Day of Reckoning, on Tubi

Kyle Rusk is a stone-cold outlaw. Marshal Butch Hayden and his men also have serious outlaw tendencies. Getting caught between them is a lonely place for an honest cop like Sheriff John Dorsey to find himself, but he always does his duty. The ensuing standoff might just kill him, but Dorsey is running out of things to lose in Shaun Silva’s Day of Reckoning, which premieres this Friday on Tubi.

Rusk just knocked over another bank, but Hayden is waiting for him at his budget motel, for yet another reckless shootout. Somehow, the bank-robber escapes, but the Marshal figures he must be headed to his girlfriend Emily’s farm. That would be smack in the middle of Dorsey’s jurisdiction—at least for the next few weeks. His deputy, Danny Raise, looks poised to unseat him. To compound the insult, Dorsey also suspects Raise is sleeping with his wife.

Dorsey felt under-equipped for a Rio Bravo-style standoff at Rusk’s farmhouse. Much to the Sheriff’s disgust, he walks into a veritable hostage situation, in which Hayden’s deputy marshals, who are more like mercenary bounty hunters, are holding Emily Rusk as bait. They are all mean and untrustworthy, but Dorsey still must most likely fight alongside them when Rusk arrives with his biker-gang reinforcements.

Reckoning, (technically, Scott Adkins’ second such reckoning day, following Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning) is a gritty, low-frills B-movie, but Silva has full command of its neo-Western aesthetics. Although Adkins has much less screentime than the antagonistic marshal and sheriff, he has ample opportunity to show off his villainous chops. Indeed, he is entertainingly ferocious as Rusk. (He has moved away from bad guys, into leading action figure roles, but he still has the skill set.)

Diablo, Starring Scott Adkins & Marko Zaror

El Corvo is martial artist with an iron fist, but he is nothing like Marvel’s Hero-for-Hire or RZA’s Kung Fu hip hop hero. He is more like an invulnerable serial killer from a slasher horror movie, but with incredible chops. However, he might just meet his match in a motivated American ex-con trying to rescue his biological daughter throughout Ernesto Diaz Espinoza’s Diablo, which releases this Friday in theater and on-demand/digital.

Rather counter-intuitively, Kris Chaney paid to be smuggled into Colombia from the United States. Perhaps even more ill-advisedly, the traffickers try to extort more money from him upon arrival. He is played by Scott Adkins, so good luck with that.

Chaney had to keep his visit secret from Vicente, a big Columbian boss, who was once part of Chaney’s bank heist crew. Then Vicente betrayed Chaney and stole his lover. By the time she realized his true colors it was too late, but she made Chaney promise to save their daughter Elisa once he was released from prison. Of course, Elisa only knows life as Vicente’s daughter, so she rather resists Chaney’s rescue, at least initially.

Unfortunately, El Corvo (which translates to “The Crow,” but he nothing like the immortal Eric Draven either) is the wild card in Chaney’s feud with Vicente. Bearing a bitter grudge against the latter, the hulking killer with metallic arm (complete with a lethal selection of attachments) attempts to abduct the already abducted Elisa, to prosecute his vicious revenge plot against Vicente. At this point, Elisa starts to appreciate Chaney, since he seems to be the only mortal who can temporarily fight off El Corvo.

Frankly, co-star Marko Zaror’s fight choreography might just be some of the most intense and frequently brutal beatdowns genre fans have seen in years. (It ranks right up there with the bone-crushing Avengement, also starring Adkins.) This is the sort of film that will have you yelling “oomph” and “yow,” even if you are watching alone, in the privacy of your own home.

It also represents perfect casting. Obviously, Adkins and Zaror have all kinds of skills and moves. Adkins also has the right brooding earnestness for Chaney. Zaror’s severe screen presence sometimes makes heroic leads challenging, but his imposing physicality is perfect for El Corvo, who is like Lurch from The Adams Family, but with Matrix-level Kung Fu.

One More Shot, Scott Adkins Comes Back for More

What did Jack Bauer do after each “day” of 24? Probably, sleep for a very long time. Fortunately, Jake Harris had a very long flight after exfiltrating terrorist financier and prime suspect Amin Mansur from a black site in Poland to the Baltimore airport. The operation cost him the rest of his SEAL team, but he survived—and boy is he angry. However, the same group that arranged the attack in Poland arranges a similar reception stateside in James Nunn’s One More Shot, which releases tomorrow on digital.

Like One Shot, One More is filmed to feel like one long extended take. Maybe Nunn cheated with some digital editing help, but it looks legit. It also amplifies the intensity of the action sequences even more this time around. An early scene in which Harris and the wounded Agent Hooper (played by Hannah Arterton, Gemma’s sister) is a terrific example.

Since this is the second time Harris walks into an ambush, there must be a mole feeding intel to the bad guys. CIA bigwig blowhard Mike Marshall’s access makes him an early suspect, but Mansur himself has another candidate in mind. Mansur will rely on Harris to keep him and his pregnant estranged wife Niesha safe, in return for information on the dirty bomb he shipped to the same airport.

One More Shot is another disappointing example of a thriller that uses Islamist terrorists as a red herring, only to reveal that the “real” villains are in fact a cabal of greedy Americans executing a false flag operation. Perhaps Nunn and co-screenwriter James Russell might care to explain to the American and British sailors in the Gulf fending off Houthi missiles that they should really be concerned about a nasty corporation in Fairfax, Virginia?

