"24 Hours From Now, He'll Either be Called 
an Assassin, a Hero, or Dead."

Whenever you see Daniel's name credited anywhere, two movies are always listed as key works for him - True Vengeance and this one... Perfect Target; and with good reason, both kick a lot of ass.

So you've read my review of True Vengeance and by now I'm hoping you've checked it out - so here's its partner in crime, a thematically-similar picture that tells the tale of political corruption in a small South American country.

Don't worry, it's not some dull political drama, that's just the story behind a kick-ass action movie! So anyway, back to the plot... the newly appointed President is attempting to reform the city from the oppression of his predecessors who were stealing the country's money. Over fear of assassination from loyalists of the old regime, the President hires a crack-team of American soldiers to act as his bodyguards during a public assembly; leader of this team is Daniel Bernhardt as David Benson. However, members of the team have been bought out by the loyalists and the president is assassinated by members of Benson's own team.

Unfortunately for Benson, he and one of his team-mates have been set-up as the fall-guys by their superiors. Benson and his team-mate, Miguel Ramirez (Jim Pirri) aren't trusting of each other, but have been forced into this situation together and must put aside their differences once they're both on the run together. Meanwhile, their former bosses have put death-marks on their heads, informing the country that the assassins were guerrilla extremists. During that time, our heroes find their way into guerrilla hands who actually turn out to be on the side of the people and the new regime. So begins a battle to expose the truth, evade their hunters and help the people restore freedom by overthrowing the new president.

So at the end of the day, it's stylistically similar to True Vengeance in that it basically boils down to Daniel being the scapegoat for a sinister organization who've made him their target and that of the local authorities too. That's gotta suck!

Co-starring in this flick are a couple of other famous American actors, as opposed to his usual co-star of James Hong. First we have Robert Englund, famous as Freddie from the Nightmare On Elm Street series; playing Benson's boss, Colonel Shakwell. From the moment you see him, it's somewhat disorientating to envision him as a hero; your immediate instinct is that he's evil... after all, he kills small children and haunts your dreams! And unsurprisingly he turns out to be evil. Please don't send me complaints that I spoiled the movie for you, I didn't give away anything - just look at him, would you trust him?! Next up we have Brian Thompson, who's been a multitude of stuff I've seen, like Miracle Mile,The X-Files, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (ugh) and Joe Dirt - he's obviously starred in other movies too, but those are the roles I'm specifically familiar with.

They play their characters well - the slimy rat and the hulking oaf... so you get to enjoy disliking them! They never get any cool one-liners, but they have plenty of boo-hiss factor, so that works for me. Also in the cast we got Benson's love interest, Teresa Ramirez (Dara Tomanovich) who's Miguel's sister... naturally with the tension between David and Miguel, it doesn't help matters when our hero tries to score with the guy's sister! The other girl on the block is Julieta Rosen as the evil wife of the president, and she's as thoroughly dislikable as the other bad-guys... in the best possible way of course! All the chicks are hot, so this obviously means the movie's better than it would be if they weren't.

One particularly entertaining scene for me was at the very beginning, when after watching some cock-fights, Benson gets caught up in a martial-arts bar-brawl. As fate would have it, this skirmish leads the fighters into the cock-fighting ring, with accompanying manic Latin-music and the crowd cheering on the fighters... see, more bars should encourage this; it would keep the drunken criminals looking to start a fight off the streets and provide me with mindless barbaric entertainment at 1am on a Saturday night.

Thanks to the location-filming in Mexico, the movie has some great cinematography that certainly helps the movie hide any financial limits, often stylistically resembling the Christopher Lambert movie Gunmen (a personal favorite of mine)... which is by no means a bad thing.

There's not the same Hong Kong flair to the action here as in True Vengeance, this is more of a balls-to-the-wall American style, so unfortunately there's less moments that'll make you want to fly across the room in your underwear thinking you too can perform totally cool aerial attacks! Unfortunately that's one of the only three times Daniel gets to show how Bernhard-as-iron he is, since most of the movie's about guns and explosives and cool stuff like that. However, I can't argue since not only are the few fights on offer highly engrossing, but the fire-fights are equally satisfying and destructive - and that's what action films are for.

Basically this is one Daniel's strongest movies, which boasts a firm grip on action, an exciting storyline, quality acting and wonderful scenery. Its only real downfall is a lack of hand-to-hand combat, which is the very department that Daniel excels in and I largely tune in to watch. Anyway, whilst this may lack the style of True Vengeance, it's still a high quality counterpart to it and of highly-recommended viewing to all Bernholics. Check it out!