Going back to the roots of Explosive Action with a look at Six DTV Action Films from the 2010s!
I take a look at the films Bullet (Danny Trejo), Raze (Zoe Bell), Hijacked (Randy Couture), 6 Bullets (Jean-Claude Van Damme), Icarus: The Killing Machine (Dolph Lundgren) and Code of Honor (Steven Seagal).
Tagline:
This show could be deadly.
Review:
Dolph Lundgren is Joe, the drummer of a rock band called CMF about to play support for a popstar called Venus (Melissa Molinaro). The two artists are playing a special command performance for the Russian President under strict security. While CMF is playing, men disguised as cooks and waiters kill the backdoor guards and sneak in, bringing crates of weapons with them.
At the height of Venus' set and whilst Joe is backstage, the team of assassins blast in killing most of the security and storm the stage, taking not only Venus hostage but the American ambassador and the President himself. Joe emerges to witness the filming of the first execution and formulates a plan - play a wild guitar solo then use his Fender as a mallet! Joe teams up with one of the surviving Russian security team and the fight back begins.
"Dying is easy. Rock and roll is hard."
Command Performance is Die Hard in an Arena, basically. It has some really fun scenes and lines, like Dolph sticking a knife into someone's brain and quipping "watch the hair, dude". The film doesn't shy from the violence, with squibs aplenty, machine gun slaughter, throats ripped out, AK-47 rifle butt bludgeoning and old fashioned beatdowns. Dolph is the man as Joe, tattooed and badass with a history in biker gangs that makes him gun shy (until he isn't).
Melissa Molinaro is believable as Venus, in that I can’t stand her. That’s the point though, at least at the beginning; she’s a brat with too much money. Most of the other characters are non-descript; Hristo Shopov’s President is certainly no Putin, though you can tell that is what they were aiming for. I did like the character of Oleg Kazov, played by the late Dave Legeno, who is responsible for twelve kills to Dolph’s ten. He’s damn ruthless and quite the joy to watch. Frequent Dolph collaborator James Chalke as Vladimir also gets his hands dirty quite a bit.
Fun fact, one of the president's daughters is Lundgren's own daughter, Ida. She was a good little actress (better than some of the adult extras) and has only since appeared in her dad's most recent Direction, Castle Falls, much older of course.
Dolph is a solid director, solid drummer, and Command Performance is a solid action film. I always have fun watching this one; it's tightly paced, has some fun dialogue and absolutely brings the violence. Dolph had a string of solid action films around this time – Direct Contact, Missionary Man, The Mechanik, Icarus aka The Killing Machine – and they are all worth watching. But Command Performance might just be the best.
Trailer:
Tagline:
Back for War.
Movie Review:
To say that I've been looking forward to seeing The Expendables 2 is like saying "I quite enjoy breathing". I needed to see this movie, as my wife will attest to, and it simply did not disappoint. If you are a fan of big, dumb 80's style action films, a fan of the first movie, or somebody who thought the first movie needed to go further, then all you need to know is "go see this film immediately".
The film opens in Nepal as mercenaries are bludgeoning a captive prisoner. Enter: The Expendables - Toll Road (Randy Couture), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), Gunner (Dolph Lundgren), Yin Yang (Jet Li), Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) and Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) to save the day with tanks, missiles, and endless rounds of ammunition unleashed upon enemy forces resulting in CG-gore head-shots (which look pretty good to my eyes, and not obviously cartoon-y - just over the top!), and newcomer Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) sniping from a distance with his 50 calibre rifle. Jet Li even pulls out the martial arts with saucepans like a late 70's Hong Kong film. It's hard to put in words how awesome this opening scene is.
Rescuing their target (and somebody else who was in the wrong place at the wrong time) the team fly home for some R&R. That's when Church (Bruce Willis) shows up demanding that a debt to him be paid by Barney Ross, so the team set out to retrieve a package from a safe in a downed plane. Sounds like an easy pay check but Ross has to agree to take specialist Maggie (Nan Yu) along with him. Of course it all goes terribly wrong when somebody else is after the package - Villain (Jean-Claude Van Damme), a ruthless arms dealer - and one of the Expendables crew is killed in action by a knife to the throat held by Villain's right-hand-man, Hector (the awesome Scott Adkins). So what does a team of old mercenaries do? "Track 'em, find 'em, kill 'em!" … with a few old friends showing up along the way to give a helping hand.
