LOST FAITH

Written, Produced, and Directed by Joel Wynkoop
Edited and Photographed by Steve Reed

Steve Nekoda - Joel Wynkoop

The first time I saw actor Joel Wynkoop was in Tim Ritter's DIRTY COP, NO DONUT. Over weight and balding, Wynkoop was perfect in his role as an angry officer out on the town. The next time I saw Joel Wynkoop was in Ritter's TRUTH OR DARE, made more than 10 years earlier. Thin, four-eyed, and geeky, I barely recognized him. His 98 pound tough guy routine seems laughably pathetic when compared to the extra 60 pounds of rage he would sport a decade later. Hearing him spout self-comparisons to action stars like Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris are saddening when you already know the outcome.

Halfway between TRUTH OR DARE and DIRTY COP, NO DONUT, Joel directed himself in the camcorder kung-fu actioner LOST FAITH. Here we see the third face of Joel Wynkoop. He's lean, confident, and pretty damn able to ram his can of whup-ass so far up your pee-hole that he'd have to spinkick your head clean off before he could be bothered to open it.

In all of Wynkoop's roles he brings a certain bravado to the characters that, when compared to his role as LOST FAITH'S Steve Nekoda, makes them seem cartoonish in that John Wayne's shadow kind of way. Those other characters now play like caricatures of the man Wynkoop wants to be, but Nekoda is the full realization of that dream.

Wynkoop casts himself in a story directly from the Golen-Globus glory days of the 1980s. If companies like Cannon made Z-grade action, then they would have worn this one like a war medal on a proud general's chest. * It seems some of the local cops are involved in the white slave trade that in the early 1990's tore through Florida like Hurricane Andrew on one of the hells-a-popping days. Those events unfolded across television screens all over the country as middle aged women were disappearing from their homes right and left. **

Never being one to stray far from topical headlines, Wynkoop used those events, and enlisted a few of his martial artist pals, to forge a story that takes "bad movie night" to a whole new level of riotous fun. Wynkoop plays a man who has recently lost his faith in God. After his wife turns up missing, and the police won't do anything, Wynkoop takes it upon himself to find his wife and settle the score.

LOST FAITH has all the wall-to-wall action that the buck-98 budget can provide. Wynkoop and his martial artist buddies show off and pimp for the camera, often proving rather effectively that they can in fact break out a spinkick that would take your head clean off. Those fights are where the film excels. They posses a grimy street fight quality not found in the technical-dazzlings of Jackie Chan or Jet Li, but in the brutal bashings of Sonny Chiba, a man who makes all other martial artists look like sissies.

No, Wynkoop isn't the Sonny Chiba, but he wants to be mean, quick, and deadly, just like the Street Fighter. No, LOST FAITH isn't great video making, but it never tried to be anything other than fun, mindless escapism. Wynkoop wants you to kill 90-minutes with him kicking a little tail. You could do worse.

*With apologies to Joe R. Lansdale.
**I really hope you cats realize I'm talking sh*t and making all this up as I go along.

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