Skyscraper (1996 Film Review)

1996 PM Entertainment Group
Directed by Raymond Martino; Written by: William Applegate Jr. and John Larrabee
Starring: Anna Nicole Smith, Richard Steinmetz, and Branko Cikatić
MPAA Rating: R; Running Time: 96 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 3/10

Carrie Wink is a Los Angeles heliscort, flying high profile clients to the top of the city's skyscrapers. All she really wants, though, is to have some unprotected love-making with her husband, so they can have a baby together. However, her husband is a detective with the LAPD, and he's seen some stuff, man, and doesn't think this Earth is a fit place in which to bring forth children. One day, Carrie's new client seems a little too jovial, throwing out Shakespeare quotes, and acting like the entire city belongs to him. That's because he's a terrorist, and Carrie has just unwittingly brought him to a skyscraper that he and his crew will take hostage, in search of some mysterious briefcase. Now it's up to Carrie and her husband to take on a team of European, alarmingly deep-cut V-neck wearing-terrorists, while keeping the briefcase safe and their clothes in an upright and locked position. It's just like Die Hard, except terrible.
I've always had a soft spot for Anna Nicole Smith (R.I.P.), who always seemed to me, also a person from a rural Southern town, to be the epitome of the "I'm going to get out of here and find a better life" tragedy. After baring it all many times, Smith tried to branch out into really acting, but with her meagre skills in that department, the best project she could find was 1996's so-bad-it's-good Skyscraper. It's a lose-lose situation for Smith, who stumbles through even the most simple line readings, and still somehow finds herself completely nude (sometimes in softcore pornographic love scenes) for more than a tenth of the film's runtime. However, when I say that Skyscraper is so bad it's good, I'm not exaggerating.
First of all, Smith's thick Texas accent accentuates her bad line readings, and actually helps bring her downers-inspired performance into some strange realm of trashy enjoyability. Likewise, the action scenes here are such clear rip-offs of far better films, like a SUV alley ambush (Clear and Present Danger) or Smith dangling from a cable and having to kick through a window (Die Hard), it's fun to see what those scenes look like on a tenth of the budget. There's also the incredibly campy performance of German politician/actor Charles M. Huber as the South African terrorist. Huber has a ridiculous grin on his face throughout the film, spouting the stupidest possible one-liners every time he shoots someone ("Ciao, Bella!"), and frequently quoting Shakespeare, who I feel, might just enjoy this movie.
If you're looking for any redeeming artistic qualities, Skyscraper is a violent dead end, but if you just want to dive into a cinematic dumpster for 96 minutes, Skyscraper is somewhere between a day-old, half-eaten Big Mac, and a spilled bag of nickels.