However, there is no denying the action is first-class all the way. The second film surpasses the first in that respect, by a good measure. It also easily stands alone for those who start here. The airport setting (London’s Stansted) provides many opportunities for action set-pieces that Nunn and his experienced cast fully capitalize on.

Clearly, Adkins is at the absolute top of his game throughout OMS. He has no time for jokey winking at the camera. He starts the film in a quiet fury and his rage and intensity grows steadily with each scene. Michael Jai White has an excellent third-act fight scene with Adkins, but Nunn’s holds him in reserve for most of the film, just teasing brief appearances of White barking orders into a walky.

Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday, on DVD

Mike Fallon is a talented fighter, but his preferred method for assassinations is arranging “convenient accidents” that the police never investigate with much thoroughness. It therefore makes sense that he would live to see another day of misadventures after the carnage of his first movie. It turns out Malta is a great place for a hitman to work, given its handy proximity to Europe, the Middle East, and Northern Africa. However, trouble still finds him there in the Kirby Brothers’ Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday, which releases tomorrow on DVD.

Fallon still feels bad about killing all his colleagues in Big Ray’s hitman guild during the first film, but what can you do? What’s done is done. He wanted to lay low in Malta, but he soon found himself busier than ever. That is hardly surprising, considering former Maltese Labour Party Prime Minister Joseph Muscat (or his associates) hired a hitman to assassinate investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. Talk about a friendly business environment—for hired killers.

Still, Fallon carries a heavy load of guilt over what happened. Technically, he was the good guy, saving his ex, but there is no getting around the fact he killed a lot of his friends. That is why he is uncharacteristically welcoming when his old mate, tinkering hitman Finicky Fred shows up in Valetta, looking for the internet girlfriend (whom Fallon assumes scammed him). Soon, they are teaming up on jobs, until Mrs. Zuzzer, a legendarily ruthless crime family matriarch kidnaps Fred. If Fallon wants him back, he will have to eliminate all the international assassins who have accepted the non-exclusive contract on her idiot son Dante, awkwardly including Big Ray. Ordinarily, Fallon would tell her to go pound sand, but that guilt still has a hold on him.

Like the first film, Hitman’s Holiday is a terrific showcase for Scott Adkins’ martial arts skills. He also shows off solid comedic chops, but never at the expense of the action. To Adkins’ credit, generously shares the screen with Sarah Chang, who definitely deserves breakout action stardom for her work as Wong Siu-ling. Essentially, Fallon has hired her to be like Burt Kwouk in the Pink Panther movies, attacking him once a week to keep him sharp. Of course, they team-up against some imposing martial artists and a psychotic killer-clown, who can’t feel pain.

Section 8, Co-Starring Dolph Lundgren and Scott Adkins

This outfit does not give away any housing vouchers, but they would be happy to check you into the morgue. Some of their members might very well have been mentally unfit for military service, but they certainly do not see it that way. However, their latest recruit takes issues with their ruthless tactics in Christian Sesma’s Section 8, which releases Tuesday on DVD/BluRay.

After Col. Tom Mason saved his butt in Afghanistan, Jake Atherton settled down with his family, but struggled to make ends meet working in his Uncle Earl’s garage. Then, it was all taken away from him, when he got into a scuffle with Fresh, a vicious gang-leader. Fresh killed Atherton’s wife and son, so he killed Fresh. Naturally, the LA DA prosecuted Atherton to the full extent of the law, because he has to protect his constituents (like Fresh). However, the mysterious Sam Ramsey offers him a deal Atherton cannot refuse—yet his instincts tell him he should anyway.

Suddenly, Atherton is performing some really dirty off-the-books jobs as a member of Section 8. Frankly, his handler, Liza Mueller is the only one who does not strike Atherton as a complete psychopath. However, when he goes rogue, Ramsey calls in hired-killer Leonard Locke, a stone-cold sociopath, to hunt him down.

Basically, Section 8 is a bargain-basement knock-off of The Terminal List. It really isn’t much to speak of, but it is elevated to some extent, by Dolph Lundgren and Scott Adkins (seriously, you knew I’d go there, right?). Lundgren has the perfect gritty gravitas for Mason, who turns out to be the film’s most interesting character. On the other hand, Adkins’ Locke is basically an underwritten cartoon villain, but his fight scenes are terrific—and that is really what we look for in a film like this.

Castle Falls, Starring and Directed by Dolph Lundgren

Big creepy abandoned institutional buildings are always perfect for horror movies, like Gonjiam Asylum in Korea. Carraway Methodist Medical Center in Birmingham, AL has been the subject of its own YouTube exploration videos, but in this case, it is the setting for an action throwdown. There is money hidden in the [renamed] decommissioned hospital and a couple of average blokes hope to find it before a ruthless gang of criminals—and also before the building is demolished in Dolph Lundgren’s Castle Falls, which releases Friday in theaters and on-demand.

Mike was once a MMA contender, but we watch him blow his very last shot during the prologue. Now he is a day-laborer living out of his car, so he is relatively happy to get a few days work stripping down the old Castle Falls hospital. At the eleventh hour of their last day, he uncovers a large cache of cash.

