In writer/director William Kaufman’s new action film, Man of War, we meet our protagonist, Connor (LaMonica Garret), an elite spec-ops veteran, like we always meet this character in movies. He’s shirtless, so we can see both his muscles and his scars from a lifetime of combat, drinking straight from a bottle of booze, staring at a photo of a lost or distant loved one, a loaded gun on the table in front of him. He’s a man lost, adrift, uncertain of how to live in a world beyond the bounds of warfare.
Within a span of a couple of months we’ve received remakes of early-1980s cult favorite swords-and-sorcery epics. First out of the gate was M.J. Bassett’s take on Red Sonja, and now we have Psycho Goreman mastermind Steven Kostanski’s version of Deathstalker. While the former knows it’s goofy, it plays things relatively straight. The latter, however, leans into the campiness with a winking, over-the-top glee.
Another week, another direct-to-video action-thriller. Lately, many of these stars either Aaron Eckhart or Olga Kurylenko, and director Jesse V. Johnson’s Chief of Station happens to feature both. (It truly only stars Eckhart, with Kurylenko relegated to a supporting role, but we’ll take it.)
Stolen gold. Nazi conspiracies. Tangled webs of greed, betrayal, and vengeance. Jesse V. Johnson’s Hell Hath No Fury hath damn near everything a historical action thriller needs.
It happens often that a movie, usually a major studio production, aims to kick off a franchise, only for it to be a no-go. It also happens, in rarer occasions, that a movie aiming to kick off a theatrical franchise flops, but a franchise happens anyway, usually in the hallowed, at least around here, halls of DTV. Sometimes a series pops up where no one expected.
