Okay, so I know you’ve all been wondering where the heck I’ve been for the past week or so.  Truth is I’ve been spending lots of quality time with my brand spanking new baby daughter and kinda forgot about reviewing movies for a bit.  To me, just watching the little faces she makes is like a hundred times cooler than any movie.  (Yes, even Star Wars.)  The other night while she was particularly fussy, I decided to pop on Dolph Lundgren’s new movie, Command Performance.  This thing can be summed up in six words:  Die Hard at a Rock Concert.  For most people out there, Command Performance will be pretty forgettable, but me; I’ll always remember it as the first movie I ever watched as a proud papa. 

Let me start off by saying that I admire Lundgren.  You can tell he really likes making movies.  It doesn’t matter to him that the studios don’t give him much of a budget and he has to shoot his films overseas on a tight schedule.  This guy just keeps his head down and continues to make better-than-mediocre low budget Direct-to-DVD action movies for his loyal fans. 

Command Performance is not quite what I would call “good”, but it’s got a high watchability factor going for it.  While there are better Direct-to-DVD Die Hard rip-offs out there (in fact, Dolph also made the superior Detention, which was Die Hard in a School), Command Performance is exactly what you would expect from the subgenre.  Nothing more, nothing less.  In addition, the film hits all it’s marks competently and moves along at a steady clip. 

Dolph does a great job in front of the camera.  His usual charisma shines through and keeps you watching; even when shit gets extremely derivative and predictable.  I do have a major criticism of his directing style though.  He goes hog wild for the Law and Order type shaky-cam shit and it gets rather annoying after awhile.

If anything, Command Performance delivers on the gore.  First off, there is plenty of arterial spray whenever someone gets their throat slashed.  We also get a gnarly scene where Dolph impales someone on a broken guitar neck.  The piece de resistance though comes when Lundgren shoves a drumstick into a guy’s head and it goes through his chin and comes out of his eyeball.  Great stuff.  Dolph also gave himself a bunch of cheesy/dumb/hey-it-made-me-laugh-because-I’m-seriously-sleep-deprived-from-being-up-all-night-with-a-crying-baby lines like “Dying is easy, Rock n’ Roll is hard!”

It’s somewhat comforting to know that even in the 21^st century; people can make a good Die Hard rip-off.  It should come as no surprise since the film was co-written by Paul Lynch, the man who directed No Contest, the best Die Hard rip-off ever made.  This one also adds in elements of The Substitute, as the hero (Dolph Lundgren) is a teacher with former military training (yes, there is a flashback) who is trapped in school after hours who must fend off an onslaught of machine gun toting bad guys.

The high school setting is put to good use as Dolph makes explosives in chemistry class, builds a makeshift iron chariot of death in metal shop, and when a helpful student steals a car from the auto body class.  Director Sidney J. (Iron Eagle) Furie (who re-teamed with Dolph the next year for Direct Action) really knows how to film the action and gives the flick a pretty big scale, even on an obviously low budget.  I particularly liked the scene where the paraplegic kid in a motorized wheelchair was chased in the hallways by a bad guy on a motorcycle.  Dolph really comes off well here and gives another great performance, although the claustrophobic setting doesn’t give him much of an opportunity to use his trademark Kung Fu skills.

What really knocks the flick down a notch is the thoroughly annoying villains.  The main bad guy shamelessly overacts and his henchmen look like they came out of a Troma movie.  They also have an extremely idiotic work method as they usually enter rooms guns-a-blazing, wasting hundreds of bullets.  When they reload, it gives Dolph plenty of time to disarm them and kill them.

These shortcomings are easy to forgive because the dialogue is borderline brilliant.  There’s a great scene early on in the film when a drug dealer tries to step up to Dolph.  The cool-as-a-cucumber Dolph says, “I teach Physical Education and History.  This is Physical Education [Punches the dude in the face] and you’re History!”  But it’s the annoying villain who gets the best line of the flick when he tells his underling:  “I’m going to fuck you up the ass with this gun and from the look of things; you’re going to like it!”

So I’ve been currently trying to wade my way through Dolph Lundgren’s Direct-to-DVD era action movies (thanks to the recommendation of my pal Ryan Kenner) and although some of them haven’t been too bad (like Bridge of Dragons), I have to admit that not many of them have been all that good either.  Now here comes The Russian Specialist and it’s a fine example of what a Swedish actor/writer/director/Kung Fu expert can do with a small budget while working on location in Bulgaria.