This was a great, great action movie. If movies are based solely on the amount of fun you have watching them, then The Expendables 2 is up there with the best. Don't be stupid and look for deep meaning, just giggle like a schoolgirl when Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Willis empty an entire airport with automatic weapons! Laugh as Lundgren gets drunk and tries to crack on to Nan Yu's Maggie. Fist-pump the air as Terry Crews brings out the automatic shotgun from the first film and dismembers wave after wave of bad guy. Grin from ear to ear as Jason Statham dressed as a priest declares "I now pronounce you man and knife!". Cheer as Chuck Norris appears out of the smoke and forgets how to act entirely (Arnie is a bit rusty too, but who the hell cares?). Even Nan Yu (also in Dolph Lundgren's "Diamond Dogs") gets her fair share of carnage in.
"I'll be back!", "You've been back enough! It's time for me to be back!"
If you thought the first film had a lot of back-slapping referential humour, you ain't seen nothing yet! Any time Schwarzenegger, Willis and Stallone share a scene it's just a constant stream of "Rambo", "I'll be back" and "Yippie-ki-yay" lines. You'll cringe but you'll love it at the same time. They are clearly having a whale of a time doing it and you'll have a whale of a time watching it. And you may have read it elsewhere but Chuck Norris does crack a Chuck Norris Fact joke - and it's brilliantly awful.
Van Damme is excellent as the plutonium-obsessed leader Villain who forces slaves to dig mines looking for the lost Russian chemicals of destruction. His twisted portrayal of the character gives you someone to hate and also makes you wonder why JCVD doesn't do bad-guy roles more often - he previously only seemed to do them when he appears in the movie as two characters ala Replicant. Scott Adkins' Hector is just as great as his right-hand-man, and is ruthless in carrying out orders given to him by Villain. And yes, we get to see both dudes roundhouse kicking members of Ross' team - Van Damme's still got it!
Downsides? Well Yin Yang is only in the opening scene before making a discreet exit out of the plane with a parachute over China, to which a disappointed Gunner asks "Who am I going to make fun of now?" and Yin replies "Find another minority". Toll Road, Hale Caesar and Gunner are pushed more to the background than the first movie with no real shining moments given to any of them - though Gunner does try to save the day in one instance with his degree in Chemical Engineering; a degree that Dolph Lundgren actually has! The end fights involving Adkins and JCVD could have been longer but that is really splitting hairs - they were great as they were. Any other downsides revolve around similar issues people had with the first movie; that is some of the emotional plot lines were a bit forced and didn't quite work. That issue is still apparent here when Sly talks with Hemsworth or Nan Yu but not as bad as the attempts with Mickey Rourke were in the first film.
The Expendables 2 is the cure to all the Mission Impossible 17's and Bourne Whatever's of the world. No brains, all brawn, big guns and fun dialogue. Directed this time by Simon West who has helmed Con Air and Tomb Raider, he films a frenetic action film that only resorts to shaky-cam once by my count and looks a treat, outside a few overly-dark moments including the final Stallone/JCVD fight. Another classic in Nu Image's action repository. See this now!
Highlight:
There are many, many glorious moments in this film but I have to give it up for the few appearances we get of Chuck Norris. Every time he appears on screen he gets his own theme song. He cracks a Chuck Norris joke, badly, and it's brilliant. And he gets one of the funniest kills in the movie where the resultant headshot is viewed through the full body security scanner at the airport. Boom!
Sourced From:
Watched at the cinema, and worth every dollar!
Trailer:
Tagline:
Can one man make a difference?
Movie Review:
It really is about time I reviewed another Dolph on the site. After all, excepting Schwarzenegger he is easily my favourite action star. There is something about this well-built Swedish brute (meant in the nicest possible way, folks) that keeps me coming back. His physique leads him to action films but I think it's his way of delivering lines that I enjoy so much. He always sounds like he enjoys his work so much. Direct Action is no exception, as the gum-chewing Dolph here again demonstrates.