Lt. Ericson knows about it too. He is an honest corrections officer, but he desperately needs money for his daughter Emily’s surgery. It turns out the money was stolen from a vicious white power gang by a non-violent inmate looking to do a deal. The trouble will be getting out alive when the also gang turns at Castle Falls. With the building rigged to explode in 90 minutes, so Mike and Ericson will have to trust each to survive, but they get off to a rocky start.

Scott Adkins and Lundgren (who worked together before in films, like Legendary) certainly know their way around a gritty beatdown and they certainly work well together here. Adkins shows off his martial arts chops (and has some nice scenes with Vas Sanchez as his new work buddy), while Lundgren acts his age convincingly as the shrewder but somewhat tired and broken-down Ericson.

He also has some appealingly tender and humanizing scenes with Emily, played by his real-life daughter, Ida Lundgren. As a director, Lundgren maybe over-complicates the opening, but the action sequences are raw and sometimes brutal. He is also a producer and the fictional demolition company is named “Lundgren,” so there is no question this is a Dolph Lundgren joint.

One Shot, Scott Adkins in One Take

Everyone that ever testified before a congressional committee has said “enhanced interrogation” or whatever does not work, because terrorists just make stuff up. However, the American military’s long-standing policy of not court-martialing POWs for anything they might divulge under torture would seem to contradict them (and it feels like a just position to adhere to). In Jean-Pierre Melville’s Army of Shadows, it was taken for granted that resistance members captured by the Germans would inevitably reveal all they knew. (It is a practice we don't condone, but we're also opposed to governing by slogan.) Regardless, characters keep telling us harsh interrogation just does not work, so they resort to a Hail Mary to avert a terror attack in James Nunn’s One Shot, which releases this Friday in theaters and on VOD.

This ill-fated mission will unfold in one seemingly continuous take for Jake Harris and his small team of SEALs. Their mission is to escort CIA analyst Zoe Anderson as she collects terrorist financier Amin Mansur to shuttle him to DC, where a dirty-bomb attack he bank-rolled is due to explode. He has said nothing while site commander Jack Yorke held him, but when he sees his pregnant wife is within the blast radius, she is sure he will change his tune.

Unfortunately, a small army of terrorists attacks the black site soon after Harris and Anderson land. Apparently, Haken Sharef and his jihadists do not trust Mansur to keep his mouth shut. They have the initiative and superior numbers, but they did not expect to find four SEALs on this grim island rock.

The Rope-style one-take thing can be a distracting gimmick, but it works better than you would expect here. The way Nunn constantly pans across the field of battle, viewers are keenly aware of how each of the combatants is moving independently. When we lose sight of one, only to have them suddenly pop up somewhere else, it feels like a real combat experience. Despite the one-take pressure, there is still some cool looking fight choreography. Of course, it helps to have someone with Scott Adkins’ chops as the lead.

As you would expect, Adkins is totally credible as Harris. Dino Kelly, Emmanuelle Imani, and Jack Parr do not get to take their SEAL characters on much of a developmental arc, but they keep up with Adkins during the long extended fire-fights. Ashley Greene Khoury plays Anderson with workmanlike competence, but it makes no sense for a junior desk officer to be on such an assignment.

Dead Reckoning, Co-Starring Scott Adkins & James Remar

Nantucket holds great cultural significance. The entire island is a designated a National Landmark District and it appears in classics like Melville’s Moby-Dick and Poe’s Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Strategically, it is not so important, but it is the summer home to many rich people, like Tillie Gardner’s father and mother. Tragically, her parents were murdered by a terrorist angered by her dad’s work as FBI spokesman. Now his killer is coming for her in Andrzej Bartkowiak’s Dead Reckoning, which releases Tuesday on DVD.

Technically, Agent Cantrell did not want to kill Marco’s father, because he wanted to interrogate the terrorist about his big plans, but the bust got violent, so he did what he had to do. Gardner’s dad spinned the incident as best he could on TV, angering the terrorist’s son Marco well past reason. He sabotaged the Gardners’ plane and intends to execute the rest of the family and then place a bomb on the beach to massacre Nantucket’s rich and idle revelers on the 4^th of July.

However, he will take a short timeout to reconnect with his younger brother Niko, who happens to be on the island working a summer job to make money for college. Rather awkwardly, Niko also happens to be Gardner’s new boyfriend. He seems a lot more substantial than her shallow party-preppy crowd and they are both orphans. At least Gardner still has her protective aunt Jennifer Crane and her partner, as well as her godfather, Agent Cantrell. Niko just has Marco, but probably not for long.

Any film co-starring both Scott Adkins and James Remar ought to beyond awesome, but sadly, Bartkowiak did not come close to fully exploiting their potential. Nevertheless, there is no question their brutal fight scene is the film’s far-and-away best scene. Seeing Adkins flexing his villainous muscles again reminds us how good he is as dark, brooding bad guys. Likewise, Remar is gritty and appealingly gristly as Agent Cantrell.

