The Retaliators - Auge um Auge

You say I wrote Pray with me wrong? That could not be the case now could it? No pun intended as always. And we start with the "here and now", before we go back and the movie shows us how we got to this moment we just witnessed. Does it mean the movie that unfolds has lost its tension? I would highly disagree with that notion.

I also would urge anyone with a weak stomach not to watch this. This does not take any prisoners (not necessarily literally ... though also that ... sometimes)! There will be blood ... there will be insanity ... there will be a lot of violence! And a few bad guys to enjoy ... to hate! I know this is just a movie, but certain things did hurt watching ... the amount of evil that was unleashed at times ... mind blowing (well and other things of that human body nature ... you'll get it ... wood you not?)

Michael Lombardi is the aptly named "Bishop" - he's a rural pastor - who traditionally shuns confrontation and generally encourages others to do the same. Until, that is, his daughter has a run in with a gangland hoodlum who has a car stashed with cocaine, loot - and a man who is not in great shape. She attempts to flee but while being chased chooses to ring her dad, rather than 911 (or maybe drive off in the general direction of the police station!?). Anyway, the remainder of this terribly lacklustre revenge thriller follows dad's attempts to avenge his daughter. For a previously gentle man, he adapts to the brutality of his new environment with an ease that made me think that if Sigourney Weaver had had him in the "Alien" films, those acid bleeding critters wouldn't have lasted twenty minutes. That's really the problem here. The scenario is just daft. Right from the get go when we have an altercation over a Christmas tree through to the very end, it's all just predictable and implausible tosh. The acting is college project standard, as is the writing and the direction. Indeed, quite how this got a cinema release at all is a far more worthy and ponderous question than anything raised by the script. Nope, I really wouldn't bother.

The Retaliators is dumb but fun entertainment - something that has strangely become a rarity in horror.

Nowadays where every movie is a slow burn "elevated" metaphor for trauma and abuse - so it's refreshing to see a film that just wants to entertain in a blood soaked way.

Better than a movie featuring the singer of Papa Roach has any right to be, "The Retaliators" is a fun revenge thriller, that switches between genres, offering just enough twist and turns (and a bonkers ending) to stay engaging.

The acting is not bad, with a certain Z Nation actor being the highlight.

The movie starts off with Bishop and his two daughters trying to buy a Christmas tree when all of a sudden some guy claims their tree as his. He acts like a douche and pushes Bishop away and after they get home the older daughter Sarah asks him why he didn't act. Bishop uses this scenario to talk about in his preaching the next day and says that revenge is not the answer.

Later that evening his daughter Sarah gets murdered by a guy for finding out that there is someone in his trunk. During his mourning he encounters a detective whose wife was also killed years before. He tells Bishop that he found the guy who killed his daughter and he wants to give him the chance to take vengeance. At that point a brutal and twisted story begins and Bishop has to go through a lot of character development to be able to survive.

The movie definitely has its shock value in the brutality and does not shy away to show it. And even though there is some weird pacing and editing at times the movie is able to entertain for its run time. The movies strengths are in the sheer brutality and action that come in the third act and also in the character development from Bishop. It's no masterpiece but I think that it did a decent job with how the story turned out. [5,8/10]