Cold Harvest is a competently made if unremarkable entry in the post-holocaust action genre, a theme Nu World/Image have touched upon several times. The plot could really be a Western. It takes little imagination to see how it could have been with only minimal rewriting – horses substituted for the dune buggies and motorbikes, Indians for the mysterious group that live on the edge of town, the hijack of a wagon train. The film even seems to consciously evoke the Western at times with saloon brawls and people wearing leather chaps. The characters are modestly well etched. Particularly good is Bryan Genesse, usually an obnoxiously macho hero in Nu Image’s films, who instead this time plays a tight-lipped, charming villain – and quite well. On the other hand Gary Daniels’ blonde hero comes across as rather thick. The action moves quite well, with some occasionally impressive stylistic flourishes. Director Isaac Florentine has clearly set out to imitate John Woo with characters doing high-flying slow-motion kicks, twirling in mid-flight, and the hero and villain shooting at one another on either side of a wall. But when Florentine does try to add an element of eroticism in a scene with Barbara Crampton soaping herself down in a handbasin, the results come out somewhat laughable – Gary Daniels’ sits with his back to her, oiling and then with crashing Freudian symbolism stroking his gun. One does not quite understand what significance the title is meant to have to anything that happens in the film.

Israeli director Isaac Florentine is former fight coordinator. He has directed a series of unremarkable action films, including the likes of Desert Kickboxer (1992), High Voltage (1997), Savate (1997), the quasi-fantasy Bridge of Dragons (1999), US Seals II (2001) and Special Forces (2003), as well as numerous episodes of the various incarnations of tv’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.