Max Cloud, Starring Scott Adkins

It is 1990, three years after the debut of Star Trek: Next Gen, but Sarah’s favorite video game hero is still way more Kirk than Picard. Frankly, he is a totally meathead, but that generally serves him well in his retro console video game world. He is supposed to fight, not negotiate or get in touch with his feelings. However, Sarah will have to keep up with him when she is mysteriously transported into the game in Martin Owen’s Max Cloud (a.k.a. The Intergalactic Adventures of Max Cloud), which opens tomorrow on VOD.

Sarah’s compulsive gaming frustrates her father, but it is a mutual interest keeping her torch-carrying pal Cowboy sort of in the picture. Unfortunately, he is not as strong a gamer, but he will have to play her character when the strange “Space Witch” whisks her into the game. Much to her regret, she was playing the nebbish cook Jake instead of the tough-as-nails Cloud. The gender-swap thing also causes some awkward moments with Cloud, but they have more pressing issues.

Sarah hopes the Space Witch will return her to her world if she successfully finishes the game, but the evil galactic overlord Revengor is definitely out to get them—and Sarah only has one life left (with Cowboy controlling her movements). Ideally, they should also finish before her dad gets home.

For fans of the video games and science fiction movies of the era (think Tron and Last Starfighter), Max Cloud is entertaining in a very way-back way, but Owen and screenwriter Sally Collett stretch the amusing gimmick to its breaking point. Frankly, this might work better as an episode of an anthology show than a full feature. The retro game graphics are clever and the in-world visuals are pretty groovy, but the narrative starts to feel like it is repeating itself (of course, you could argue that is very video game like).

Legendary: Scott Adkins & Dolph Lundgren Fight Over a Big Lizard

Surely, Travis Preston's dear old mother must have been so proud when he decided to use his aptitude for math and science by becoming a cryptozoologist rather than a boringly conventional internist. It is his job to look for cryptids—monster hunting. Business has been bad for Dr. Preston, but things will heat up when he is recruited to find and protect a big Chinese lizard in Eric Styles’ Legendary (a.k.a. Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon, but it is more of a lair than a tomb and the dragon looks like a giant of the Komodo variety, but let’s not get hung up on international titles here), which airs Wednesday morning on Comet TV.

Preston’s last expedition in search of a gargantuan bear was a tragic disaster. It was really the fault of their trigger-happy trophy-hunting guide, Harker, but Preston is the one who got sued. He assumes his career is over, until attorney Doug McConnel hires him on behalf of his wealthy anonymous client, to track, capture, and protect a previously undiscovered giant lizard species that has been terrorizing a provincial Chinese village.

To do his job, Preston must compete with Harker, who has been hired by the local oil company to kill the beast. Harker has all the institutional advantages and greater resources. However, his former science advisor, Dr. Lan Zeng, helps level the playing field when she defects to Team Preston. They also team up with Jianyu, the local school teacher, who was trying to expose the petroleum company’s culpability, until he buys into their save-the-monster campaign.

Despite the presence of Scott Adkins and Dolph Lundgren, there are no martial art beatdowns in Legendary—just a roundhouse punch connecting with Harker’s jaw. This is a creature-hunting movie, pure and simple. Actually, the creature’s CGI movements look pretty cool on the small screen, but the SFX team either couldn’t crack his attacks or the producers refused to show his choppers snapping down on victims, to preserve the PG-13 rating.

The Debt Collectors: Scott Adkins is Back in Business

Whenever an anti-hero gets talked into doing “one last job,” it is always a mistake. In this case, it is really three last jobs, making it three times worse. Frankly, French knows it is a bad idea to get back in the collections business, but he has been really scuffling since the last film, so he lets his old partner Sue talk him into an ill-advised trifecta in Jesse V. Johnson’s The Debt Collectors, which releases this Friday on VOD.

Things were looking dicey for French at the end of The Debt Collector [singular] and even worse for Sue, but somehow, they both pulled through. Their old boss Big Tommy told them to lie low after their fatal shootout with Barbosa, the gangster, so it is ironic he now wants them to collect Barbosa’s old debts—too ironic. In fact, they are being set up by Barbosa’s vengeful brother, but it will take the knuckleheads a while to figure it out.

Of course, the three collections are particularly hard cases. One of them is played by Vernon Wells (a fan favorite from The Road Warrior and Commando), so you know he must be tough. Basically, Johnson and co-screenwriter Stu Small follow the successful formula they established in the first film: French and Sue (but mostly French) bash away at the vigs’ henchmen, taking a good pounding themselves, until the debtors finally pay up. However, there is probably a greater sense of danger this time around.

Arguably, the first outing had a lighter tone, which is why we would even compare it to a lot of Elmore Leonard films, including Get Shorty. The new (plural) installment is a bit heavier, but Scott Adkins and Louis Mandylor still have terrific bickering-bantering-brawling buddy chemistry, as French and Sue, respectively. Obviously, Adkins has all kinds of moves and muscle, while Mandylor looks like grizzled gristle personified.

Abduction: Scott Adkins & Andy On Fight Aliens

If you thought Communist monuments were creepy before, wait till you visit this “victory” park in Vietnam. It is not just militaristic propaganda, it serves as a portal for a sinister race of interdimensional aliens. They have kidnapped Scott Adkins’ daughter and Andy On’s wife. Not surprisingly, the action stars damn-well want their loved ones back in Ernie Barbarash’s Abduction, which opens today in Los Angeles.

