Final Examination (3½ Stars)

Shane Newman is a good cop. He catches the bad guys, whatever it takes. Unfortunately, that sometimes means high speed car chases through the middle of Los Angeles, resulting in millions of dollars of damage. So he's transferred to Hawaii, where he can do less harm.

However quiet Hawaii might be when he arrives, murder can happen anywhere. A group of sorority sisters is celebrating their five year reunion at a luxury resort hotel, and one of them is killed on the day of their arrival. The next day a second girl is killed. Linking their deaths is an exam paper left at the scenes, stamped with the word "Failed".

I wonder what happened with Brent Huff, the actor who plays Shane Newman. This is only the second film that I've seen him in. The first was "The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik Yak", made in 1984. I saw it in the cinema, and I was amazed by Brent's performance as the adventurer Willard. I was sure that he would become a big star. "Final Examination" was made 19 years later in 2003. What had he been doing all that time? 27 low budget films. He had the lead role in many of them, but somehow he never managed the leap into the big time. That's unfair for a man with so much talent. Since 2003 he's made another dozen films, but he's still an obscure actor. "Brent Huff? Who's that?" Sometimes I think that success in Hollywood is just a lottery.