There was a time when Jeff Speakman was a thing. It was a short time.
In The Perfect Weapon Speakman is indeed the titular device, but as one character even points out, the title is not granted because of fighting skills or killing abilities, merely because the character ‘Jeff’ is kind of a free hit for the bad guys.
Jeff plays Jeff – the script is creative like that – a construction guy by day and martial arts enthusiast by night, but only in the comfort of his own home.
Jeff becomes embroiled in the doings of the Korean mafia, and with his pacifist policeman brother and a cheeky Asian kid – who spend the movie helping-not-helping – to pad the time until the next fight.
Speakman is not especially athletic, but he is powerful and reasonably quick. Two things he is definitely not are creative and vocal, his five o’clock shadow is louder than he is. Though he apparently can pole vault over a 15 foot fence and land on his back on concrete and walk away. Yep somebody wrote that on the script. So much clumsy.
The Perfect Weapon comes across like a bunch of understudies getting screen time. Speakman is a poor substitute for JCVD, Jackie Chan and even Seagal, and the final boss fight sees him square off against a Bolo Yeung lookalike. Given how easy it seems to be to get Bolo Yeung in the 90s, settling for a replica shows just how lazy this effort was.
I don’t recall Speakman getting any further headlining roles after The Perfect Weapon, something that makes perfect sense after enduring this ninety minutes.
Final Rating – 5.5 / 10. Just because someone has fast hands, a ripped torso and a willingness to not shave for a few days, doesn’t mean they should have their own movie.