When we meet Quinn, he is literally in a world of hurt. While he is fighting off drones controlled by a race of cloak-wearing alien overlords, while his daughter Lucy is trapped in a cage, wearing a lethal choker around her neck. Defenestrated by the aliens’ telekinetic powers, Quinn suddenly finds himself surfacing in the Vietnamese Victory fountain. After a few run ins with cops and doctors, Quinn discovers thirty-two years passed on Earth while he was struggling in the extra-dimensional realm.

Dr. Anna is probably the most compassionate physician on staff at the Vietnamese Belleview, but she still assumes Quinn is delusional, for obvious reasons. Then she has a chance encounter with Connor Wu. The expat American freelance hitman is slightly disappointed in the crime syndicate he was working for, because they kidnapped his wife Maya to sell to the aliens, because of some rare genetic code in her DNA. Obviously, Dr. Anna figures these two need to get together—and action fans will not disagree.

Granted, the quality of Abduction’s visual effects is unfortunate, but Tim Man’s fight choreography is as serious as a two-by-four to the side of your head. Barbarash expertly showcases the action chops of his two stars, Adkins and On, playing Quinn and Wu, respectively. Adkins also stretches a bit, going for some fish-out-of-water comedy in the first half, with mixed results. However, On really brings the seething heat as the guilt-ridden and deeply ticked-off Wu, like an alien-fighting John Wick, without the dog.

Truong Ngoc Anh (a.k.a. TNA) also has some interesting moments, especially during the wild third act, but this is definitely a manly beat-down kind of film. Believe it or not, screenwriter Mike MacLean’s Strieber-esque alien abduction material has a few interesting twists (but the SFX work admittedly does not do them any favors). Regardless, the reason to see the film is the martial arts spectacle put on by the stars and the first-class stunt team. You know its legit when both Adkins and the legendary Roger Corman are on-board as executive producers. Recommended as a surprisingly dark but highly enjoyable B-movie, Abduction opens today (6/7) at the Laemmle Playhouse 7.

Avengement: Scott Adkins is Miffed

They are the low-rent British Michael and Fredo Corleone, but they are considerably more deadly. Cain Burgess (dig the subtlety of his name) blames his older brother Lincoln for his incarceration and the 20,000 Pound prison bounty on his head, so when he escapes from custody, he is eager for a family reunion. However, he was bones to pick (break) with some other acquaintances as well, so the younger Burgess Brother will have to be quite the busy beaver in Jesse V. Johnson’s face-stomping Avengement, which opens this Friday in Los Angeles.

Lincoln Burgess is a slimy gangster, who preys on the financially desperate through his predatory loan enterprise. Cain Burgess was not a bad bloke really, before he got nicked. Old Cain was supposed to take a dive in the ring for Lincoln’s outfit, but he knocked the other guy out instead. To make amends, he was supposed to pull a snatch-and-dash job targeting one of Lincoln’s “clients,” but things go tragically wrong. Condemned to the harshest prison in England, Cain essentially has to fight every second he is not in solitary. It makes him hard and scary looking. It also makes him rather disappointed in his brother Lincoln when he finally learns why everyone is out to get him.

Alas, Burgess and his police escort do not reach the hospital in time while his beloved mother is on her death bed. However, the field trip offers an opportunity for escape. Soon, Burgess finds his way to his older brother’s social cub, where he takes the low life thugs present hostage, if such a term can even be applied to such seedy rabble. As he waits for Lincoln to arrive, Cain catches everyone up on his activities through a series of flashbacks.

Wow, Avengement is about as brutal as an action movie can get while still being entertaining. Martial arts star Scott Adkins and director Johnson have worked together on a number of solid B-movies, but they really kick it up several notches here. Frankly, you really have to give Adkins credit for taking on this role. Technically, Cain is the good guy, but he is also an absolutely ferocious animal, who will be on both ends of some spectacularly bloody beatdowns. Of course, Adkins has the chops, but Johnson never whitewashes the reality of prison combat. Guys like Schwarzenegger and Seagal would never have the guts to play such a feral, blood-soaked part.

Adkins’ physical commitment is impressive. Consequently, just about everyone else withers under his glare, but at least Craig Fairbrass is more than convincingly thuggish as Lincoln. Unfortunately, Louis Mandylor, who was such a kick working with Adkins and Johnson in Debt Collector, is totally wasted as the honest Det. O’Hara.

Avengement definitely represents Johnson’s best stint as a director and some of Adkins’ best acting work, so far. Regardless, the fights are what are most important—and they are bracingly intense. This is definitely a film that will scare punky kids straight. Highly recommended for action fans, Avengement opens this Friday (5/24) in LA, at the Monica Film Center.

Triple Threat: Starring Everybody Cool

You could call it the Expendables of action movies, except the original Expendables were action movies to begin with. Those were big budget films, featuring big name stars, who were arguably on the downswing of their careers. This is the opposite: a scrappy production, featuring some of Asia’s best martial arts stars, alongside some direct-to-DVD-ish fan favorites, all of whom are in their absolute peak screen-fighting condition. Forget boring stuff like plot and focus on the martial arts when Jesse V. Johnson’s Triple Threat releases today on DVD.