Dolph plays this Russian mechanic who used to be an asskicker in Afghanistan.  When a greasy mobster kills his wife and kid in broad daylight, Dolph gets extremely P.O.’ed and blows away about seven guys before shooting the Boris Badenov style villain in the face.  Dolph then moves to the USA so he can work on cars and forget his past.  Soon enough though, a hoity-toity rich woman wants Dolph to sneak back over to Russia and rescue her daughter who’s about to be sold into white slavery.  Dolph’s got a good thing going at Pep Boys so he says no dice.  Then the old bag reveals to him that the guy who’s got her daughter is the same scumbag who killed Dolph’s family.  (He survived that whole Getting-Shot-In-The-Face thing.) 

You know what that means.  Dolph’s got to grab a shotgun, head to Russia and give a whole new meaning to the term:  RED Square.

The Russian Specialist is a lot of fun, and the main reason is because of Dolph himself.  Here he plays an amalgam of two of his best characters, Ivan Drago and The Punisher and the results are pretty badass.  Just like Drago, he’s an unstoppable Russian juggernaut that was trained by his government to kick some butt.  He’s also a lot like The Punisher because he had a wife and kid who got killed by a greasy mobster and now he goes out for justice.  (They even give him a drunken comic relief sidekick too.)

The fact that Dolph is taking the mission solely out of revenge bumps this up a notch above his usual DTD stuff as most of his newer flicks just have him playing a Man-On-A-Mission type guy.  Dolph also made the fight scenes a lot more brutal than usual with knives getting shoved into people’s hands, butts, and groins.  And of course it’s important to the plot that his character be a mechanic because his damn getaway car breaks down every five minutes or so.

The Russian Specialist isn’t all sunshine and roses however.  Dolph usually does an adequate job behind the camera but he kinda mucked things up on this flick by heavily relying on unnecessary fadeouts.  I swear they happen in between every scene, and sometimes they even occur within the same scene!  The flick also has trouble living up to it’s excellent first half hour as it slows down considerably once Dolph actually rescues the chick.  Fortunately things liven back up once Dolph starts playing Hide and Go Shotgun with the main baddy. 

Even with a few flaws, The Russian Specialist still comes highly recommended for those who enjoy Direct-to-DVD action flicks.  In fact, I wouldn’t mind seeing a sequel to this sometime in the near future.  I mean the final shot has Dolph stomping along past the Kremlin, which certainly FEELS like a set-up for a sequel.  We can all hope, can’t we?

Dolph’s next appearance was in the Biblical flick, The Final Inquiry.

AKA:  The Mechanik. 

Okay, so the last Dolph Lundgren directed action movie I sat through was The Defender, which starred Jerry Springer as THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.  Despite that bit of stunt casting, it was still a turd.  Now here's Missionary Man, another Dolph-directed flick.  The verdict?  It’s not very good but at least it’s a lot better than The Defender.

The premise at least SOUNDS intriguing.  Dolph (who also co-wrote the story) stars as Ryder, a hard drinking, motorcycle riding, scripture-quoting, Bible-thumping ass kicker.  Not only does he thump the Bible, but he also thumps the heads of anyone who messes with the Indian population of a small desert town.  (He also finds time to provide a touching sermon at an Indian funeral too.)  It doesn’t take long before Ryder is going toe-to-toe against a Road House style villain (he owns the entire town and likes to hassle the townspeople) who sends out an army of smelly bikers to rub Ryder out.

Basically it’s Billy Jack Meets Pale Rider.

Missionary Man has a bizarre look to it.  Most of the flick is filmed in a muddy sepia tone that makes it look like it was shot using Old Time Photos technology.  Some quick checking on the IMBD confirmed that indeed, the color of the film was botched due to a faulty transfer process from the HD master to the DVD.  However unintentional the color scheme is, it gives Missionary Man a one-of-a-kind look that makes it stands out from the rest of the direct-to-DVD crap out there.

The LOOK of the film maybe one-of-a-kind, but the rest of the flick is strictly by-the-numbers.  The shootouts are all sloppily edited and staged, and while most of the Kung Fu scenes are handled decently (like when Dolph beats a couple dudes up with a trash can lid), for the most part, they’re all fairly lackluster.  To compound the flick’s shortcomings, the budget was about on par with your average Walker Texas Ranger episode.  Dolph does a better job in front of the camera though and delivers another solid (if thankless) performance.