Dolph Lundgren plays Sgt. Frank Gannon, a veteran member of the Direct Action taskforce - an elite force given special powers to clean up the city; and they have been mightily successful. Crime is at the lowest it has been in a decade. However, these statistics and extra powers have gone to the heads of the team who have taken their elevated stature as an excuse to commit crimes themselves. Profitable crimes, headed up by Captain Stone (Conrad Dunn, Death Warrant, Silent Trigger). All that is except Frank Gannon, who refuses to take any part and Sgt. Ed Grimes (Rothaford Gray, Exit Wounds, Max Payne) his partner who wants to protect his wife and children.
Gannon is assigned a new transfer as his partner, Billie Ross (Polly Shannon, No Contest, The Girl Next Door). When the corrupt Stone can't convince Gannon to take part in the scams he is caught, tasered and lined up to be executed by the other officers on the take. With the help of new partner Ross, picking off his would-be executors at a distance with an assault rifle, the two escape. Stone tries another tactic by implicating them both in the drug ring and issuing and APB for their arrest, for the murder of three police officers. As well as that, Sgt. Grimes' family is kidnapped.
It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest to learn that that Direct Action was meant to have been a Steven Seagal film. I'm only speculating here, but the good cop getting to the roots of corruption/mafia/drug syndicate plot is usually Seagal's signature. I am glad to see Dolph doing one of these too as he does a great job as the good cop, breaking in a new partner and taking down the bad cops in his unit. I had been putting off seeing Direct Action as it has a reputation of not being one of his better films. I disagree; this is a solid DTV Dolph on par with Command Performance, Direct Contact and The Mechanik, better than Icarus/The Killing Machine and FAR better than Retrograde and Diamond Dogs (in my opinion the worst of Dolph's DTV output).
Plenty of action to enjoy in this one. Dolph shows off both his hand-to-hand and foot-to-face unarmed combat skills, but also he gets to blast away with a pistol and machine gun frequently. His partner Ross gets many opportunities to wipe out bad guys with an assault rifle, which is pretty amusing to see a girl in full makeup, hair done for a night out and hooped earrings - standard police outfit? - not even break a sweat. Over the ten hours or so that the film takes place we see the relationship between Ross and Gannon establish very quickly and she takes her position as his new partner, covering Gannon's back as many times as he covers hers. He keeps offering her gum throughout the film stating "you don't know what you are missing out on" each time she refuses. She finally relents after being shot at enough.
The best thing about a Dolph action film versus a Seagal action film is that Dolph tends to not use stunt-doubles. Or if he does you at least cannot tell easily. The camera-work on Direct Action was solid and no ridiculous effects and zoomed-too-close action to ruin everything. Part of Dolph's Canadian-based film cycle (like Silent Trigger, Detention, Hidden Agenda) instead of the Bulgarian/Russian/Romanian set-pieces that would dominate his later work, the locations pass easily as the LA it is trying to portray; at least to an outsider such as myself.
This is a solid film with a solid final act and payoff. Gannon stays true to his badge and therefore gets shot at a number of times tracking down Stone and his grunts completing the drug deal with the Asian drug lords. Gannon and Ross show up with extra help from the CIA and after a sweet car chase dispose of them all... except Stone. He goes on to testify that everything is hunky-dory at Direct Action. That is until Gannon shows up in the car park, blows Stone's arse away, and spits his gum on the corpse! Recommended.
The Video:
Presented in the correct 1.85:1 16:9 ratio, as far as I can tell, the R4 DVD was only made available for rent. The R1 is easy enough to obtain online. The US Blu-ray is solid as well, though Region A locked. Runtime ~90 minutes.
Sourced From:
Ex-rental Australian DVD for a couple of bucks.
Trailer:
More Screens:
Tagline:
To fight the winds of war, he must enter the eye of the storm.
Movie Review:
Major Jack Holloway (Dolph Lundgren) is a test pilot for the Army and along with his copilot Captain Lucas (Jon Pennel) and ground support/comedy relief Captain "Sparks" Johnson (Mystro Clark). Sparks is a name you would give to an engineer, not ground support, but anyway. After a successful test of the new Storm Catcher stealth fighter, Holloway takes a short holiday with Sparks and his family where he helps coach his daughters little league and roasts marshmallows while camping. It's pretty strange to see the guy who once wore a necklace of ears in Universal Soldier roasting marshmallows but it's funny all the same. His wife Jessica is played by Kiwi super model actress Kylie Bax and she keeps her accent throughout, which stands out a country mile. Also she can't act, at least in this one her first role. She went on to join Dolph again in the thriller Jill Rips which I haven't seen so perhaps she got better.
