Blood of Redemption

To start I began my love affair with Dolph Lundgren when I was about 12 and was heartbroken when he ceased making movies, or so I thought. It seems he'd been stuck in the straight to DVD funk and needed a good script or, in the case of his comeback, an old friend.

When the Expendable came out and I went to see it it was a little after my 40th birthday and I was astounded when I saw a familiar yet somewhat lost name in the beginning credits. "Dolph Lundgren" Oh joy! Needless to say, I had to own it once it hit DVD status and it reawakened my love for this brilliant man.

I began looking for his movies and to my surprise, I was met with titles I'd never seen before and future works in progress.

Since then I've seen almost all of his movies with exception of a few and that's only because they have yet to be released. So now, lets get started with this movie review shall we.

We are told that "It begins with a mans death." and in fact it begins with a family watched over by a man named Axel, (Lundgren)a long time body guard and friend of a mob boss. When his charge is eventually killed he takes it upon himself to find out two things. Why? and Who? With the help of a beautiful young woman named Laryen and an FBI agent he begins to put the pieces of a very troubling puzzle together. But the picture he ends up with is more disappointing then he anticipates.

In the end Axel must follow his own advise to stay alive long enough to exact vengeance on the one who murdered his friend.

*I enjoyed it so much that I bought it*

Yes it's another low-budget Direct-to-video Dolph Lundgren film but this time he's surrounded by a damn decent cast of B-movie performers such as, Vinnie Jones, Robert Davi & Billy Zane.

Big old beefcake Dolph plays Axel, the head of security to a family of criminals but when the family falls apart & their empire begins to crumble Axel leaves & comes back three years later to find out what really happened & why.

Dolph is fine as always & plays the same type of special skilled Bad-Ass that he usually plays. Billy Zane plays one of the criminal families sons & big bro & goes to jail for three years when nutter Vinnie Jones takes over the family business with his uncle Robert Davi (with a dodgy British accent) & everyone is paranoid of each other because of the families fallout three years earlier. There's alot going on here with lots of twists & turns & raunchy scenes & some action here & there. Blood of Redemption is more of a crime thriller than an all out action flick & the cool cast do their best & are all pretty good.

I found Blood of Redemption to be entertaining & i liked it & i was surprised by the ending.

At times this little B-movie felt like a very low rent "The Departed" just mildly sometimes.

I did enjoy the cast of B movie veterans as I'm a fan of Dolph Lundgren (The Punisher, Battle of the Damned) & Robert Davi (Maniac Cop 2&3, Predator 2) & i don't mind Billy Zane (Demon Knight, The Phantom) & Vinnie Jones (Escape Plan, The Condemned) & the actors in the movie were fine too.

Nothing special but still a fun B-movie Crime Thriller.

What drew me into seeing 'Blood of Redemption' in the first place? The reasonably likeable cast, a potentially intriguing story and that it was part of my low budget completest quest and popped up in my recommended for you section. Was also a bit apprehensive, with a less than favourable rating and generally reviews that were lukewarm at best.

'Blood of Redemption', when checking it out, certainly could have been much worse. There are definitely worse films about, of the genre and overall. Is it a good film let alone a great one? Not even close. Did it use its potential? No. Is it that bad? Not quite. Does it has redeeming qualities? Yes, but not many. To me, while having learnt not to trust ratings and not worry about going against the grain (though am in the minority here who respects critics opinions and tend to be on the same, or slightly above or below, page as them), the rating is about right and do have to agree with the criticisms here.

Dolph Lundgren, Billy Zane and Gianni Capaldi do serviceable jobs and are the reasons as to why 'Blood of Redemption' wasn't any worse, Lundgren being the best thing of the film.

Some of the story intrigued, namely the early stages, and the music while not the most memorable is at least listenable.

Unfortunately, Vinnie Jones and Robert Davi are poorly served and used. Jones overdoes it and shouts his way through a stock character and Davi is saddled with a clearly fake accent and spends the whole time looking uninterested. None of the characters are developed enough and are very difficult to get behind. 'Blood of Redemption' looks cheap, especially the badly organised and sometimes incomprehensible editing and catastrophically awful visual effects, so fake looking and doesn't blend well with the setting at all. The action is both dull and chaotic, there is nothing exciting and it's choreographed with no enthusiasm or finesse.

The script is too talky and has no tautness, the pace is flabby and the story gets far too complicated with the twists not being that much of a surprise. The direction seemed indicative of lack of experience or ease.

Overall, not horrendous but severely lacking in many areas. 3/10 Bethany Cox

You have some really big names in the B-movie department participating in this. Be it Billy Zane, Vinnie Jones and/or Dolph Lundgren. The movie is very predictable (from the starting "end", to the flashback after that until the conclusion). Lundgren plays a convincing lead, even if you might not believe his relationship to a much younger woman he is having during the course of the movie.

The whole twist of the movie though does rely on some very shaky grounds and it will leave you shaking your head at the end. The action is nicely done. Though nothing to get too excited about. Don't look for a message either, watch if you're a fan of one or more of the actors though

Cool, a new Dolph Lundgren, thats what i said when i found out about this movie. I watch most of the stuff he did in recent years and one thing that always comes to mind, minus the Expendables(which is awesome), his movies are always decent, minus a few exceptions. They never give me any "wow feeling" but they are honest DTV release.

This one... isshhh, i want to like it, but there is major problems. As some people mentioned, holy cow the special effects where terrible... I mean i expect some very cheap CGI in an episode of the Angry Video Game Nerd... but not in a real movies. Gunshot sounds and effects where horrible... And if at least the shooting was decent... but way too much "guy stand in the open, kill everybody in 1 bullet, never get shot" Fist fights where below average, especially when it came to the ladies in this... felt fake as hell... Speaking about fake, we have the pleasure of a cameo of Tasha Reign and Rikki Six, two well known pornstars with fake tits in this, which made me smile. But to come back to fist fights, well a couple ones where decent but again the noise of them... felt very cheap 80s movies...

Finally the story... decent. Overly complicated a bit in some part but the whole scenario was interesting and all.

In the end i would say thanks god they manage to get decent B actors like Dolph and Vinnie(also Billie Zane), which is probably the reason why a bunch of guys like me watch it in the first place. But in the end, not a movie to be remember. I know the budget may not had been the best, but please guys... i saw better gun wounds and effects in 80s movies...