Another thing that bugged me about the flick is that Dolph’s character is seemingly indestructible in this movie and although they kinda allude to him being some kind of avenging angel, they keep things all ambiguous and shit.  Dolph, you’re not making The Seventh Seal here.  Just give us what we want and leave the muddled supernatural aspects out of it.

Even though you have to listen to a bunch of Indian mumbo jumbo, some of it is downright hysterical.  My favorite line was when a random ass Indian tells Dolph:  “You share the eagle’s fate!  You are destined to soar free above all others!  Carried by the wind!  Feared by those below!”

Dolph Lundgren stars in a low budget action flick that was co-written by none other than John (Alligator) Sayles.  (The writers of Tales from the Crypt Presents Demon Knight also had a hand in it too.)  Dolph plays Nick “The Swede”, a mercenary who is lured out of retirement to pull off one last job.  He recruits his old army buddies and together they head out to a remote jungle island.  Their mission is to make the natives roll over and let some greedy industrialists exploit the land for its most valuable natural resource, bird shit.  (No, I’m not kidding.)  Dolph eventually takes a shine to the people and decides to fight FOR the natives and not against them.

The first half hour or so of Men of War makes you think that it’s going to be a classic.  There’s a great Muay Thai boxing match as well as a fun barroom brawl scene where Tiny “Zeus” Lister choke slams a guy through a table.  Unfortunately the pacing in the middle section of the film is extremely sluggish and the scenes where Dolph actually starts to CARE about the people really slow the movie down.  Thankfully, the movie gets back on track for a rousing climatic battle in which people get grenaded, bazookaed, and rocket launchered to death.  We also get some pretty convincing severed heads and amputated hands tossed in there for good measure too.  The final fight between Dolph and Trevor (Kano from Mortal Kombat) Goddard is also top notch and gives Dolph ample opportunity to use his catchphrase, “Welcome to Hell!”

Speaking of Dolph, he gives what is probably his best performance and really lends the picture a solid center.  The supporting cast is also quite memorable.  Kevin (Road House) Tighe gets to dress up in a kimono and play with Banzai trees like Mr. Miyagi and Tiny “Zeus” Lister gets to put a rubber on the tip of his gun.  (Although the scene where he gets beat up by a bunch of kids is unforgivable.)  B.D. Wong also gets some good scenes as the wiseass native who helps Dolph and his men kick ass.  Best of all is Charlotte (Embrace of the Vampire) Lewis who gets to show off her exquisite figure while bathing in a waterfall as well as during a hot fuck scene with Dolph.

A random hooker gets the best line of the movie when she tells Dolph, “If you want to fuck, twenty dollar!  If you want friend, that cost more!”

My pal Ryan Kenner turned me on to this What-In-God’s-Name-Is-Going-On Dolph Lundgren flick.  The film takes place in a mythical land “where the future meets the past” where Princess Halo (Rachel Shane) is set to marry the evil General Ruechang (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa).  When she leaves him at the altar, the General sends his best soldier, Warchild (Dolph) to find her.  After rescuing her from some medieval pimps, Warchild grudgingly helps her to join up with the resistance who want to overthrow the tyrannical General.  In the end, the General snatches the Princess back to the castle and Warchild has to crash the wedding and Kung Fu the shit out of Ruechang.

I have no idea what kinda time frame we’re looking at here.  I know the opening crawl tells us the whole “future meets the past” but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.  We got Princesses and castles, extras that look like they were left over from Robin Hood:  Prince of Thieves, commandos riding around in army Jeeps, and bad guys who dress like Nazis.  All of this never really gels and made me wish that the budget had been a little bigger to fully explore just what the heck kinda kingdom we were dealing with.

Also, WHY IN THE HELL IS THIS FLICK CALLED BRIDGE OF DRAGONS!?!?!  There is no bridge and there certainly aren’t any dragons!  Couldn’t they have just called it “Warchild”?  I mean that’s a pretty badass name.  Man, this flick will give you an ice cream headache if you think about it too much.

You know what though, Bridge of Dragons isn’t bad.  It’s actually a fairly decent direct-to-video action flick.  The action sequences (although somewhat flatly staged) are plentiful and the final Kung Fu battle between Lundgren and Tagawa (both veterans of the infinitely better Showdown in Little Tokyo) is excellent. 