Anyway, Holloway gets bleeped back to work so has to leave his family shindig. Cut to the army base where a person in Holloway's uniform (why do they need space suits for a stealth fighter anyway?) has entered the Storm Catcher hanger and proceeded to shoot all the other soldiers with a silenced pistol. The mask is down so we never see his face but his thumb print security matched Hollway's so it must be him, right? Outside, a pair of rebel assassin/sabotuer types dressed in black clothes and black face paint arm bombs to the hanger door, blow the place watch as Captain Lucas flies away with the secret jet. Yup, he's crossed the Army.
The next day in the desert heat, Major Holloway stumbles onto the road looking for his family, with no clue as to how he got there. He is questioned by the military and all evidence points to him having killed all those soldiers and stealing the secret jet but he has no memory of it. He's piled into a prisoner security van and taken away but on route the van is hit with a missile and explodes. Luckily Holloway is okay and is pulled from the wreckage by more rebels who take him away in an ice cream van.
This is pretty good Dolph. It has a stronger storyline than some of his other movies (and also more stock footage) but it still hits pretty high on its action quota, and doesn't get lost in any convoluted plot-trappings. Put simply, Dolph gets framed so tries to clear his name and get his plane back. There's a few beatings but it's mainly firearms action here and resulting explosions in slow motion, and there's quite a lot of that. Holloway manages to free himself from the confines of the Ice Cream truck and steal a weapon. He heads home to check on his family but more assassins were waiting and gas the place. Holloway protects his family and takes out the bad guys but his wife is shot and hospitalised. From then on Hollway is on the run and trying to find out what's really going on here, mowing down bad guys on the way.
There's a bit of light-hearted comedy on display here and not all of it works. I'm not sure what the producers were thinking with the inclusion of the two X-Files style CIA secret agents - Agent Lock and Agent Load, and no I'm not making that up - but they are surely only there for the comedy relief. Agent Lock is played by Kimberley Davies, a name familiar to any Australian who watched the daily soap Neighbours during the 90's. Thankfully she attempts to fit in with the crowd by emulating an American accent; I wish Kylie Bax had done the same.
Agent Load, played by British actor Anthony Hickox (also in Jill Rips, and Seagal actioner Submerged) puts on an awful southern drawl that's gotta be played for kicks. He asks the General if he had noticed any strange "BEE-haviour" with Holloway, to which the General responds "No strange.. BEE.. haviour." Sigh. Oh and the kids that slap the bomb on the door kiss it first and say "Blow me". Ugh. Some of Dolph's quips are worthy, however, and one of the scenes he has when he pretends to be from Brooklyn so that he can steal a plane is pretty funny. He also has a punch-on with a 250Kg beast of a man who collapses on top of him when he goes down.
Storm Catcher does feature one of my personal dislikes that I've mentioned before; somebody hacking the Hollywood OS. This shit annoys me in every movie I see. While on the run, Holloway asks "Sparks" to investigate the dog tags from the assassins in the ice cream truck. No problem, "Sparks" is a computer whizz it seems and sneaks into a secure lab and starts typing away. When greeted with the usual 'access denied' red rubber stamp message, he just taps in some random gibberish and away she goes, 'access granted'. I hate this crap.
Storm Catcher is better than some of his other movies like Detention and The Defender and with higher production values, but it's not as good as his later crazy movies Command Performance and Direct Contact. About on par with Sweepers or The Shooter I'd say. You can't really go wrong with it but nothing really stands out. A solid Dolph effort, recommended to anyone who likes a bit of airforce action.
The Video:
The R1 disc is dual sided; 16:9 on one side and 4:3 on the other. I watched the widescreen version and it was nice and sharp with well-defined colours and strong blacks. The soundtrack was clear and explosive. The movie really benefited from the orchestral scoring and not typically mindless, generic rock. Runtime 95 minutes.
Sourced From:
eBay for one English pound.
