Steven Austin is Jim Rhodes, a U.S. Border Patrol agent, is out camping and hunting with his unwilling teenage daughter Kim (Marie Avgeropoulos). She gets bored and drives to town and gets busted by the sherif for shoplifting. Her unimpressed father comes to bail her out, but at the same time a gang of bank robbers are holding up the sherif station. Killing the sherif for being uncooperative, the family Rhodes are forced to help the bank robbers track their way through the forest to find their bounty, which was stolen by a double-crossing associate.
That's the plot in a nutshell, very simple and straight-forward. The film runs for 90 minutes and generally moves at a fair clip even though most of it is slowly walking through a forest. There are enough detours, deviations and chances for Gil Bellow's trigger-happy Banks to take out those that get in his way to spice things up. It seems a bit odd that these people - who can rob a bank with the aid of non-existent voice synthesising technology to divert an incoming police pursuit - need the help of a ranger so badly, but that's just one of those "Well I guess they needed to make a plot out of something" details that I can (generally) forgive. Along the way, both Rhodes attempt to escape a couple of times, and in the third act we presume that Jim is killed. That's when he comes back Rambo-style, armed with a convenient crossbow!
Gil Bellows (True Justice and a bunch of other TV) was good, albeit predictable, as the main bad guy Banks. He's everything you love to hate in a bad guy boss; he holds a serious grudge that forms the focus of the film, he does not accept incompetence among his own team, and he never stops grinning evilly. Banks was a seriously dislikable character, which means Bellows succeeded in crafting a good baddy. Good enough for 90 minutes of direct-to-video action, anyway. I did give a little cheer when he got his comeuppance.
Gary Daniels plays Jensen, Banks' second-in-command and the most well-balanced and loyal of the team to Banks. Daniels' thick British accent (thicker than usual, it seems) really stands out like a sore thumb. I was disappointed in the lack of action that Daniels' had on screen, actually. Mostly it's just bickering between the rest of the gang, a couple of shots fired and then the final fight with Austin - which at least was worth the price of entry as he gets a few decent roundhouse kicks in to Austin's face. The other gang members (Michael Eklund's "Geary" the techie one, Adrian Holmes' "Crab" the incompetent one, Emiliie Ullerup's "Dominika" the pretty one) are all pretty bland and not really worth discussing. They simply serve as cannon fodder for both Rhodes and a pissed-off Banks.
Director Keoni Waxman is quite prolific among the DTV-action world, particularly with Austin and our favourite Steven Seagal. He directed both of them together in Maximum Conviction, a film I enjoyed more than the rest of the world (it seems), and is helming the upcoming Seagal/Danny Trejo/Ving Rhames vehicle, Force of Execution. On paper that one sounds a blast. Waxman's also, in retrospect, put many cast members from this and his Seagal films into Seagal's television serial True Justice.
You may have noticed that I tagged Eric Roberts but so far have not mentioned him. That's because the son-of-a-bitch is dead before the opening credits roll! In a scene that is only there to show Austin receiving a watch that will come in handy later, he and Roberts take down a meth lab in the middle of nowhere, Texas, and Roberts faces the mean end of a drug dealer's shotgun. That's it. Although he's not on the cover of the DVD or any of the photos on the back, he is listed as #1 on IMDB in the credits list - so I'm calling this a bait-and-switch on technicality.
Overall I thought this was decent enough, if you can ignore the obvious plot faults of a crew of technologically-benefited bank robbers not being able to determine where North is without a 17 year old girl to help them. And if you don't expect to see Eric Roberts for more than a millisecond. Seriously he must have just been driving by the set when Waxman shouted out "Hey Roberts! Want to make fifty bucks?" Check out what our buddy at the DTVC thought of the film as well. I commented on his review two-and-a-half years ago but I'm only just getting to mine now!
Highlight:
Serious spoiler alert! There are two main highlights for me; the eventual one-on-one fight of Austin and Daniels, and the final (drawn out) death-throws of Gil Bellows' Banks character who "dies" not once, not twice, but three times. Eventually after hobbling away from the first two failed attempts at being dispatched by Rhodes, Banks pushes for a third attempt by quipping at Rhodes "Is that all you got, mountain man?! You can't kill me!". To which Rhodes invokes the films title: "When I hunt.. I HUNT TO KILL!" (given in away in the trailer) and ploughs Banks down with a quad bike in a hilarious fashion, before blowing him and the quad up with a flare gun. Champagne stuff and worth seeing the film to the end for.
Sourced From:
Region 2 DVD from Anchor Bay. Sharp 16:9 print as you would expect.