My favorite scene though took place early on when the Princess sneaks out of the castle to participate in a stick fighting competition. She dons a mask and fights Dolph and ends up falling in love with him.  Later he realizes it was HER at the match and falls for her too.  It’s cheesy, but it’s a clever twist on the whole Cinderella’s glass slipper sort of thing.

Which makes me wish that director Isaac Florentine went a little more hogwild on the whole Fairy Tale/Kung Fu/Direct-to-Video Dolph Lundgren Action Flick mash-up deal.  Instead of embellishing the movie’s quirkiness, he directs the film in the same basic style you’d expect from a generic direct-to-video action movie.  It wouldn’t have been THAT hard to do this movie right.  I mean look at Doomsday.  That flick combined female Snake Plissken types, Road Warrior action sequences and Medieval castles and it rocked.  If Florentine had amped up the more fantasy driven aspects of the story and really tried to blend the disparate genres more thoroughly, I think we might have had a classic on our hands.

I can see why Ryan liked the movie so much though.  When you sit through a lot of direct-to-video actioners, you really embrace a movie that comes along and at least TRIES to do a little something different.  In that respect, Bridge of Dragons gets an A for effort.

This review goes out to my buddy Ryan Kenner who has his own action movie review website (http://www.geocities.com/pistolsblazing85/MoviesInTheAttic.html) who sent me an email demanding more Dolph Lundgren reviews.  I’ll pretty much do anything for my fans, so Ryan, this is for you.  Hope you like it as I got plenty more Dolph flicks en route from Netflix…

If you were a boy-child of the 80’s like me, you played with Masters of the Universe action figures (unless your parents were specifically breeding you for a decidedly un-hetero lifestyle; that is).  I loved sitting on the floor playing with He-Man Skeletor, Orko, Man-At-Arms and Teela in my Castle of Grayskull playset while simultaneously watching the Masters of the Universe cartoon.  As much as I loved He-Man, my all time favorite Masters of the Universe character was Stinkor; a kind of mutant half-man half-skunk that literally smelled like a real skunk.  I have to congratulate the toy exec who thought THAT one up.  (“Hey guys, let’s make a toy that smells like a SKUNK!”)  Only in the 80’s…

Anyway, Masters of the Universe was the big-screen version of the He-Man action figures/cartoon/Marvel comic book.  I never saw it as a kid because my internal BS monitor knew it was going to be bad.  Even at nine years-old, I knew that if it was made by Cannon Films you know that the budget is going to be about seven bucks, so you shouldn’t expect quality of any kind.  And speaking of cheap, He-Man (Dolph Lundgren) and Co. only spend about 15 minutes on their home planet of Eternia before a dumb ass wizard named Gwildor (Billy Barty) zaps them into present day California.  (Which is much cheaper than filming in Eternia I suppose.) 

But I’m getting ahead of myself here.  What happens is Skeletor (Frost/Nixon’s Frank Langella) imprisons the Sorceress of Castle Grayskull.  He-Man and his buddies try to rescue her but have to escape to another dimension using Gwildor’s “cosmic key”.  They end up in California where a dumb chick with dead parents (Courtney Cox) finds the key and she and her keyboard playing boyfriend try to make music with it.  (“It must be one of those new Japanese synthesizers!”)  This predictably gets Skeletor’s attention and he rides into California on what looks to be a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day float and he kidnaps He-Man and takes him back to Eternia.  In the end, He-Man finally gets his mitts on his sword, says his catchphrase “I HAVE THE POWER!” and kicks Skeletor’s ass.

In short, it’s He-Man In Name Only.

I loved the cartoon and the toys, but this movie just fills me with venom.  WHY in God’s name does a He-Man movie have to take place in California?  (Answer:  To further line Golan and Globus’ pockets.)  Seriously, how hard would it have been just to film the flick out in a desert somewhere and pass it off as Eternia?  I mean that Grayskull set is actually pretty cool looking; couldn’t they have just set the whole movie there?  NOOOOO… instead we get a lot of stupid scenes where He-Man interacts with various idiotic Southern Californian types.  ARGH! 

Masters of the Universe just doesn’t much feel like a He-Man movie to me.  While He-Man, Skeletor and Evil-Lyn somewhat resemble their plastic counterparts, Teela looks like a reject from Thunderdome.  Of Skeletor’s henchmen, only Beast-Man is a real character, although one guy does look like Trap Jaw a little bit.  (Where’s Stinkor when you need him?)  Plus there is no ORKO!  There is only this Gwildor idiot who gets on your nerves in every scene he’s in… and he’s in just about every scene! 