Trailer:
More Screens:
Tagline:
Choose your weapon.
From IMDB:
THE EXPENDABLES is a hard-hitting action/thriller about a group of mercenaries hired to infiltrate a South American country and overthrow its ruthless dictator. Once the mission begins, the men realize things aren't quite as they appear, finding themselves caught in a dangerous web of deceit and betrayal. With their mission thwarted and an innocent life in danger the men struggle with an even tougher challenge, one that threatens to destroy this band of brothers.
Movie Review:
To say I have been looking forward to this is a massive understatement. I've been telling anyone who will listen about this movie. "The cast!" I would say. "Stallone! Statham! Jet Li! Arnie! Willis! DOLPH!... DOLPH!!!" I insisted upon people, until they looked at me funny. So today being the first Saturday since the films release, my wife and I went on an Explosive Action date night. Spoilers ahoy.
The movie starts just as the original teasers showed us. Stallone, Statham, Jet Li and the rest infiltrate the filming of a hostage video. A gang of pirates have kidnapped some American citizens and demand three million dollars ransom money for their return. We all know the United States standard issue reply of "we don't negotiate with terrorists", and that seems to be case here. Thirty days have gone by and no-one has stepped forward to pay the ransom. The lead guerrilla declares the blood about to be spilt is on their hands when suddenly half a dozen red laser sights are trained on him. Stallone et. al. are waiting on the rooftop and throws down a bag of money for the release of the hostages. The greedy pirate now says he wants five million. Dolph appears and says he'll fire a warning shot at one of the men. I spit popcorn on the chair in front of me when the guy explodes in a melee of gore and Dolph responds with "Woops, too low." Gunplay ensues, and we're off to a great start.
I grinned when I saw the Millennium Pictures logo and "a Nu Image Picture", but I cheered when I saw Dolph Lundgren's name mentioned fourth in the opening credits. I've become a real geek for his movies this year. The cast list is an action movie fan's wet dream, especially the scene where Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Stallone all meet. This was purely for the 80's fans, nothing more - probably why Willis and Arnie go uncredited in the movie. After completing their previous mission, Stallone and eventually the others retire to Mickey Rourke's tattoo parlour to shoot the breeze and get inked. Rourke appears to be the guys manager of sorts and receives a call saying that there is a new job going if they want it. Stallone as the leader heads off to a church to meet Willis, the guy who wants the job done, though Willis has also invited another party to the table to see who wants the job more. Enter Schwarzenegger in a grand display through the church doors. The three have some funny banter together that is really just Bruce, Sly and Arnie talking and not their characters e.g. Stallone takes digs at Arnie, suggesting that he wants to be president and Arnie suggests that Stallone feels more at home in the jungle. It's a needless scene but fantastic all the same and one for the fanboys (me).
The job is to go to a mythical South American country and remove the evil dictator, General Garza (David Zayas, Sergeant Angel Batista from Dexter). Stallone and Statham go ahead in their private plane to scout it and meet their contact, but not all is as it seems. Their contact for starters is a woman, Sandra (Giselle Itié, a virtual unknown). She also reveals in a car ride that Americans have come and screwed the country up by running drugs and killing the locals. Eric Roberts is fantastic as the evil guy of the piece, and the one pulling the General's strings. His line delivery is humorous and he's really a guy you like to hate. Less can be said for Steve Austin who plays Roberts henchman, along with Gary Daniels hamming it up good and proper as The Brit. Austin doesn't say a great deal, he merely carries out orders but he does get a good final fight. Daniels says even less but he gets to show off a little bit of kickboxing in his own fight scenes, and he gets a pretty hilarious death (he is a henchman after all, so you can't call that a spoiler, you knew it was coming!).
Stallone, Statham and Sandra get into a car chase that's pretty good and then flee to their waiting jet. Statham tries to get Sandra to come along but she says her place is in her country. The two guys may leave the country the way they arrived, but they sure as hell leave as much mess as possible. Chased to the air strip by the military they finally take off and start heading home. Stallone changes his mind though, turns around and with Statham on weapons lay waste to the army down below with gun fire, dumping fuel on them and shooting it on fire. Ka-BOOM.
