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The nineties were an interesting time for action movies. You had your A tier action flicks hitting the box office, and then you had your C and D tier on home video filling shelves. Among them there was “No Contest.” If you were a premium cable subscriber in the nineties, you probably know what “No Contest” is. This movie fulfilled two big purposes in that it gave the studio their very own “Die Hard” wannabe, and it pushed their star Shannon Tweed to the forefront in her long effort to become a mainstream movie star.
Shannon Tweed was a gorgeous and sexy woman and former Playboy model in the eighties who got in to feature films in the nineties and worked hard to become a big screen actress.
Sadly, she was mostly reduced to low budget movies working in erotic crime thrillers and low budget action movies that never did her any favors. Despite her inherent cult following, Tweed never took off as a mainstream star and was one of the many models (Cindy Crawford, anyone?) and porn stars that were given big pushes by studios but never quite broke out. Sure she did have one off appearances in “Married with Children” and “Frasier” but nothing ever monumental. The biggest role to date has probably been her small but memorable role as a cougar in “Detroit Rock City”; that’s mainly because of her connection to Gene Simmons.
The Miss Galaxy beauty pageant is being held at a grand lavish hotel with a bevy of exotic beautiful ladies now narrowed down to six, including Ms. USA, as well as her over protective bodyguard Crane. The host of the pageant is none other than Shannon Tweed, who plays the role of former beauty queen Sharon Bell. Sharon Bell is also a former movie star looking for a comeback, and–you know–she also happens to be adept in Kung Fu. As the winner is being announced bad guy Oz and his group of mercenaries and killer crash the party and take over the hotel, holding all of the contestants hostage.
Desperate to get as many innocent people out before Oz murders all of the hostages, Sharon goes rogue using her skills to help Crane and the police take back the hotel. Director Paul Lynch previously helmed a slew of TV projects including episodes of “Xena” and “Baywatch” and directs his movie like a “Die Hard” sequel that’s also a TV Movie of the Week, Or a pilot. “No Contest” is definitely that flavor of “Die Hard” rip off that studios love to bring to the screen every few years. What’s funny is that nothing’s really changed since 1995 and 2024. Studios still have an appetite for taking the “Die Hard” formula and repurposing them in to seemingly new movies.
“Die Hard” but on a plane! “Die Hard” but on a boat! “Die Hard” but in the White House! And of course, with “No Contest” we got “Die Hard” but in a massive sky rise. Except this time we get exploding models, Andrew Dice Clay and Roddy Piper playing the big bad terrorists, and Robert Davi assisting Tweed. Star Tweed is obviously John McClane—but a beauty pageant queen! I’m not one hundred percent certain, but I think in the eighties and early nineties it was a studio mandate that Robert Davi had to play a cop or PI of some kind in any movie he was in.
Tweed has all the trappings of a crossover star, but always sadly delivered dialogue with stiff monotone and could never quite convey that whole John McClane regular person aesthetic, no matter how hard she seems to try. At the very least we get what’s a pretty fun, and silly “Die Hard” facsimile with Andrew Dice Clay hamming it up ten fold.
If anything “No Contest” was popular enough to warrant a sequel, years later.