You
have to have some degree of optimism when a film starts with Dolph Lundgren
declaring: “let’s do this.” Unfortunately, it is all downhill from there. Still,
even though it has been almost thirty-five years since his Hollywood debut in A View to a Kill, Lundgren is the most
credible action-figure in Michael Merino & Daniel Zirilli’s Acceleration, which releases today on
DVD.
Lundgren
is not playing the most likeable of characters this time around. That would be
the broad-shouldered Vladik, who has kidnapped Rhona’s son Mika to force her to
run five deadly errands for him, all before the financial markets open the next
morning. She has five sealed envelopes containing debts to collect and lowlife
criminal rivals to whack. You think she’d open them all at once so she can
figure out the most fuel-efficient route and maybe enter them all in her
project management software, but apparently no.
The
bad news is Vladik isn’t even the worst villain out there. The honors probably
go to the scummy kingpin Kane, who intends to call in Vladik’s IOU’s in the
morning. We can tell because there are a number of scenes in which he beats up
various thugs for no discernable reason and also waxes poetic over diner pie.
We
respect Lundgren as an action movie survivor and an anti-human-trafficking
activist, so we try to give his films the benefit of the doubt. For instance,
you can legitimately argue The Tracker has
a distinctive Euro-Poliziotteschi vibe going on, but Acceleration is a pretty weak brew. Even Danny Trejo looks bored in
his brief but unremarkable scene.
Clearly,
Natalia Burns is a poor substitution for a rampaging Lundgren. She is not
anything like the second coming of Michelle Yeoh or Cynthia Rothrock, but most
of her foes are middle-aged white dudes, so whatever. Perhaps you have to give
some credit to Sean Patrick Flannery for making a lot of noise and chewing a
great deal of scenery as Kane, but all his over-the-top dialogue sounds-like
bargain-basement imitation Tarantino verbiage.
So,
what a shock, Acceleration is pretty
lame. We can’t blame Lundgren, who still radiates coolness, even here. Merino
and Zirilli (who helmed the just as forgettable Asian Connection) are the obvious prime candidates. Not
recommended, Acceleration is now
available on DVD.
