The Pendragon Cycle: Episodes 3 & 4

According to some versions, Merlin lived his life in reverse, starting at the point of his death (from the rest of the world’s perspective) and aging backwards. Obviously, that would be hard to convey on film. However, Merlin has a feast of flashbacks in the third and fourth episodes of creator Jeremy Boreing’s The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of Merlin, which are now streaming on Daily Wire+.

Frankly, episode three, “A Fatherless Child,” directed by action-specialist Jesse V. Johnson, represents a major flashforward from the previous episodes, which ended with Merlin’s birth. Since then, many decades have passed, but Merlin still looks like a young man. He comes from good stock, considering his mother, Charis, does not look a day older herself. However, she is Atlantean. Like Merlin, she is also Christian. Merlin has just emerged from what he might describe, as a Christian, his wilderness period, both spiritually and literally. Now that he is back, he finds post-Roman Britain has become a complete dog’s dinner, desperately in need of his help.

Merlin is too late to help Vortigern, the self-proclaimed High King of Britain, even if he thought he was worthy, which he doesn’t. However, Merlin convinces him to make some late amends. Ironically, Merlin identifies Aurelius, the man who deposes Vortigern, as a much better candidate. The potential King possesses greater virtue and he wields the sword. However, his brother Uther distrusts Merlin, which leads to scuffles with the Christian wizard’s companion and sworn protector, Pelleas.

If Britain will have any hope of resisting the Saxon invaders, all the minor petty kings must swear allegiance to Aurelius, but that will be easier said than done in “The King of Maridunum,” directed by Ryan Whitaker. Of course, Merlin has a talent for convincing people, but Uther’s undiplomatic directness and lack of anger management threaten to undermine his efforts. Meanwhile, Aurelius develops an alliance with Charis that might endanger the Atlanteans’ position.

While these two episodes do not stand alone as easily as the first two, they will keep bingeing viewers hooked, while faithfully respecting the spirit of Lawhead's novels. They also feature more identifiably Arthurian characters, obviously starting with Merlin, but also including Uther and Pelleas. Plus, Morgain has grown downright sinister, while remaining as vampy as ever. Indeed, Morgan le Fay is having a pop culture moment, prominently appearing in Pendragon Cycle, while also serving as the main villainess in the limited time travel superhero series, 1776, wherein she has magically intervened to quash the American Revolution (it is the best title Marvel started publishing in 2025).

Thieves Highway: Modern Day Cattle Rustling

The Wild West still gets pretty wild in the same ways it always did. “Old West”-style crimes like cattle rustling might sound archaic and quaint, but they still happen quite a bit. In fact, cattle rustling often devastates small ranchers and raises the price of beef for everyone (through contracted supply and increased insurance premiums). Unfortunately, the victims are usually red state residents and red meat eaters, so the press doesn’t care. However, Frank Bennett cares and not just because it is his job in Jesse V. Johnson’s Thieves Highway, which is now playing in theaters (and releases Tuesday on digital).

Bennett carries a badge and a gun, but he works for the Department of Agriculture. He will need that gun, judging from the savage attack on his colleague during the prologue. His partner Bill will also transfer to a desk job next week, for the sake of his pregnant wife. That always tempts the movie fates. Sure enough, they are nearly run off the road by three tractor trailers loaded with rustled cattle.

Being out-manned and out-gunned, Bennett will need the help of Aksel, a crotchety old-timer with serious libertarian inclinations. He might take some convincing, but at least he is comfortable handling firearms.

There is a common prejudice that only “serious” “art” films or “truth-telling” documentaries can raise awareness for an important issue. However, working-class action movie like Thieves Highway can arguably do so much more effectively. Frankly, after watching Johnson’s latest, viewers will be convinced one of the most effective things the Federal government could do to lower beef prices would be an increased effort to prevent and prosecute rustling. (Just google “modern cattle rustling.” It’s a thing and it’s a problem.)

The screenwriter Travis Mills’ narrative is pretty simple, but it is definitely evokes the beats of traditional westerns. Aaron Eckhart has the right dignified swagger and the appropriate brooding strength to be the Will Kane of cattle. The bad guys are also colorfully villainous, including Devon Sawa as the stone-cold ringleader, Jones. However, he is overshadowed midway through by the gang’s flamboyantly fierce “surprise” collaborator. Plus, rapper Tracy “The D.O.C.” Curry is entertainingly grizzled and grouchy as old Aksel.

