Line #1 Film/Stiletto


1	[[quoteright:310:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/stiletto_2008.jpeg]]
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3	''Stiletto'' is a 2008 American DirectToVideo action film produced by Nick Vallelonga (who also directed) and Warren Ostergard. The cast includes Creator/TomBerenger, Creator/MichaelBiehn, Creator/StanaKatic, Creator/WilliamForsythe, Creator/DBSweeney, Creator/JamesRusso, and Creator/TomSizemore.
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5	Raina (Katic) was deeply in love with powerful crime boss Virgil Vadalos (Berenger) until she discovered that he was involved with her sister's disappearance. After that, their relationship met a violent end. Now Raina is determined to take out Virgil and his entire crew. Armed with nothing more than unbridled fury and a particularly sharp knife, Raina begins at the lower rungs of Virgil's organization and methodically works her way up through the ranks. But Virgil is no sucker, and in order to stop the slaughter he calls on crooked cop Beck (Paul Sloan) to stop Raina by any means necessary. As the streets of Los Angeles run red with blood, Raina and Beck soon discover that in this city, there is no escape from the tyranny of the corrupt.
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7	Not to be confused with the 1969 film of the same name.
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9	----
10	!!Tropes:
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12	* ActionGirl: Raina cuts a bloody swathe through the LA underground as she extracts a very hands-on [[RapeAndRevenge vengeance for her sister's rape]].
13	* AllBikersAreHellsAngels: 'Nazis for Jesus' are a [[ThoseWackyNazis Neo-Nazi]] biker gang who cook crystal meth, use it to hook teenage girls, and then force them into prostitution.
14	* AmbiguousEnding: Ends with Raina leaving both Virgil and Beck lying wounded on the floor with a gun in-between them. Both of them look at the gun, and then each other, and then [[GunStruggle both dive for the gun]]. The screen goes black and there is a moment's silence, followed by a single gunshot.
15	* BaldOfEvil: Krieger and Englehart, the head honchos of the [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazis for Jesus]] [[AllbikersAreHellsAngels biker gang]], both sport shaved heads.
16	* BathhouseBlitz: The first kill of the movie happens when Raina [[SlashedThroat slits Ernesto's throat]] from behind while he is in the sauna.
17	* TheConsigliere: The aging Gus was Virgil's mentor in the Greek crime syndicate, and acts as his consigliere now that Virgil heads the family.
18	* CrowbarCombatant: Raina kills Lee by driving the tyre iron end of a [[WrenchWhack lug wrench]] up though his jaw and out the top of his skull.
19	* DarkActionGirl: Penny is on the bad guys' side, and fairly good at fighting. She brutally attacks Raina near the end, with the latter managing to take her down.
20	* DirtyCop: Det. Beck is in the pocket of crime lord Virgil Vadalos. When Raina starts her RoaringRampageOfRevenge, he orders Beck to bring Raina to him alive without involving the rest of the police. [[spoiler:He murders a fellow detective who finds out something's up and tries to alert others.]]
21	* FailedASpotCheck: Beck enters an empty parking garage and somehow fails to see Raina, despite the fact that she can be no more than a few metres away from him, allowing her to get the drop on him.
22	* FakingTheDead: After Raina stabs him and [[LeftForDead leaves him for dead]], Virgil has it announced that he died on the way to the hospital.
23	* GottaKillEmAll: Raina is determined to kill all of the men involved in [[RapeAndRevenge her sister's rape]].
24	* GrievousBottleyHarm: Englehart smashes a bottle over the head of the black bouncer at the strip club and proceeds to KickThemWhileTheyAreDown. Later, during the fight between Raina and Large Bills in Large Bills' limo, Raina grabs the champagne bottle out of the ice bucket and hits him with it.
25	* GunStruggle: The film ends with Raina leaving both Virgil and Beck lying wounded on the floor with a gun in-between them. Both of them look at the gun, and then each other, and then both dive for the gun. [[AmbiguousEnding The screen goes black and there is a moment's silence, followed by a single gunshot.]]
26	* HookersAndBlow: The bikers hold a celebration full of cocaine and willing women. Raina tries to take advantage of their distraction to attack, but the party turns out to be a ruse to lure her into a trap.