The moronic teens also wore thin on my nerves and the gratuitous dumb ass cop (James Tolkan from Back to the Future) made me want to strangle somebody.  And the less said about the scene in which Skeletor wears a golden crown that makes him look like a disco version of Galactus, the better.  To further save on money and add to the movie’s woes, Castle Grayskull is just a cheap looking matte painting and looks pretty terrible too.

I tried to like Dolph in this movie.  It’s not his fault that he sucks.  With his perfectly coifed mullet and perpetually blank stare, Dolph is pretty much a non-entity in the film.  The mortal sin the movie commits is that it never really gives He-Man anything to do and at all times, he seems to be stuck on the sidelines while all the other menial supporting characters hog the spotlight.  Langella gets to ham it up but his performance is a thankless one since he’s buried behind tons of latex.  Meg Foster, with her magnificently blue eyes does a fine job as Evil-Lyn; although like He-Man she just kinda hangs out for most of the movie.

Things I DID like about the movie:  The laser gun battle in the music store, the scene where He-Man flies around on a hovering surfboard, Bill Conti’s Superman-ish score, and any brief scenes that actually took place on Eternia.  Director Gary Goddard later went on to direct the live action segments for the Terminator 3-D ride.

Over the past couple of years, Hollyweird keeps threatening to remake He-Man.  Make them stop.

The 80’s were not kind to movies based on Marvel comic books.  While DC was reaping the millions of dollars from Tim Burton’s Batman, Marvel had to be content with goofy made for TV movies like Captain America while constantly failing to bring their beloved Spider-Man franchise to the big screen.  The Punisher looked to be the start of a promising slate of Marvel films, but sadly the studio, New World Pictures went bankrupt shortly before the film’s release so it went straight to video.  It’s kind of a shame too because the results aren’t bad at all.

Dolph Lundgren stars as Frank Castle, a cop whose wife and child died in a car bombing that was meant for him.  Castle; thought dead by the Mafioso who orchestrated the bombing, starts meditating naked in a sewer until he gets mad enough to blow away anyone remotely of Italian descent.  Since Frank has wiped out most of the gangsters in the city, it leaves them vulnerable to a hostile takeover by the yakuza, who are led by an uptight Japanese broad.  She kidnaps the son of big cheese Mafioso Jeroen (The Living Daylights) Krabbe who negotiates a truce with Castle long enough to rescue his son and blow away several kimono clad criminals. 

It’s painfully obvious that this flick had a budget the size of a TJ Hooker episode, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  Director Mark (Dead Heat) Goldblatt edited dozens of action flicks in his day, so he knows how to keep things popping along at a steady clip.  He also gives us plenty of action and not a whole lot of gratuitous plot stuff (the Louis Gossett, Jr. subplot is handled fairly swiftly) to keep things from getting bogged down.  The scene where Punisher crashes a casino is pretty tight and the final red-tinted yakuza massacre is excellent. 

I’m tempted to give the movie four stars because the action scenes are handled nicely and Lundgren is perfectly cast as Castle.  BUT… the thing that just pisses me the Hell off about this movie is that there is no skull on the Punisher’s T-shirt!!!  What the fuck?  How can you make a Punisher movie without the freakin’ skull on his shirt?  That’s like making a Superman movie and having no ‘S’ on the costume.  You know, if the filmmakers simply bothered to put a skull on the Punisher’s T-shirt it would have been a classic; since they didn’t it’s an automatic one star deduction. 

They didn’t give Dolph a whole lot of lines in this one (wise decision) but he does get one great dialogue exchange with Gossett that is pretty classic: 

Gossett:  “What do you call 125 dead bodies in 5 years?”

Dolph:  “A work in progress.”

Mark L. (Commando) Lester directed this truly awesome buddy cop movie in the tradition of such classics as Lethal Weapon and Tango and Cash.   It has the benefit of some great performances, winning humor and a scant running time.  It also features some of the zaniest dialogue you’ve ever heard in a motion picture and for the screwy screenwriting alone, it comes highly recommended.