Chief of Station: Aaron Eckhart’s Next CIA Movie

Many movies depict CIA officers as the bad guys, but in the real world, several CIA station chiefs have been assassinated while serving their country. Tragically, Farrah Malloy will be the next to die in the line of duty. However, her widowed husband is also a CIA officer, with the know-how to find her killers and extract retribution in Jesse V. Johnson’s Chief of Station, which releases tomorrow in theaters and on-demand.

Ben Malloy just ran circles around the FSB (the former KGB) intercepting a courier drop on the streets of Budapest, where his wife is Chief of Station. Then he met her for their anniversary, but it was interrupted by an explosion. Supposedly, it was a gas leak, but Malloy soon suspects otherwise. Since the agency’s general inspector clearly has it in for him, Malloy only trusts Dez, his wife’s former colleague in the cyber division, with his findings.

Technically, he also trusts Nick, who will also soon start working in agency IT, but Malloy does not want him involved. Of course, the mysterious terrorists will inevitably target the son to get to the father.

Much like Aaron Eckhart’s last CIA movie, The Bricklayer, Chief of Station starts with a promising premise, but quickly reverts to standard issue payback VOD action. In this case, Chief is worse, because it chickens out quite cowardly, by making the FSB “friendly” rivals rather than the true bad guys. Just ask Ukraine how the FSB really conducts their business. This is not the mid-1990s. Audiences are craving Russian and CCP Chinese villains, because they want to finally see payback for their oppressive crimes. Instead, the producers apparently cared more about sales in some of most despotic territories on earth.

It is a shame, because Eckhart has the perfect cerebral grittiness for a vengeance-seeking CIA officer like Malloy. Olga Kurylenko has instant action credibility Krystyna Kowerski, an agent Malloy’s wife used to handle. However, screenwriter George Mahaffey literally drops her into the film from out of nowhere, after a full hour of Malloy lone-wolfing, just in time to save his butt.

Boudica: Queen of War

Boudica was the Druidic Joan of Arc, except she wasn’t done in by her own people. The Romans wanted to do that themselves, but it was much harder than they expected. The Britons rise up behind their war-goddess in director-screenwriter Jesse V. Johnson’s Boudica: Queen of War, which opens this Friday in theaters.

Initially, Boudica was content as a mother and the wife of Prasutagus, the king of the Celtic Iceni and a loyal, but unenthusiastic vassal of Rome. Unfortunately, the king will be fatally betrayed and his kingdom divided up by the Roman governor. He assumes flogging Boudica and executing her daughters will leave her broken. Instead, her native druid people adopt her as the mythical liberator foretold by legend.

Thanks to her semi-enchanted enchanted bronze sword and some personal tutoring from the true-believing Cartimanda, Boudica quickly develops into a fierce warrior. She even convinces the cynical mercenary Wolfgar to put his troops under his command. Frankly, Boudica is not a great strategist or tactician, but she maximizes the element of surprise. Building on their momentum, they start razing Roman strongholds throughout Celtic Briton.

Queen of War starts out slow as molasses, which is odd, considering Johnson is such a pro when it comes to directing action. It is pretty clear he loved the Boudica legend so much, he gets bogged down with sentimentality, instead of cutting to the hacking and slashing.

Hell Hath No Fury, Featuring Mandylor, Vandenberg, and Bernhardt

People forget Germany first occupied France was during WWI—that’s why the front line was in France. Those who collaborated the first time faced reprisals that they repaid with interest during the National Socialist occupation. Many in turn faced similar or worse humiliation after the Allied liberation, like Marie Dujardin, the former mistress of a high-ranking SS officer. Ironically, Dujardin was in fact a resistance mole, but she has nobody left to vouch for her. However, she has knowledge of a secret stash of gold that is definitely worth something in Jesse V. Johnson’s Hell Hath No Fury, which opens this Friday in Los Angeles.

When we meet Dujardin, she is cooing romantically with the ruthless Von Bruckner. Yet, when their car is ambushed by the resistance, she claims to be on their side. He manages to take care of his would-be executioners, but she gets the drop on him. Or so she thought—those darned glancing face shots. She left him for dead, but she really left him facially scarred.

That leads to a nasty reunion when she leads three American GI’s and Major Maitland, their Kelly’s Heroes-style officer to the cemetery, where she tells them she hid Von Bruckner’s gold. He wants it too—and he is marching their way with all the SS troops still loyal to him.