Steven Seagal has released consistently watchable and enjoyable direct-to-video films for the past five years. Before that there were a few shaky ones, but with the possible exception of Against the Dark (his brief appearances in a vampire film) it's been a pretty good ride since 2007 with Renegade Justice aka Urban Justice, Pistol Whipped, Driven to Kill aka Ruslan, The Keeper, A Dangerous Man and Born to Raise Hell all being good to excellent DTV action films. Steven has been busy of late doing his TV series' Lawman and True Justice and I was wondering if we would get another film. Thankfully we did, and it's just as good as any of the others mentioned above. It's got action "newcomer" Steve Austin in it, and is directed by Keoni Waxman of Seagal's A Dangerous Man and Austin's Hunt to Kill fame.
It should be an easy day's work for Cross (Steven Seagal) and Manning (Steve Austin); overlook and orchestrate the closure of a military penal facility, and organise the transport of the final inmates to their new civilian prison. Cross shows who is boss early in the piece by beating up a 200kg inmate who steps out of line, while Manning is given the delightful task of running the garbage disposal. The day only gets worse when a rolled up note is found that was accidentally dropped by an inmate, detailing times and locations for an attack on the facility. Cross, on his way back to the prison and Manning, still dealing with that garbage disposal, are suddenly involved in a foothold situation as Chris Blake (Michael Pare) and his mercenaries, posing as marshalls, take over the complex in order to extract two of the prisoners - Samantha (Steph Song) and Charlotte (Aliyah O'Brien) - for their own purposes. And it's of course up to Cross, Manning and their phoned-in team of soldiers to sort this out!
The film is similar to Austin's own Tactical Force, except that in that film the good guys only had blank ammunition for training. Not so here; it's an automatic weapons festival! Being essentially one team of mercs. versus another team of mercs. you would expect this, and the film delivers in droves. Fast-firing rifles backed up with hand guns and even a few one-on-one close combat fights make this one of the more action-packed Seagal films in recent times. The dialogue is fairly light to accommodate the continual action; so much so that the only time I looked up at the clock was to see we were 70 minutes in and just about to kick into the final twenty minutes of yet more action and comeuppance for the bad guys.
Seagal and Austin share equal amounts of screen time here, which itself isn't dominating. A lot of the smaller players as well as Pare get their faces on camera. When Seagal and Austin do show up, they are almost always slap-fu'ing, drop-kicking, machine-gunning or launching fire extinguishers as rockets. Seagal appears to be doing most of the stunts himself this time round, which is great, and I doubt Austin even has a stuntman. The only real downside to the movie is the handful of occasions that Seagal speaks to Austin - their voices are both so low and gravelly I had a hard time trying to decipher what was being said!
Michael Pare is good fun as the renegade Chris Blake. It's good to see him taking time out from endless Uwe Boll films to join the big boys of action for a while. He's a little bit sadistic in getting what he wants, stabbing the poor warden in the hand and cutting off one of his fingers - ouch. Also on good form here is Australian actor Bren Forster as Bradley, who leads up Cross and Manning's squad of soldiers. Forster has some martial arts skills and gets to put them to use in a fight near the finale.
Overall this is one of the better DTV action films of the past few years. It's simple, it's direct and it never lets the plot get in the way of a good shootout. Just the way I like it! And there is more to look forward to as Steven Seagal teams up again with Director Keoni Waxman and co-stars Danny Trejo and Ving Rhames in Force of Execution!
Highlight:
There are no major highlights in the film as it is all fairly solid, but I especially enjoyed Steve Austin's various one-liners throughout the film. He breaks a guys elbow? "Does that hurt? You fuckin' pussy." He gets beaten up by a woman? "What the fuck, baby!" He impales a bad guy on a weights rack in the exercise yard? "No pain. No gain." Quality stuff!
Sourced From:
Ex-rental blu-ray from Transmission Films. Great picture and sound quality as can be expected from modern DTV on blu-ray.
I had looked forward to this ever since it appeared on IMDB a few months ago. Steve Austin, Michael Jai White and most interestingly Michael Shanks all together in a SWAT action film. It sounded good on paper and I've enjoyed Austin's DTV work more than most people, so I had high hopes for Tactical Force. Plus I got a real kick out of seeing Shanks listed alongside those wrestler and martial arts types!
