Black Rose

After five young women of Russian descent are brutally murdered, the Los Angeles Police Department contacts Moscow and requests the assistance of one of their best detectives to aid in the investigation. In response, Russia sends "Vladimir Kazatov" (Alexander Nevsky), who always manages to get the job done--one way or another. Sure enough, no sooner does he get to Los Angeles than he manages to get into a gunfight with two armed thugs, leaving one dead and the other severely maimed. That aside, he is quickly paired with a patterns analyst named Emily Smith (Kristanna Loken), who lacks real field experience but compensates for it with her keen understanding of the criminal mind. The problem, however, is that the serial killer has been alerted and is now pursuing them as well. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this movie is basically a rehash of the successful Arnold Schwarzenegger film "Red Heat" but with Alexander Nevsky in the lead role instead. He fails miserably. So bad, in fact, that I rank his performance even lower than Jon Voight's attempt at impersonating Al Pacino's "Scarface" in the 1997 movie "Anaconda." Not that it matters, but Jon Voight was nominated for a Golden Raspberry for that performance. Deservedly so, in my opinion. Nevertheless, I didn't enjoy this particular film, and I have rated it accordingly. Below average.

I can't believe how boring this movie is. The acting was bad, the chemistry was bad, the script was dull. The plot was a good one they should have been able to do more than they did with it.Blood and gore alone do not make a great action/mystery movie (or apparently even a good one). I could not wait for it to be over.

Com'on people. At least the photography was excellent. Bad script. Acting sans direction or self restraint. But good grief -- does it really deserve all this opprobrium? Shots and angles were often admirable. They found scenes and settings that were quite interesting and occasionally terrific. ... On the other hand, a stage name duplicating the cultural hero of the Russ is deserving of The Donald's approval and accents comparable to Branagh's Shadow Recruit choice are cringe-worthy. Just imagine what people not super self-conscious of being C-lister's could have done with the idea here.

Time flew by as it kept my attention, enjoyed watching it.

Apparently, this is a 2014 movie that is just being released on DVD, and which I found in Redbox. Set in Los Angeles, it centers on the search for a serial killer, named the Black Rose Killer, as a black rose and a cryptic message in Russian are left on the bodies of each mutilated victim.

Set in Los Angeles, so far five young Russian women have been murdered in the tight knit community of West Hollywood. A LAPD Captain (Robert Davi) has decided to put a fresh team together to try and track down the psycho killer, so he imports a brazen Russian Major (Alexander Nevsky) to pair with a rookie female detective (Kristanna Loken),

The rapport and chemistry between Nevsky and Loken was pretty effective and there is some decent humor sprinkled throughout the film. However, overall, I found the dialogue and most of the acting to be quite wooden and stilted.

There's also loads of cold-blooded killings, bloody torture scenes, and grizzly showings of the dead victims. As the movie progresses the body counts and the carnage just multiplies. There's a big twist at the end, which I didn't guess, but which by that point I didn't really care very much about.

All in all, can't recommend. To note, there were no subtitles on my DVD copy, except when Russian was being spoken, but I was able to use the closed caption option on my remote to get the subtitles.