HHNF is not exactly a love letter to the “Greatest Generation.” Technically, Dujardin is not exactly a stereotypical “woman scorned” either. However, Johnson, the prolific action director, stages some nifty battle sequences. Stuff gets blown-up and Germans get killed many satisfactory ways, but Johnson always keeps it all clean and legible on-screen.

He also has the benefit of a gritty, experienced cast, including Louis Mandylor, who certainly knows his way around a Johnson set (including the Debt Collector movies and maybe half a dozen others). Timothy V. Murphy is a real standout for the grizzled swagger and snarling attitude he brings as the working-class sergeant.

Self-Quarantine Viewing: The Mercenary

It is a terrible idea to leave a soldier-for-hire like Maxx for dead. His former comrades-in-arms do it twice. They are fortunate the first time, because a brave parish priest convinces the human weapon to renounce violence, but the bad guys are perversely determined to keep poking the bear. Sooner or later, Maxx is bound to start doing what he does best in Jesse V. Johnson’s The Mercenary, which is now available on DVD and VOD.

Eventually, the Islamist outrage industry will start protesting this film, because the opening action sequence features Maxx liquidating dozens of terrorists in a Mosque, which doesn’t seem to trouble the film in the least. It certainly shouldn’t trouble viewers either, but the world is insane. Things get a bit dicey on the next gig their team-leader LeClerc accepts from a Latin American drug cartel. When one of his colleagues tries to have his way with a village woman, Maxx intervenes, but almost gets killed for his efforts.

Kindly Father Elias nurses Maxx back to health and guides him back to the path of the righteous. Unfortunately, LeClerc and his mercs have taken over the local drug trade. Periodically, they abduct villagers to labor in their meth factories. At first, Maxx merely trains the villagers in self-defense, but when LeClerc learns he is still alive, all bets are off.

So, any questions? Nobody is likely to confuse The Mercenary with art cinema, but it is definitely a competent, self-aware direct-to-DVD action movie. Johnson is one of the best in the business at staging action on-screen (see for instance: Avengement, Debt Collector, and Accident Man). Former French Foreign Legion paratrooper Dominiquie Vandenberg does not have the star power of Johnson’s frequent protag, Scott Adkins, but as a former competitor in Thailand’s “Iron Circles,” he clearly has the skills, the physicality, and the street cred for a bad cat like Maxx. After watching The Mercenary, we’re frankly keen to see more of him.

Accident Man: Scott Adkins Goes to Work

Accidents are convenient. They usually get a perfunctory police investigation and they are nearly always covered by insurance policies. That is why Mike Fallon is such a handy guy to know. His specialty is making hits look like ever-so unfortunate accidents. However, he can get just as messy as the next assassin, if need be. That is exactly what happens when his own guild carries out a contract on his ex-girlfriend in Jesse V. Johnson’s Accident Man (trailer here), which releases today on DVD and VOD.

Fallon is probably the baddest cat operating out of Big Ray’s very private public house. Accidents are his thing, whereas Mick and Mac, veterans of the US and British special forces specialize in making hits look like random street crime. There is also a poisoner, a silly inventor, an axe-wielding lunatic, and Jane the Ripper, a lethal and seductive martial arts master. There are rules to Big Ray’s place, largely to protect their weaselly business agent Milton, but Fallon chucks the rules out the window when Milton accepts a contract on his do-gooder ex and then sets him up with the Triad’s least competent assassin.

There is a narrative to Accident Man, but it is really just an excuse to have Scott Adkins’ Fallon face-off against Tim Man, Amy Johnston (from Lady Bloodfight) and twice against Michael Jai White and Ray Park (Darth Maul), simultaneously. Plus, Ray Stevenson binges on grizzled hardnosedness as Big Ray.

Johnson, the stunt performer turned helmer, who previously directed Adkins in Savage Dog, certainly knows how to stage a fight scene. Adkins’ two sessions with White and Park are real barn-burners, but his death-match with Johnston is all that and more. There is a reason why Adkins is an action movie fan favorite—and Johnson totally plays to his strengths, while also bringing his not as well-known facility for humor. We are definitely talking about Bondian one-liners and world weary snark, but that works for us.

Indeed, the entire film works like a well-oiled machine. The big fights scenes are appropriately big, brutal, and wildly cinematic, while the villains are all larger than life. A cast like this sounds like loads of fun, which they duly deliver. Highly recommended for fans of Adkins and action, Accident Man releases today on DVD and VOD.