Dolph Lundgren stars as Kenner, an American cop who was raised in Japan.  The late Brandon Lee is his partner Johnny, a wisecracking half-Asian dude who was raised in the Valley.  Together the duo go after a vicious drug lord (Mortal Kombat’s Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) who smuggles crank in beer bottles and gets his jollies from beheading crackhead bimbos with a samurai sword while he’s in the middle of humping them.   

This movie is a riot. 

It’s one of the nuttiest action films since Action Jackson.  Like that film, it features a scene where the supercop hero jumps over a speeding car.  Is that too much for you to suspend your disbelief?  If so, then I probably shouldn’t tell you about the part where Lundgren pushes over a car as easily as picking up a trash can.  Or the fight scene where Lundgren beats up five guys while holding a cup a tea and doesn’t spill a single drop.  Or the ending in which Lundgren gets shot in the heart at point blank range and is okay because the bullet “went straight through”.  Or when the villain is impaled on a fireworks display and blows up oh-so-good. 

I love Showdown in Little Tokyo.  It doesn’t have any fat on it.  It moves like lightning and the already short running time of 79 minutes breezes right along at a breathless pace thanks to Lester’s impeccable direction.  Although the film has it’s share of exposition and flashbacks, it’s all kept to the barest minimum and the movie never once loses momentum.  I especially liked the way that the roles of the two cops were switched around, as it was the white boy Lundgren who knew all about Japanese culture instead of the half-Asian Lee.  It just goes to show that there was a level of cleverness and thought that went into the making of this movie that countless other lesser action flicks sorely lack.

The performances by the two leads are also quite wonderful.  Lundgren is just as good here as he was at playing Ivan Drago in Rocky IV and really gets to showcase his comedic chops as well.  But it’s Brandon Lee who steals the show.  If you just know him from his somber ass turn in The Crow, you really need to check him out in this.  He has a real screen presence in this movie and like Lundgren, his comedic timing is perfect.  His rousing speech to his partner outside of a nude sushi bar is priceless:  “We’re going to nail this guy; then when we’re done we’ll come back and eat fish off those naked chicks!”

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  Lee gets all the best lines in the movie.  Far too many for me to recount here.  Let’s just say that after seeing this film, you’ll be quoting it for days.  Lee has a line that has got to be the greatest line of dialogue of any movie made during the 90’s.  It comes just before the big shootout in Lundgren’s cabin where Lee confides to Dolph:  “In case we get killed, I just wanted to tell you that you have the biggest dick I’ve ever seen on a man!”

If that line of dialogue alone isn’t enough to make you want to watch this movie then there is something seriously wrong with you.

Showdown in Little Tokyo has enough moments of WTF madness for it to land square at Number 4 on the Video Vacuum Top Ten Films of 1991, right below The Last Boy Scout and just ahead of Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man. 

Dolph Lundgren not only stars, but he DIRECTS. 

Jerry Springer co-stars as the PRESIDENT. 

Have I got your attention now?  Thought so. 

Okay, so now you immediately know everything you need to know about this movie.  If you are the kind of person who would never watch a movie that Dolph Lundgren would star in, let alone direct, you can probably stop reading this review now.  If you are the kind of person who would never watch The Jerry Springer Show, let alone a movie in which he plays the president of all people, you can probably stop reading this review now. 

Are you still here? 

Anyway, this is one lame and boring Direct to DVD “political thriller”.  I say political thriller because for half the flick it feels like you’re watching CNN:  The Movie as a bunch of talking heads keep blabbering on about how much the President’s new peace plan blows goat’s nuts.  Meanwhile in a hotel in Bucharest, Dolph has to protect the Condoleezza Rice stand-in AND the Osama Bin Laden stand-in from being murdered by a group of crazed Americans who are sick and tired of being lied to by the government. 

Are you getting any of this?  Neither did I. 

Anyway the REAL reason Dolph is playing cat and mouse with terrorists in a Bucharest hotel is because it’s dirt cheap to film your Direct to DVD action movie in Bucharest, and it’s EVEN CHEAPER when you never have to leave your hotel room. 

I strongly recommend you do not attempt to drive a car or operate heavy machinery after viewing this one. 

Even though Dolph sleepwalks through the movie (he doesn’t handle multi-tasking well apparently), at least Springer gets the classic line:  “You messed with the wrong country and you fucked with the wrong President!” 

Sign him up for Air Force One 2. 

As terrible Straight to DVD action movies that involve ridiculous stunt casting for the Commander in Chief go, this one’s about on par with Land of the Free which starred William Shatner as the Prez.