Once Collins’ crew of mercenary terrorists break him out of a MI6 black site in the jungles of Southeast Asia, he can get down to the business of killing Chinese heiress Tian Xiao Xian. She has a lofty plan to fight crime in Maha Jaya, a fictional country that looks suspiciously like Thailand, with massive grants for education and social welfare. Frankly, the country’s crime syndicates would actually be delighted with such a scheme, because they would find a way to divert and appropriate funds from her program until it was nothing but dry bones, but fine, we will play along with the Macguffin.

Collins’ right-hand man Devereaux breaks him out, but he leaves three incredibly disappointed witnesses for dead. Payu and Long Fei were Indonesian guides, hired to guide them to the jungle prison, under the false pretext of a humanitarian rescue. Naturally, they quickly became loose ends. Jaka was a contractor hired by the British, whose wife died during the raid. Despite a rocky introduction, the two brothers will team up with Jaka to protect the heiress and get some payback. Admittedly, Jaka isn’t all that concerned about Tian, but Payu and Long Fei are more heroically inclined.

Presumably, the triple team refers to Jaka, Payu, and Long Fei, played by Iko Uwais, Tony Jaa, and Tiger Chen, respectively (all of whom are in fine form.) They are more than fairly matched by Collins and his band of marauders, featuring the brawn and chops of Scott Adkins (as Collins), Michael Jai White (as Devereaux), JeeJa Yanin (as Mook), and Michael Bisping (as Joey). Add in Celina Jade portraying the helpless heiress and nutty cameo from Michael Wong and you have yourself a movie.

Seriously, do not even worry about the story. Johnson is a pro at staging credible, visually legible fight scenes, having previously directed Adkins in a number of films, including The Debt Collector, Accident Man, and Savage Dog. He knows how to deliver what fans what and he has the ensemble to work with.

In fact, this is some of the best work Uwais and Jaa have done over the course of their last few films or so. Adkins is one of the few action stars who plays heroes and villains with roughly equal regularity, probably because he really looks like he is enjoying himself, strutting and sneering through the picture as Collins. Of course, White is all kinds of hardnosed as Devereaux. As an added bonus, Jennifer Qi Jun Yang shows promising action potential as Liang, Tian’s embassy-assigned body guard. Unfortunately, Yanin is given short shrift as Mook.

You really can’t go too far wrong with this cast, especially when Johnson has them do what they do best. Everyone is at the top of their games, except maybe the screenwriters, but they hardly matter. Highly recommended for martial arts fans, Triple Threat releases today (5/14) on DVD and BluRay.

The Debt Collector: Scott Adkins Collects

Sure, people like to think debt collecting is all about breaking kneecaps, but it also involves paperwork and cash management. The former is especially important. Whenever Big Tommy’s collectors go to work, they have a vig list with number rankings that tell them what level of resistance to expect and what degree of pain the client wants meted out. Unfortunately, his rating system has been low-balling the former. Scott Adkins will take nearly as much as he dishes out during his first day on the job in Jesse V. Johnson’s The Debt Collector (trailer here), which releases today on DVD.

French is a British expat, so he will get a lot of jokes about driving on the wrong side of the road. He is a skilled black belt, but his real deal MMA dojo is struggling. To pay the rent, he lands a gig collecting debts for Big Tommy through Mad Alex, one of his few students, who also happens to be connected. To learn the ropes, French goes out on rounds with the cynical, hard-drinking Sue (as in the Boy Named). Quite inconveniently, the tens that are supposed to be the easiest calls turn into fives and the fives turn into two’s or one’s.

It is a heck of a first day, but none of it will trouble French’s conscience. Unlike what we’ve seen in previous movies, most of the people who borrowed from Big Tommy’s clients are low life grifters, who deserve a good beatdown. They also have plenty of hired muscle to take on French and Sue. Alas, French’s second day on the job will be something else entirely.

Although it gets strictly serious during the third act, the first two-thirds of Debt Collector qualify as a breezy, if bruising, action comedy, very much in the style of Johnson’s previous Adkins vehicle, Accident Man. Frankly, Adkins has never complained so much during a movie, but his character is sort of entitled to, all things considered. Adkins also forges some terrific bickering buddy chemistry with Louis Mandylor’s impossibly grizzled Sue. Vladimir Kulich is even steelier as Big Tommy, plus there are extended cameos for Tony Todd and Michael Paré.

In terms of tone, Debt Collector is somewhat akin to an Elmore Leonard movie, but with less banter and more fighting. The screenplay co-written by Johnson and Stu Small will not exactly remind anyone of Noël Coward or Preston Sturges, but it clicks along nicely. First and foremost, it is a terrific showcase for Adkins’ chops. This is the film Once Upon a Time in Venice should have been. Recommended for fans of gritty, old school action throw-downs, The Debt Collector releases today on DVD.

Incoming: Scott Adkins Kicks Butt on a Space Station

The world’s superpowers have finally come together in space, but not in a Star Trek kind of way. They have joined forces to rendition the Hell out of six utterly savage terrorists. Of course, no good ever comes from bad guys in space. Scott Adkins wanted to use his inspection to close down the project, but he will have to act more proactively when the terrorists take over the station in Eric Zaragoza’s Incoming (trailer here), which has a special one-night only screening at the Sunset Arena CineLounge this Friday.

