The Sweeper - Land Mines

This film was a real snooze-fest interrupted by brief flashes of action. In fact, most of the action took place at the beginning and the end. You could skip the whole middle.

Dolph Lundgren sure didn't show the action hero we saw in The Punisher or Universal Soldier as a demolitions expert in taking apart land mines.

Claire Stansfield was equally flat as the woman who recruited him to help rid Angola of a new type of mine.

Someone even compared Lungren to Commando Arnold. What a joke!

I imagine that there is a market for movies like this in foreign countries.

This movie's grasp of Angolan politics is about as informed as it's knowledge of landmines. In other words, it makes the Lethal Weapon movies look like sophisticated dramas. Even your average Berkeley protester, full of ideal but without a clue as to what is really going on, would be able to display a better grasp of the political situation than this movie. Fight coreography and direction is laughablly bad. Fanfilms on theForce.net tend to be better. Suddenly, 1/2 way through, Dolph becomes an Indianna Jones clone. During a rescue scene, when time is of the essence, he takes time to change clothes. The whole mine sequence reads like Steven Speilburg's rejects. The village scenes scream bogus as well. All these villagers have food and clothing, and running water and plumbing. And they're dumb enough to be playing football in the minefield just when "Our Hero" needs motivation. Overall, the film may have been made to advance a political agenda, but it failed. This is the lamest Dolph movie I've scene since... ever. The only one that comes close to being worse was the film where they actually stole footage from another Dolph movie! Using the Cranky scale (1-4 bombs, Dynamite, Nuke), This one is a dynamite!

Very disappointing movie to say the least. A "cheap shot" if you will.

However, the only good thing about this movie is the collaborative interaction between Hollywood (American)and African (predominantly South African) actors/crew: which is POSSIBLE. As a South African it was also quite funny to see Dolph Lundgren drinking "beer" from a bottle labelled with a well-known South African beer brand. This taking into account the supposed script location to be "Angola".

Judging Claire Stansfield for the first time(not having seen any of her earlier movie efforts)it seems she'd be better off displaying her physical features in a movie genre that requires it. Acting prowess, as far as she is concerned, is non-existent. I'll rate this movie 3/10 for effort and just going through the motions of movie making.

This has to be the worst steaming pile of dog flop I've ever wasted my time watching. Fortunately I regained my sanity about half-way through and changed the channel. Dolph must have paid the MyTV Network to show this. Continuity was completely non-existent. Notice that the kid was completely vaporized by the landmine, yet seconds later Dolph scoops up Johnny, who has only a bloody lip. Would have been nice to see Dolph get blown up at that point too and end the movie immediately. I didn't catch who the lead actress was, but it seemed that her botox injection got a little out of hand. She looked like a bloated carp.

If you can get your hands on the DVD, please, please throw it on the floor and stomp on it so that the rest of humanity doesn't have to suffer.

Another cheesy B action vehicle from Dolph Lundgren during his prime in the 90s. Sweepers doesn't have a ton going for it, but as a schlocky bad action movie, it's perfect.

The premise is strange, and it works for an action movie. A minesweeper learns of dangerous new mines being planted, and tries to find the distributor. Dolph goes full Indiana Jones here, wearing the same kind of clothes, even the hat, and he also wears a leather jacket in one scene.

Dolph is the best actor here, elevating the proceedings with a certain level of class and charm that the movie really doesn't deserve. Bruce Payne was ok, but this is definitely not one of his best roles. Everyone else was meh.

Keoni Waxman, a director most notable for his B and C-list action films, is responsible for 9 Steven Seagal DTV movies, and 2 Steve Austin ones. It's unfortunate, as he's a good action director, and he stages some nice set pieces.

The action is obviously the reason to watch. The opening battle scene was cool, if slightly laughable, the house shootout, bar fight, jeep/helicopter chase, house fight/shootout, mineshaft fight and shootout, and final battle aboard the train were all good. The movie's strength is in the last 15 minutes, and the train sequence was cool. The movie looks to have a pretty high budget, with lots of practical effects and tons of explosions. It's thoroughly satisfying.

It's another excellent piece of B entertainment overall, and it's one of Dolph's more underrated films for sure. I recommend it to action and Dolph fans. It's a bad film, but enjoyably bad.