Stallone and Statham work well together which is good as for much of the movie it's just those two guys. Statham has the edge with his knives but Stallone really brings it with his quick-fire handguns. The second half brings Jet Li back into the action more and the banter with him is really funny; he alters his life story whenever asked and jokes about how being four foot tall makes it hard for him to fight the bigger guys. Dolph is my standout Expendable. His role as the whack-job Gunner is exceptional and a little reminiscent of Universal Soldier's Andrew Scott. He totally steals the scene when he's in it. Time will tell if this role helps him get more of his movies released theatrically. Only Couture let's the acting quality down. Speaking is not his strong point, though his rant about his cauliflower ear is quite amusing. Rourke has a bit of an emotional moment sobbing to Stallone how he has no soul because he let a stranger commit suicide in front of him and did not prevent it. Stallone is determined to keep his soul so goes back to rescue the girl.
When The Exependables really get going, they get bloody. The kills are consistently great and I think they can be best described by the IMDB Guide for Parents on The Expendables:
There's grenades flying, machine guns firing, hand-to-hand combat and martial arts, you name a weapon it it's here. The winner for me goes to Terry Crews absolutely fantastic shotgun. In a scene reminiscent of Aliens, Crews explains why his shotgun is so awesome and from that point on I was eager to see it in action. The bullets he explains are tipped with a small missile and anyone they hit just turns to liquid. When he finally pulls the thing out it's a beautiful moment - it absolutely rips to shreds everyone in its path, not so much leaving gaping holes in them but just removing them from the gene pool altogether. My wife was cackling in glee so hard I was a little scared of her. Awesome.
The third act is total Explosive Action and recalls all the best 80's movies like Commando and Cobra. I lost count at the amount of people turned to corpses at the hands of The Expendables but it was huge, almost as huge as the insane amount of fireball explosions. It's a real treat to see something like this on the big screen again.
I have a feeling though that we may have lost 20 minutes or so of this movie due to the Hollywood industry thinking that cinema-goers can't tolerate more than 100 minutes in a chair unless it's the Lord of the Rings. The character buildup was pretty minimal; we don't even find out half the guys names. At one point Terry Crews calls Jet Li "Ying Yang". I thought he was making a racist joke but no, that's his credited name in the movie. Crews himself is awesomely called Hale Caeser, which explains why Caeser is engraved on his razor blade. I have a feeling that the eventual DVD and Blu-ray releases will be a directors cut extended edition and I look forward to seeing that.
This is a sensational movie and exactly the movie I wanted to see - a movie for the 80's action fans, both those that thought Dolph stopped making movies after Universal Soldier and those that stuck with him on direct-to-DVD releases. Some of the second reel's story gets melodramatic but that's how the 80's action movies went a lot of the time. Explosions, emotions, more explosions, in that order. You need a girl in distress so that she can be rescued, and that always comes with a sobbing backstory. You need some backstory to the characters so you know why they are doing the things they are doing. You accept it and move on, knowing that the third act will simply blow your socks off. And boy did it ever.
The Video:
I had to see this in the cinema, I couldn't call myself an Explosive Action fan if I didn't. I'm glad to report that this movie looks and sounds just like it should - an 80's action movie filmed with 2010 equipment. No stupid Bourne effects, no Avid farts (as Vern likes to refer to them), just pure action (though there is a little bit of shaky cam). The sound of Terry Crews massive shotgun almost deafened me. You definitely have to see this at the cinema.
On a side note, I was hugely disappointed at the lack of promotion for the movie at my local 8 screen cinema. One solitary poster, nestled in-between massive cardboard standing displays for Angelina Jolie's upcoming SALT and some kids movie rubbish. Are Australian cinemas embarrassed to be releasing this movie, or is it simply the result of it being published by a predominantly DTV production company? I've seen some great promotion going on overseas and I think Miillennium/Nu Image opened their wallets wide for this one so I'm not sure what's going on. Perhaps the city cinemas are promoting it more. US box office predictions look good with over thirty million in the opening weekend.
Sourced From:
Event Cinemas, $16.50 per ticket ($35 total). Expensive but worth every cent.
Trailer:
>More Screens:
I obviously have no DVD to take screenshots from so here are some of the international movie posters for the movie. All credit goes to Jox at the Dolph forum for sourcing these.
