Dead Hand is now available on Amazon Prime for rental or purchase.
5 min. read
Texas-based actor and filmmaker John Francis McCullagh first landed on my radar in 2018 during the good old days of The Hit List. His reel showed promise, and needless to say, his potency as a feature film creative has finally surfaced with Dead Hand, an independently-produced action comedy he and his team partially crowdfunded back in 2021.
McCullagh writes and directs his feature debut in which he also stars alongside Brandon Yates, Josh Weinstein, and Angel Rodriguez. The story kicks off with a brutal interrogation by an elusive terrorist named Matthias Frost (Rodriguez), an ex-soldier-turned-zealot eyeing the location of a mysterious and deadly device.
What the device exactly is, with exception to Matthias, is mostly anyone’s guess. That especially goes for Eoghan Flynn (McCullagh), a secret agent whose mission it is to nab the device before it falls in the wrong hands. Further complicating things is the crucial caveat of acquiring one of Frost’s underlings named Johnny Mai (Yates), a highly skilled pugilist whose psychological profile deems him receptive to compromise.
Invariably, a device with the ability to do mankind serious harm while in Frost’s possession is not something Johnny wants on his conscience. However, turning on Frost will be one of the single most important choices he’ll have to make, particularly if it means falling out with childhood friend Nico (Weinstein), whose fighting prowess against Johnny is further matched by his devotion to Frost’s unhinged cause.
Dead Hand passes the quality check scale for the most part. Its production caliber is certainly clear as a low-budget affair – a fact iterated plainly on the film’s crowdfunding page. To that end, what McCullagh and his people managed to create serves as yet another suitable and winsome project that fans of action and martial arts can stand to applaud.
The movie also manages to hold its own in terms of energy and pacing, even as things slow down a bit midway. The acting is about as good as you would expect and the trailer gives you an au courant sense of what to expect for a film of this type. That particularly goes for a few of the characters’ fake accents which tend to bite at times, but they don’t take too much away from the film’s enjoyment. Point in fact, McCullagh’s Irish accent is a plus for his character, and adds to the authenticity he brings to the screen.
McCullagh also edited Dead Hand, and to his additional credit, contributed to the screenfighting action that makes the film worth the watch. That effort also extends to co-stars Yates and Weinstein who bring veracity and excitement to the screen as co-choreographers, as well as the antagonist’s loyal cohorts who segue as bitter enemies.
That particular plot twist happens suprisingly early on which does take away from further exposition into their enduring friendship. The good news here is that the story unravels between its varying plot points to produce an even, ample development of these two characters that when Johnny goes rogue, instead of spoiling the story, nurtures the seething rivalry from showdown to showdown until the big winner-take-all finale.
The action is a careful presentation of our actors and doesn’t take too many risks. Those more prominently go to McCullagh, Yates, and Weinstein, and notably, Rodriguez who puts his best fists and feet forward as an affluent and menacing spy movie villain who can dish it as well as he can take it. Some of the more comedic ends of Dead Hand come courtesy of scenes featuring Andrew (Jordon Yates) who makes his entry into the film as Frost’s captive, as well as the role of Mr. Grey (Daniel Galvan), a cloistered tech Flynn brings in to investigate the device and its purpose.
A lot of independently-made movies come with enough well meaning to surely earn some viewing. Not all of them pass the smell test, and for good reason. It is worth noting, though, that the quality and grade of some independent movies crafted as action and martial arts fan service can be measured by their own merit. For McCullagh, Dead Hand is no exception.
The last twenty years have proven to be a momentous period for independent martial arts and action on film. I won’t dole out a laundry list here – if you’re a reader, then you already have an idea of the kind of films that foundate my accumulative quest to cover these films, rough around the edges as many of them are.
For all its nitpicks, there’s no devaluing the scale and vision for the kind of action and storytelling that McCullagh proffers in his freshman feature. If you love action and martial arts, and formidable storytelling with popcorn thrills that deliver, leave it to McCullagh to raise his debut in Dead Hand, volunteering as tribute.
