Stiletto is a 2008 American Direct to Video action film produced by Nick Vallelonga (who also directed) and Warren Ostergard. The cast includes Tom Berenger, Michael Biehn, Stana Katic, William Forsythe, D.B. Sweeney, James Russo, and Tom Sizemore.
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.
Not to be confused with the 1969 film of the same name.
Tropes:
- Action Girl: Raina cuts a bloody swathe through the LA underground as she extracts a very hands-on vengeance for her sister's rape.
- All Bikers are Hells Angels: 'Nazis for Jesus' are a Neo-Nazi biker gang who cook crystal meth, use it to hook teenage girls, and then force them into prostitution.
- Ambiguous Ending: 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. The screen goes black and there is a moment's silence, followed by a single gunshot.
- Bald of Evil: Krieger and Englehart, the head honchos of the Nazis for Jesus biker gang, both sport shaved heads.
- Bathhouse Blitz: The first kill of the movie happens when Raina slits Ernesto's throat from behind while he is in the sauna.
- The Consigliere: The aging Gus was Virgil's mentor in the Greek crime syndicate, and acts as his consigliere now that Virgil heads the family.
- Crowbar Combatant: Raina kills Lee by driving the tyre iron end of a lug wrench up though his jaw and out the top of his skull.
- Dark Action Girl: 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.
- Dirty Cop: Det. Beck is in the pocket of crime lord Virgil Vadalos. When Raina starts her Roaring Rampage of Revenge, he orders Beck to bring Raina to him alive without involving the rest of the police. He murders a fellow detective who finds out something's up and tries to alert others.
- Failed a Spot Check: 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.
- Faking the Dead: After Raina stabs him and leaves him for dead, Virgil has it announced that he died on the way to the hospital.
- Gotta Kill 'Em All: Raina is determined to kill all of the men involved in her sister's rape.
- Grievous Bottley Harm: Englehart smashes a bottle over the head of the black bouncer at the strip club and proceeds to Kick Them While They Are Down. 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.
- Gun Struggle: 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. The screen goes black and there is a moment's silence, followed by a single gunshot.
- Hookers and Blow: 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.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique:
- 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.
- Beck also beats a transvestite prostitute into giving him information.
- 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.
- Kick Them While They Are Down: Happens multiple times:
- After macing the convenience store owner, Penny knocks him to the floor and continues to kick him once he is down.
- While confronting Large Bills at the strip club, Engelhart smashes a bottle over the bouncer's head and then stomps on him when he falls over.
- Penny jabs Raina with a Static Stun Gun and then kicks her repeatedly when she drops.
- Ms. Fanservice: 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.
- Murder Is the Best Solution: 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 The Consigliere—where he went wrong, and Gus replies:"When you got out of the hospital, you should have killed everyone."
- One-Word Title
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Large Bills
- Perky Female Minion: 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.
- Pistol-Whipping: 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.
- Pretty Fly for a White Guy: The gangster known as 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 N-Word Privileges.
- Rape and Revenge: Raina is undertaking her Roaring Rampage of Revenge to avenge her sister who was gang-raped, beaten into a coma and dumped in the garbage by a group of Virgil's associates.
- Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: Stana Katic is about to shoot you Guns Akimbo.
- Self-Harm: 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.
- Slashed Throat: The first kill of the movie happens when Raina slits Ernesto's throat from behind while he is in the sauna.
- Tattooed Crook: 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 Psycho Party Member Lee—are all clean skins. Raina often comments on a criminal's ink before she kills them.
- Those Wacky Nazis: Several of Raina's targets are members of a Neo-Nazi biker gang called 'Nazis for Jesus'.
- Villainous Rescue: Raina is captured by the Neo-Nazi biker gang, but rescued by Dirty Cop Beck, who needs to deliver her alive to the mob boss Virgil.
- Weapon Title
- Wrench Whack:
- 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.
- 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 driving the tyre iron end up though his jaw and out the top of his skull.
