Project UFO: The Phillip J. Roth Files

Total Reality

(1997 / USA)

This future timeline is built upon the military political structure known as The Bridgists movement. A Twentieth century ideology based upon the writings of a man called Bridges, a founder for the belief in the need for total harmonious control. The interpretations of his scripture lead to near elimination of personal freedom with the development of Bio Trackers, neck implants that act as human regulatory control junctures, and the affirmation for an underground movement against such radical enforcement was then formed. The rebellion against the Bridgist rule became a long and devastating one with a future war that would end in thirty billion casualties, culminating in the destruction of all life on Earth. With the Bridgist era enveloping its community into space only a few staunch activists against the rule remain.

A renegade band of men desperate to find a way back to the future Earth of 1998 launch a solitary craft from the colony ship. The two manned ship contains Commander Tunis and Colonel Norris from the military faction, determined to break free of this time and change the future back in the past. The daring race for freedom does not go unchallenged as governmental military assault teams storm the main hold with a frantic exchange of energy emitting weaponry. Team leader Lieutenant Anthony Rand, star David Bradley, fights for the Bridgist govern but is a free willed man with a conscience as well as a code of honour. As the fleeing radicals elude his capture he is ordered to withdraw from the colony class craft and directly instructed to destroy the ship, desperately escaping families and all !. Rand defies orders and kills his commanding officer in order to save as many lives as possible and in so doing is sent to a space penal colony with a sentence of death !.

Prison station Ganymede isn’t just a place of hard time it’s considered Final Time !. Ran, along with three fellow convicted war hero officers and soldiers all pushed too far by the system , is selected for a mission to retrieve both Tunis and Norris just tracked by their neck emitters back to Earth’s past. They have a forty hour window of opportunity to locate and bring back the two men to stand trial for future crimes to be committed in the past. There is no easy out for the chosen four as non compliance means immediate enactment of their conclusive sentences, whilst any attempt to remain on Earth will result in an explosive charge in their Bio Trackers being primed. Their future too lies in the past but is the cause they are fighting for worth dying for and are the men they seek to eliminate truly the enemy !?.

The second half of this exciting and intelligently scripted science fiction Action Adventure flick, from the creative imagination of combined Writer / Director / Producer Phillip J. Roth, takes a futuristic step back into modern day times as the chosen quartet have to immediately acclimatise to a world they have only ever heard stories about. Coming to terms with ‘Old’ technology with the assistance of some future gadgetry makes for a couple of moments of welcome amusement. This second segment pretty much starts with an attention grabbing impact as the first with a large detached house exploding in truly awesome style, followed soon after by an impressive car explosion. Rand and team immediately engage Tunis and Norris in a close quarter gun fight that puts the two protagonists on the scent of Bridgist founder John Bridges, and Rand’s unit in at the scene touch with his feisty ex-wife Cathy. The entire sequence here is a very well stage Action showcase that even gives David Bradley the first of two opportunities to display his deft ability to dive through glass windows as if it were an Olympic event. This Mark Spitz of Action cinema takes to the lead man role like a duck to water and tagged up with his newfound love interest, as played by the attractively determined Ely Pouget, he and Cathy strive to change a chapter in mankind’s future before ‘The Universal Being’ is a best selling tome of tyranny.

This is the thinking persons Sci Fi with a real message etched into its finely tuned story telling frequency for the need to be free minded, yet ever mindful of the freedom we still have … but is this future a Total Reality !?.

Movie Rating: 6/10

Review by Paul Cooke / Source Region 1 NTSC DVD

Total Reality (1997)

Director: Phillip J. Roth

With: David Bradley, Ely Pouget, Thomas Kretschmann,

Misa Koprova & Ken Olandt

With comin’ at cha opening credits, expanding front of screen like 3D images from the deepest part of space, Total Reality kicks in with an arsenal of expansive CGI to please any Sci Fi fan. Darth Vader could be the puppeteer of the visually expansive space battle as a dogfight ensues in pursuit of boarding a large colony craft. The battle is set two hundred years into the future as Human kind exists in space as planet Earth lies abandoned on the fringe of the solar system, a vacuous burnt out shell following nuclear global destruction.