Rating: C-
Dir: Christian Sesma
Star: Ryan Kwanten, Dermot Mulroney, Dolph Lundgren, Scott Adkins
This is a lazily plotted, to put it mildly, and almost entirely by the numbers. Yet it is not entirely without entertainment value, and if the names you know are very much secondary (Mickey Rourke also shows up), they still add some value. The star is Kwanten: while I’m not familiar with him, he was apparently a long-time regular on True Blood. Here, he plays former soldier Jake Atherton, who now works as a mechanic for his uncle (Rourke). Jake deals with a group of thugs at the garage, but they respond by killing his wide and son. Jake retaliates emphatically, getting a life sentence for his pains. Then shady government officer Sam Ramsey (Mulroney) shows up, making Jake an offer he literally can’t refuse.
That offer is to join Section 8, a black ops group who carry out very unsanctioned missions. When Jake declines the offer, he is abducted anyway. His qualms prove well-justified, initially when he is ordered to kill civilian bystanders, and then assassinate a US senator. He has had enough, but you know that old saw about nobody retiring from the CIA? It goes doubly so for those who work in Section 8. Their exit policy involves Ramsey unleashing his top agent, Leonard Locke (Adkins), to target the disgruntled employee. Making matters worse, Jake then discovers some unpleasant truths about his former commanding officer, Col. Tom Mason (Lundgren), as well as the death of Jake’s family.
It doesn’t feel like much thought has gone into the script. The opening sequence takes place in “Mosul, Afghanistan”. Mosul is in Iraq. The whole skein about the hero’s family basically being fridged – they exist, solely to be killed – is sloppy, as is the way we skip directly from the crime (gratuitous strip-club breasts!) to Jake hanging out in San Quentin. Why are Section 8 so insistent on recruiting the extremely reluctant Jake? He then gets hauled over the coals by Ramsey for letting two hookers go at the scene of his first mission. Yet literally minutes later, Locke does exactly the same thing. Speaking of whom, Locke is also set up as this top-shelf assassin. Except when he has Jake in his sights, and suddenly turns into an Imperial Stormtrooper.
Fortunately, the action sequences themselves are generally decent, and occasionally better. They are crisply edited, yet without the need to over-cut to a point of confusion. Perhaps the best example is Locke blasting his way out of a casino. [The location is actually in Indio, and despite globe-trotting from the Middle East to Mexico to Reno, I suspect California stood in for all of them] The final fight pits Jake against Locke, showing the film-makers know where their bread is buttered, and offers a decent slice of hand-to-hand fisticuffs. Up until that point, I’m not sure Adkins appeared in the same shot as any other character. If you’d told me his role was spliced in later, I might have believed you. That probably says a lot.
This review is part of Project Adkins, covering the movies of Scott Adkins.