Dolph Lundgren Is The Killing Machine

Introduction

Yes, you saw right. Dolph Lundgren Is The Killing Machine. That's the title. No mistake. The original and better title, in my view, was Icarus but I guess with The Expendables on the horizon for release this summer, it was decided that this title might just aid sales of Mr Lundgren's sixth directorial effort.

After the stellar rise of thick Austrian-accented Arnold Schwarzenegger as THE cinematic action hero of the 1980's (overtaking the homegrown Chuck Norris along the way), other foreign actors cum athletes decided to take a chance on fame in Hollywood. One was Belgian martial artist Jean-Claude Van Damme, the other was Swedish martial artist and weightlifter Dolph Lundgren. Neither scaled the heights of Schwarznegger, but both had pretty prolific film careers. Lundgren, who incidentally has a Masters degree in Chemical Engineering, has moved from being a straight actor (forgive the pun) to also combining this with writing and directing, albeit low budget straight to DVD action flicks.

Eddie Genn (Lundgren) is known by his family and friends as a pretty ordinary dude, a divorced father working for an investment company. Having a steady job is enough to bore anyone, so luckily Eddie has a secret life as a hitman for the Russian mob and a secret former life working for the KGB. Now we're talking…

During a hit in Hong Kong, something doesn't go quite right and suddenly Eddie finds there's a new contract out - on him. And his ex-wife and daughter. And now he's a tad p***ed off…

Visual

The visuals are pretty good for such a low budget film with the blu-ray picture looking quite sharp and Lundgren is certainly impressive as a rookie director. His only fault, in this film at least, is the constant repeat of the flashback scenes. He'll learn though.

Overall

Despite the ludicrously long and self-referential title, this is not too bad a film - so long as you come into it with low expectations. It's an action flick, sure. But it's another in Lundgren's series of low budget flicks. So no long car chases or huge explosions. Instead we have pitched gun battles and close-up gritty fight scenes (as is the fashion these days).

What you will notice quite quickly is that this type of story has been done before and better too. That said, this is still a relatively entertaining piece of work albeit with some flaws, most of them Lundgren's. Lundgren still has the chiselled looks that made him famous, but sadly he also has the thick accent that doesn't quite sit right when reading lines. Consequently his dialogue and narration (oh yes…) sound stilted in places. Some of the other actors are similarly unimpressive but frankly you ain't watching this kind of film looking for RSC performances. You're looking for bullet's and fist to be flying and you get them.

It's not brilliant but it's good in its own way. You'll know if you'll like this kind of film, so that's the best way to judge if you want to buy this. I do think that Lundgren is getting better as a director though, even if he's not going to be threatening the likes of Spielberg or Jackson any time soon.

One for low budget action junkies…