The former International Space Station has been retrofitted into a prison, with the British Kingsley serving as the interrogator, warden, and one-man crew. He has nothing to show for the last five years, so the hard-nosed American Reiser is determined to shut him down. To further his cause, he has brought along Dr. Stone, a gullible liberal do-gooder. Unfortunately, she is so appalled by Kingsley’s operation, she allows Argun, the leader of the notorious “Wolf Pack” to escape through a misguided show of pity.

Soon, the terrorists have control of the station and the shuttle, which they intend to use to crash their former prison into Mother Russia, thereby igniting global nuclear war. The only people who can stop them are Reiser, Stone, and their shuttle pilot Bridges, who are all still loose in the station, like John McClane in Nakatomi Plaza.

To an extent, Incoming seems to indict practices of extra-territorial rendition as anti-terrorist practices that violate the core principles of constitutional democracy. On the other hand, it also suggests terrorists will always be terrorists, so any attempt to reason with them will end in tears. Of course, it is probably just a fool’s errand trying to fashion a coherent political statement out of Jorge Saralegui’s threadbare screenplay.

Alas, this is definitely a minor film in the Scott Adkins canon. He chops are as razor sharp as ever, but the film can’t seem to make up its mind whether he should be the sinister villain of Wolf Warrior and Expendables 2 or the brooding hero of Savage Dog and Close Range. Michelle Lehane turns out to be a pleasant surprise, displaying a forceful presence, even though she is working with a lame script and standing next to Adkins most of the time. As Argun, Vahidin Prelic certainly looks the part, but his facility for scenery chewing is so-so at best.

There are a number of entertaining fight sequences, because Adkins is Adkins. Yet, when Dr. Stone explains early on the malnutrition endured by the prisoners lowered their bone density, the inconsistent screenplay primes us for a feast of bone-snapping that never happens. You can find plenty of better Adkins movies available on VOD and DVD, like the free-wheeling Accident Man, but this is the latest. Only for hardcore fans viewing in the comfort of their own homes, Incoming is now available on VOD platforms (including iTunes) and screens this Friday (5/18) in LA, at the Arena CineLounge.

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.

Savage Dog: No Bark, All Bite

Evidently, there is some truth to the historical urban legend about the fugitive National Socialist coming to Indochina as a member of the French Foreign Legion. However, he is not the only dodgy foreign national taking advantage of the power vacuum left after the French retreat. With the American military yet to arrive in force, a veritable United Nations of thugs and mercenaries will fight among themselves in Jesse V. Johnson’s Savage Dog (trailer here), which opens this Friday in Los Angeles.

Sure, there is a plot to Savage Dog, but there is no question the film’s real attraction is getting to see Scott Adkins square off against Cung Le and Marko Zaror. We will not have to wait long to see the wanted IRA hitman Martin Tillman display his skills. Steiner, an ex-German Foreign Legion officer turned warlord, quite profitably keeps him as his personal pit-fighter. Eventually, Tillman earns his freedom, but he voluntarily returns to Steiner’s employment, because it is really the best work available in the 1958 Indochinese jungle.

Tillman unleashes his inner demons in the pit, but the beautiful Isabelle appeals to the better angels of his nature. She is the illegitimate daughter of Steiner and a local woman, whom the Nazi Bond villain has never acknowledged. Tillman starts to fall in love with her while temporarily working as a bouncer at the tiny tiki bar owned by Valentine, an American expat. Inevitably, Steiner and his Spanish enforcer Rastignac will rudely interrupt their brief respite with a violent power play. They will leave Tillman for dead, but he won’t be dead enough.

There is no question Adkins is currently one of the best in the martial arts cinema business. Throughout Dog, Johnson has the good sense to step out of the way and showcase the chops of his cast. The fight between Adkins’ Tillman and Cung Le playing a corrupt cop in Steiner’s employ is pretty impressive, but the climatic face-off against Rastignac (portrayed by Zaror with gleefully sinister flare) is a no-holds-barred barn-burner. While the ending of the Cung Le fight might slightly disappoint purists, the Zaror battle builds to a deliriously over-the-top got-to-see-it climax.

Arguably, Adkins has the sort of quiet brooding charisma of the great 1980s action stars. He also develops some rather touching romantic chemistry with Juju Chan’s Isabelle. However, it is somewhat frustrating Savage Dogs fails to capitalize on Chan’s real-life talents as a martial artist, merely casting her as a damsel in distress, much like the Roger Corman-produced Fist of the Dragon. On the plus side, Keith David (narrator of Ken Burns’ Jazz) comes to play as the flamboyant-in-a-cynical-world-weary-kind-of-way Valentine.

Basically, the purpose of Johnson’s narrative is to get Tillman from one fight to another. It works well enough and the period setting adds an intriguing dimension. Of course, all that really matters is the degree to which Adkins, Zaror, and Cung Le tear it up. Highly recommended for action fans, Savage Dog opens tomorrow (8/4) at the Arena CineLounge Sunset in LA and releases the following Tuesday (8/8) on iTunes.

Close Range: Scott Adkins vs. a Mexican Drug Cartel

Think Mexican drug cartel violence ends at our super well-guarded border? Colt MacReady knows better. Fortunately, the AWOL commando with authority issues is a match for any narco-terrorist outfit, but the situation his family finds themselves in is more real than we would like to admit. Regardless, bad guys are in for a big hurting in Isaac Florentine’s lean and mean Close Range (trailer here), which opens this Friday in select theaters.

