Russian Secret Service FSB must work together after assuming that she has been kidnapped.

I assume this to be a Russian production paid by some Russian big wig. They've recruited a whole bunch of Hollywood B-list actors. You know it's bad when it includes Tom Arnold. It's bad writing in a bad B-movie. The heavy accents are annoying. Worst of all are the bad attempts at comedy. It's horrible writing with awkwardly broad silliness. I have to question the scriptwriter whose claim to fame seems to be Rush Hour. I do appreciate that this has some real car action even if some of it looks badly done. At least, they wrecked a few cars. Overall, it's stupid and badly written. Every time the words "Baby Bear" came up, I cringed. It's all stupid.

MAXIMUM IMPACT is a bizarre Russian comedy thriller, made with a rather distinguished cast (in the world of B-movies at least) and a sluggish, meandering storyline that does little more than join the dots between dialogue scenes. Sadly, the comedy is of the extremely quirky variety, and also happens to be excruciatingly unfunny, which lessens the enjoyability quite a bit. Cast-wise, we get an extremely hammy Mark Dacascos as the baddie, boring Russian heroes, and cameos from the likes of Danny Trejo, Bai Ling, Tom Arnold and more besides. Kelly Hu is one of the film's biggest assets and deserves better, and as for the green screen scenes - just no.