Sick Product of a Sick System

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

This is pretty average as far as films are concerned, but considering how terrible a few of Austin's STD films are, this is high praise. I'm a huge Stone Cold Steve Austin fan. Despite that he has nothing to work with a lot of the time, with these STD movies I always check them out when they are released. This one actually has some decent character development. Steve Austin does what he does best, play an anti hero, only without the rattlesnake persona. He's not quite ready to take on such a mysterious role, but he doesn't embarrass himself either. He definitely has presence, and commands your attention at all times. With better scripts, and more experience, Steve Austin can unequivocally be a top action star in Hollywood. He's not the greatest WWE superstar of all time for nothing. It's actually Dolph Lundgren who steals the show. His dark sense of humor was a hoot, and he hammed it up big time. Lundgren has really improved over the years with his acting, and he clearly relishes the villain role. I enjoyed him a lot. I wouldn't say this was filled with action, but it has just enough to keep your attention. For a STD film, it's not too shabby. Never something I'll watch again, but Stone Cold is on the right track5.2/10

I am a huge action movie fan: Rambo, Action Jackson, Universal Soldier, Bloodsport -- you get the picture. This is a stupid, lazy, unentertaining movie. I spent most of the movie rolling my eyes and fast forwarding through the relentless, boring, uninspired, unrealistic, stunt double fight scenes. It is just so many clichés piled on top of each other.Let's check all of the cliché boxes, shall we?Pretty, way out-of-his-league long suffering girlfriend that would not stay with this guy for 10 second in real life - check!Literally thousands of bullets shot and none hit the action star anywhere - check!Almost point blank (I'm talking 6 feet away) heavy machine gun fire missing the action star - check!Bad guy and action star "run out of bullets at same time and fist fight" - check!Bad guy and action star get more bullets then "run out of bullets at same time and fist fight" FOUR more times (no exaggeration) - check!Fight in building with nonsensical sparks and smoke coming from unmanned, closed factory - check!No police for 20 minutes even after four people killed and thousands of rounds fired - check!High-powered 3,000 feet per second .308, .223 and 7.62 X 54 bullets from machine gun (in real life able to penetrate a military Kevlar® vest) easily blocked by standard 1/2" drywall, a regular wooden chair (like in grade school) and a flimsy hospital operating table - check!Instead of just shooting the good guy and being done with the movie, the bad guy wants to "torture and tell the good guy the sinister plans before killing him." Good guy kills bad guy and gets away with the girl - check!After telling him his sinister plans, Instead of just shooting the good guy, bad guy wants to have "fist fight with good guy proving to the bad guy that he's still got it". Good guy kills bad guy and gets away - check!Good guy proves his is forgiving and righteous man when he walks away and lets bad guy off hook in end of movie. After all bad guy has done, good guy simply can't kill him because of good guys true heart of justice. BUT WAIT! When good guy turns his back, "bad guy double crosses him and tries to kill good guy!" Good guy notices in very last second and kills bad guy. End of movie. Believe it or not this scene did NOT happen in this movie - GOTCHA!. This is the ONLY cliché the director left out!Awful, awful, awful movie. Spending an afternoon plucking your short hairs or counting your body moles would be time far better spent.

I read some of the other reviews, and I concluded they must be by the fembot, art history major, wanna be a critic crowd. This is a straight up action film, with much of the action meaty hand to hand fighting. And it does a good job of portraying the fact that most such combat is pretty brutal.There are girls, they are beautiful, one is deadly, the other is lovely. The roles they play are secondary.Dolph has aged a lot, and unless it is the makeup, I think not to well. But he continues to carry the style he has shown in several recent action movies, as a menacing, brooding threat. From the outset we are aware he is a threat, but the relationship of this threat to the main protagonist is not clear.For me, Steve Austen was a pleasant surprise. I recall another of his movies, and he was not good at all. This was much better, and the director played to all his strengths in respect of both his verbal and action abilities.There were several little plot twists, and a few surprises along the way, which added to the enjoyment.There are a number of recognizable supporting characters, which is also a pleasant surprise.So my conclusion is that if you are hunting around for an action movie one night with some time to kill, this movie is for consideration. No, its not Gladiator, or Star Wars, or the Avengers, or Saving Private Ryan, but thank god, its not Brokeback Mountain or some other drivel either. Its a decent regular budget action movie. Take it for what it is and you will be fine.

I watched THE PACKAGE last night and was surprised by it; mostly because the earlier Austin vehicles I had seen (HUNT TO KILL, TACTICAL FORCE) were really bad. Austin is still really stiff (both acting and physically) but the director plays upon these traits better than the previous helmers. Also, director Jesse Johnson handled the action scenes a lot better than most, not resorting to the shaky cam crap that a lot of DTV action guys use. Of course, the highlight for me is Dolph Lundgren, who delivers another juicy co-starring role much like he did in the Cuba Gooding, Jr. action flick ONE IN THE CHAMBER last year. While I'd still like to see Dolph get back in the directing chair, these smaller roles are good enough to fill the time in between.