Hunt, Blanco and Jannard (Michael Jai White, Steve Bacic and Lexa Doig) are members of a SWAT team headed by Tate (Steve Austin). When called to the scene of a store robbery, Tate and his colleagues throw away the rule book and go in all guns blazing, killing most of the suspects and causing a quarter of a million dollars worth of stock damage in hilarious fashion. The Chief (Peter Bryant) is unimpressed, and not being swayed by the fact that they rescued all the hostages, demands that the team go for retraining - part of which is physical exercises at a training facility (essentially an abandoned warehouse).
Unknown to them, Russian bad guy Demetrius (Michael Shanks) is already on the scene with his double-crossing goon Kenny (Michael Eklund) trying to locate a hidden package. To make matters more complicated, a rival gang of Italian criminals led by Lampone (Adrian Holmes, also in Austin's Hunt to Kill) and Storato (played by regular DTV bad guy Darren Shahlavi) are also there to retrieve the same package. These armed but fairly non-threatening bad guys shouldn't be a match for a team of elite SWAT, except for one thing: Tate and co. only have non-lethal training ammunition with them. And it doesn't help that both sets of bad guys call in their own re-enforcements...
This was amusing, and stupid (and cheap), but really quite fun. Honestly I was smiling the whole way through this. A lot of the time it was a "I can't believe they just said/did that" smile but there was also a few "that was pretty cool" smiles. The main point: I was smiling, which means I enjoyed it. From the beginning that was like a team version of the opening scene in Cobra, through to the final humorous camaraderie about how they are going to get fired, I was having fun with this. The action is why we are here though and it's all pretty decent quality. I can believe somebody would hire Austin as a SWAT team leader; he certainly has the physique for it. So does Michael Jai White, who brings the house down with his one liner at the end before firing an obscenely large weapon ("Wait, I need a line..... okay, I got one!").
Steve Austin gets the lead role but in general, everybody gets a chance to show off their skills to some degree in this. The only downside is that that means we only get one real decent fight from Austin and Jai White especially, and not against each other as they are on the same team. Austin does get to go toe to toe with another wrestler, Keith Jardine, who is fairly new to DTV (he was in Death Warrior, Unrivaled and again with Austin in the upcoming Recoil) but he does a decent job as the hired thug. In fact he delivers lines better than Austin, though I don't think he could pull off a leading role. I'm happy to be proven wrong, though. The other two members of the team Jannard and Blanco are both sassy and slightly annoying, though don't take centre stage very often. I wonder if an Austin and Jai White buddy comedy would work?
I loved Michael Shanks in this. I'm a big Stargate SG-1 nerd and have watched Shanks lend himself to a few SyFy channel movies too, but to see him in an action movie - with a hilarious Russian accent, no less - was a great laugh. To these eyes, he stole the show, and was easily the most likeable and lively character of the bunch. He has a way of making everyone else he talks to seem stupid, even with a comedy accent. His partner in crime (literally) is Ilya, played by the quite striking Candace Elaine, who channels the likes of Trinity from the Matrix and Katya - Jeremy Irons' girl in Die Hard 3 - as she is the first to brutally draw blood in the movie.
I guess some downsides would be the cheapness of the production in certain aspects. Every scene change involves a bad side-wipe effect that grated after a while. Being modern DTV it is of course filmed on digital HD cameras, but that's not hugely a problem as most of the movie is filmed interior, and thankfully the ADHD directing technique so frequently used in modern action films was not evident here, although some of the fights were a little too closely zoomed. Peter Bryant as Chief Barnett was an.. interesting choice for the Captain. He was funny but just didn't have the presence to do the "I aughta nail your arse to the wall!" type of Captaining. Seriously they need to iron out Ronny Cox again for these roles, he was great in One Man Force.
This is a good time. Austin isn't the strongest actor but he brings the beef well enough, and there's plenty laughs to be had (some intentional, some not) and the action is perfectly solid. I'll watch Michael Jai White kick shit anytime, even if it's only in one or two scenes. The gunplay was fine, the use of the tiny budget was well done - there's about three locations in total, and how much can an abandoned warehouse cost to rent? - and the comical bad guys were fun, especially Shanks' hamming it up as Demetrius. Oh, and there's a car chase! Worth checking out.
The Video:
Well what can I say; it's modern DTV filmed on HD cameras, it looks fine and sharp with no obvious issues. Sounds great as well. Runtime 90 mins. approx.
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:
A man is shot in half with a shotgun. His innards fly out and blood splats on the camera. More people are shot in the same scene and blood and organic matter are shown flying out of the wounds.
A man stabs plenty of people in a room, then proceeds to stab another and slowly drive the knife into his chest (blood is shown spraying out uncontrollably and splattering the stabbers' face).
A man has his head kicked backwards so his neck breaks in a gruesome fashion.
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.