MacReady’s widowed sister Angela Reynolds remarried the wrong sleazy drug smuggler. When he tried to skim a few bucks off his last payment, the cartel abducted his step-daughter Hailey. That would be MacReady’s niece Hailey. He might not be around much, but he still isn’t about to stand for that, so he rescues her in the slam-bang opening sequence.

Of course, the cartel is hot on their trial, but their corrupt tool, Sheriff Jasper Calloway slows down MacReady and his family until the out of sorts Garcia Cartel arrives. Despite the wreckage MacReady left in Mexico, old man Fernando Garcia assumes a handful of guys can handle MacReady while he holds Angela and Hailey hostage. Right, good luck with that plan.

Close Range is not exactly what you would call pretentious, but it delivers plenty of old school, hardnosed action. This is what Scott Adkins and Isaac Florentine do better than any other tandem working in film today—and in Close Range they just do it without a lot worrying about character development or other extraneous business. Frankly, Adkins’ glowering presence is all the character establishment we really need. Imagine how awesome the next Batman movie would have been if he had been cast instead of Ben Affleck. We are all still bitterly disappointed about that, since his widely reported screen test gave us so much false hope.

To be fair, the criminally underrated Nick Chinlund manages to dig out an effective character development arc for the cowardly Calloway. When he and Adkins’ MacReady have their final face-off, it is as serious as a heart attack. For what it’s worth, Caitlin Keats and Madison Lawlor deal with Florentine’s furious pace and constant hail of bullets gamely enough, even if these were not the roles they had in mind during their time at the Actor’s Studio or wherever they trained.

It really is a pleasure to watch an unfussy action film, in which the fights and shoot-outs are clearly framed and pristinely watchable. Adkins has the chops and Florentine knows how to show them off. Anyone who grew up with Cannon’s Chuck Norris, JCVD, and Michael Dudikoff movies will have a nostalgic good time with it (sort of in the tradition of Avenging Force). Recommended for genre fans, Close Range is now available on VOD and opens this Friday (12/11) at the Arena Cinema in Los Angeles.

Wolf Warrior: Wu Jing vs. Scott Adkins

Get ready for a steady diet of metaphors telling us lone wolves are most successful traveling in packs, or some such thing. They would be referring to Leng Feng. He is a loose cannon maverick type, but whenever he goes off the reservation, he is doing it for the team. Of course, he makes plenty of enemies that way, including a vengeful drug lord who can afford the best mercenaries money can buy. Their values compare poorly with those of the idealistic Feng, but they still manage to get the drop on his elite commando unit in Wu Jing’s Wolf Warrior (trailer here), which releases today on DVD, BluRay, and digital platforms from Well Go USA.

Just when a Southeast Asian drug raid seems hopelessly lost, Feng takes a spectacular shot (three of them really) to save the day. In the process, he kills the impetuous brother of shadowy crime boss and aspiring global megalomaniac, Min Peng. He should be happy to be rid of such a pathetic tool, but Min Peng rather holds a grunge. Having eluded Chinese forces, the old criminal mastermind hires a team of western mercs, led by the highly skilled Tom Cat, to take out Leng. He also has some conventional world domination business for them to tend, but that is really just a tangent to a tangent.

Arguably, the plan to attack while Leng’s squad is engaged in war-games is sort of clever, since it necessarily means the Wolves will be strictly packing blanks. Unfortunately, that is about the only part of the film that works. Even though the Mainland born Wu rose to prominence in HK film like City Under Siege, Wolf Warrior was clearly conceived as feature length tribute to the PLA. To a man, the Wolves are invariably pure of heart, but also stiflingly dull. Its like the un-self-aware Chinese version of “America, Blank Yeah,” the anthem of Team America World Police, except irony is strictly forbidden.

As a director, Wu gives us a herky-jerky ride, but his martial arts skills remain undiminished. The film is kind of watchable when it shuts up and lets everyone get down to business. When he finally gets to his long anticipated face-off with Scott Adkins’ Tom Cat (a mercenary named after a celebrity couple), it is pretty satisfying. Yet, it is rather strange how much of the film’s action revolves around fire-fights and marksmanship, considering two of the world’s top big screen martial artists are present and accounted for.

At least they have stuff to do. For most of the film, Adkins’ Expendables 2 co-star Yu Nan is stuck wearing an earpiece and biting her lip as she gives tactical advice from the command center. On the other hand, Ni Dahong’s stone cold coolness as the villainous Min Peng is one of the film’s saving graces, even though his transformation from Pablo Escobar to Dr. Evil makes no sense. It also seems slightly odd that he would want to develop a super-virus that only kills Chinese people.

There are rumors floating about online that PLA personnel were required to see Wolf Warriors in theaters, which would explain its success. If so, Wu delivered everything his PLA patrons could have hoped for, often reducing the film to an old school Soviet May Day parade of shiny new military hardware and platitudinous dialogue. Disappointing for anyone who is not a member of the Young Pioneers, Wolf Warriors is strictly for Wu and Adkins completists when it releases today (9/1), from Well Go USA.