27	* JackBauerInterrogationTechnique:
28	** Lee tortures a man to get information ''very'' brutally with help from Penny. He was about to use a ''belt sander'' on him before they're interrupted.
29	** Beck also beats a transvestite prostitute into giving him information.
30	* {{Kevlard}}: Virgil survives Raina's first attack on him because he is overweight and her blade fails to penetrate far enough to hit any vital organs. He later tells Beck that if he had been a 100 lb. weakling, he would be dead.
31	* KickThemWhileTheyAreDown: Happens multiple times:
32	** After macing the convenience store owner, Penny knocks him to the floor and continues to kick him once he is down.
33	** While confronting Large Bills at the strip club, Engelhart [[GrievousBottleyHarm smashes a bottle over the bouncer's head]] and then stomps on him when he falls over.
34	** Penny jabs Raina with a StaticStunGun and then kicks her repeatedly when she drops.
35	* MsFanservice: Raina is very beautiful, and she's scantily clad for much of the film. Usually she's in outfits that show off her cleavage and bare stomach.
36	* MurderIsTheBestSolution: A philosophy drummed into Virgil by Gus is that if you have been betrayed, kill everyone. Virgil lets his feelings for Raina get in the way after she tries to kill him. When things are spiraling out of control, he asks Gus--now TheConsigliere--where he went wrong, and Gus replies:
37	-->"When you got out of the hospital, you should have killed everyone."
38	* OneWordTitle
39	* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Large Bills
40	* PerkyFemaleMinion: Lee's girlfriend Penny is a young {{streetwalker}} he picked up during his exile in Britain. She gets off on violence, which is especially obvious in the scene where Lee is torturing a guy for information and asks her to pass him the belt sander so he can take the guy's tattoo off.
41	* PistolWhipping: When a transvestite prostitute pulls a gun on Beck and tries to rob him, Beck takes it off him and savagely beats him about the head with this until he coughs up the information Beck is looking for.
42	* PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy: The gangster known as [[OnlyKnownBytheirNickname Large Bills]] used to be associated with a Neo-Nazi biker gang until he he abandoned them to ally with a black gang because it was more profitable. He has assimilated well, and become a big fan of black culture (with one character even stating Large Bills wishes he could actually be black). He seems to have been accepted by his new allies who even afford him NWordPrivileges.
43	* RapeAndRevenge: Raina is undertaking her RoaringRampageOfRevenge to avenge her sister who was gang-raped, beaten into a coma and dumped in the garbage by a group of Virgil's associates.
44	* SeanConneryIsAboutToShootYou: Creator/StanaKatic is about to shoot you GunsAkimbo.
45	* SelfHarm: Lee's girlfriend Penny is shown doing this whenever she is left alone for too long. Her acts include extinguishing cigarettes on her thigh, and cutting her wrist with a pocketknife.
46	* SlashedThroat: The first kill of the movie happens when Raina slits Ernesto's throat from behind while he is in the sauna.
47	* TattooedCrook: This marks the difference between the levels of criminals. The more street level criminals, like the biker gangs and the Mexican cartels, all sport large numbers of tattoos. The members of Virgil's organised crime family--even PsychoPartyMember Lee--are all clean skins. Raina often comments on a criminal's ink before she kills them.
48	* ThoseWackyNazis: Several of Raina's targets are members of a Neo-Nazi biker gang called 'Nazis for Jesus'.
49	* VillainousRescue: Raina is captured by the [[ThoseWackyNazis Neo-Nazi biker gang]], but rescued by DirtyCop Beck, who needs to deliver her alive to the mob boss Virgil.
50	* WeaponTitle
51	* WrenchWhack:
52	** When the two mechanics work out that Beck is a cop, one of them attacks him with a spanner. Beck grabs the spanner off him and uses it to break the mechanic's leg, and then beat his mate into submission.
53	** Later, Lee grabs a lug wrench from his trunk and uses it to attack Raina. Raina then gets ahold of it and kills Lee by [[CrowbarCombatant driving the tyre iron end]] up though his jaw and out the top of his skull.

Context Film / Stiletto