Absolutely Fantastic

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Cuba plays an assassin for hire. He's hired by one Czech mobster to take out the rival faction. When he fails at killing his main target this one knows what's up and a war between mobsters break out. Cuba meanwhile thinks his job is done and goes back to what he does in his spare time, follow and watch over a pretty girl. Turns out that on one of his missions years ago, he was hired to kill her dad, and the girl saw him. It's something he never got over.What he doesn't know is that the surviving mobster and his brother have hired Dolph to take revenge, kill mobsters and Cuba. They also get a hold of Cuba's handler. Cuba eventually is forced to come out of the shadows when some thug gives the girl a hard time. Of course she doesn't recognize him but she's attracted to him. Dolph is in the meantime wreaking havoc and killing mobsters left and right. When they finally meet, Cuba decides to let him live (!). That's when Cuba decides to finish the job and kill some more mobsters, setting things up for a second meeting with Dolph and the eventuality that the girl will find out the truth.One In the Chamber is a great B action movie. And it looks like the B movie universe survives only thanks to action movies. Erotic B movies have completely disappeared, and so have B horror movies leaving us only with C-and-below horror movies. Hollywood is busy spending half a billion dollars making the umpteenth CGI movie about something silly destroying entire cities. This movie is your good, honest, old fashioned mano-a-mano action movie. No CGI, no anorexic girls beating up on bouncers, no nonsense. The script is very good, the direction is excellent, the locations beautiful (Romanian streets), and the cast does very well. Dolph as always just enjoys every role he gets. Cuba can act but frankly is just a tad bit outmatched by Dolph who must be 3 times the size of Cuba so I doubt that a knee to Dolph's abdomen would even be noticeable to him. The secondary cast also does well, especially Louis Mandylor and Andrew Bicknell. And Claudia Bassols is just gorgeous. Is One In the Chamber perfect? No, but it's so much better and much more entertaining than almost all the stupefying summer blockbusters and action movies Hollywood cranks out by the dozen.

Despite the negative reviews I thought this movie was pretty good. I have never heard of this movie until now. I saw it last night. It had a good amount of action, story and a little bit of humor. It even left open the possibility of a part 2. Dolph Lundgren as the Wolf made it even more entertaining. Even thought he is a tough guy he had some funny quotes. I guess after seeing The Expendables I was wondering what more Dolph Lundgren had to offer and offer he did. When both hit men were going up against each other I couldn't wait to see who would win. Would be cool if there is part 2 and Cuba and Dolph team up to take on the underworld bosses.

"When one mob family has a problem with another they call me. For the right price I solve it. I'm a fixer that's what I do, but that's not the only reason I'm here." Ray Carver (Gooding Jr.) is the best assassin money can buy. After being hired by both sides of a Russian gang war he sets out to do his worst. When he refuses to shoot a woman he himself becomes a marked man. Aleksey Andreev (Lundgren) is sent to take care of Ray before things get out of hand. I know what your thinking...a movie with Dolph Lundgren!! How can that be bad?? Without trying to totally disappoint you this is not really good at all. I'm not sure what happened to Cuba but after winning the Oscar he really lowered his movie standards. Dolph's were never that high to start with but I am really wondering why his Russian accent in Rocky 4 was better then his in this one. I assumed the more movies you do the better you get but I guess I'm wrong. I have to say though that I am not into the B-rate action movies though and if you like them you will probably like this one. Overall, exactly what I expected, maybe a little worse. I give it a C-.

I read the posted reviews posted about this one and they're massively wrong.I'll keep mine brief:The movie is rooted in the action and the characters and story are plot devices aside from the lead. The staples are all there (accent heavy thugs, withdrawn lead with a moral dilemma, back story dealing with his obsession with the female lead) and the female lead is gorgeous. I liked that it never resorted to objectifying her. This is a hit-man movie. It's not aiming for realism over entertainment but it's not out right silly either. The shooting scenes are well done. The fighting scenes could use a little work since there were points where the use of a stunt double was too obvious. It's a hit-man in Prague playing sides in a Russian mafia war. That's about all you need to know.Once the action gets going another player/hit-man is introduced. Dolph Lundgren steals his scenes with a great character that could have been developed more but is fun as it is. A more menacing bad guy would have been nice. There are quite a few nasty Russians in this but it's all implied. Some scenes dedicated to showing them as bad people would have helped establish them as such. Don't just allude to him torturing someone. You've got the R rating so stretch your legs Mr Kaufman and let's see the guy tied to the ceiling getting killed so I know the guy doing it is more than just an angry Russian. I gave this 8/10 because I judged it based on reception as a fan of action movies. If you like movies about professional killers you can put this on and not be disappointed. It's not Collateral but it's still fun to watch. Go into it remembering that it's a straight to DVD/VOD action movie and have a good time. I look forward to seeing what the team behind this does next since this is a big improvement over their previous efforts. As long as they keep learning and striving for more their next movie could be something very cool to see.Pros: *good shooting scenes especially with the long range guns *good acting *great locations *coherent and easy to follow plot *fun charactersCons: *the script had weaknesses in the dialogue *the shots could have been more stylized *the texture of the film should have been adjusted by the DOP to reflect *the location and set pieces. I mentioned Collateral: compare the club scenes specifically to see what I mean. *the gun play (too many machine guns! don't double fist pistols!) *underdeveloped characters8/10 for an action movie