Hellhound

When I happened to stumble upon the 2024 movie "Hellhound", I opted to sit down and watch it, as the movie had Louis Mandylor on the cast list.

Sure, I had never heard about the movie, but that hardly mattered, as it being a movie that I hadn't already seen was essentially sufficient to make me want to watch it. And since I had never heard about it, then director Joshua Dixon had every opportunity to impress and entertain me.

The storyline in "Hellhound" was pretty straightforward, though one might argue that it was actually generic. However, it wasn't really an outstanding or particularly memorable viewing experience.

The acting performances in the movie were good. I was only familiar with Louis Mandylor of the entire cast, but I will say that they had some good actors and actresses on the cast list. It was a bit difficult to take the Tar character (played by Panya Yimmumphai) serious given the tattoos.

Suitable for a single viewing perhaps, "Hellhound" is essentially a generic action crime thriller, though it felt like director Joshua Dixon was setting out for it to be a tad more. However, there wasn't enough action sequences or adrenaline-filled sequences to make it a memorable viewing experience. Instead, you are in for a lot of dialogue-driven scenes, that has a tendency of dragging on for a bit longer than necessary.

In fact "Hellhound" felt like so many other action crime thrillers, so director Joshua Dixon failed to make it an outstanding or memorable movie. Sure, it was semi-watchable, but you're not in for anything grand here.

My rating of "Hellhound" lands on a three out of ten stars.

5 stars out of 10 for Hellhound is generous. It's just not very good. But good enough to watch to the end if you're in the mood for an action movie and don't have high expectations. Louis Mandylor stands out compared to all the other actors as he clearly has more experience carrying a movie. The dialogues are clearly written by someone that did not have the imagination and sense of realism to create something that makes the viewer believe it's real. It would have probably worked better if the actors had not been given a word by word script. The action scenes in the movie are also a 5 out of 10. There are some good bits but as many bad ones. The story isn't half bad but there is nothing new here. But after seeing one great movie after another it is sometimes just fun to watch something like this. That's where it serves it's purpose.

I was lucky enough to attend the premiere of this new film in Bangkok on the big screen.

I loved the look and feel of Hellhound.

We get to see a lot of Bangkok and there were some really fantastic shots - especially the rooftop fight scene.

Lead actor was great and overall the acting quality was pretty good for this level of movie in terms of budget.

I did feel that the narrative could have been a bit clearer, and perhaps the lead character could have been fleshed out a bit more. At times it seemed he disappeared from the narrative and his sidekick had more on screen time than him.

The photography was excellent and the action scenes were very well shot - some great camera tricks in some moments. We could have had more action scenes - this would be my main takeaway - I almost wanted it to have been more of a smash em up movie - and go all in with it! However - it was a good effort from all involved.

I'm not sure why it was called HellHound - perhaps that aspect could havebeen explored a bit more - I did get the connection to it through some of the dialogue, but I dont think it was explored enough.

There was humour but perhaps not enough.... Well done all involved.

Good points - Great location scouting, good establishing shots, all round DoP work is very proficient if unimaginative, great lighting and sound. Wardrobe and make up v good. V good direction of action scenes, the last fight in the red corridor was super and very atmospheric, tons of locations used very well Bad points - V poor script and story with terrible dialogue - cringeworthy at times made worse by some weak delivery. Very difficult to feel any empathy for the protagonist (the actor clearly took the money and ran) - totally confused in the final scenes with 2-3 new? Characters - no idea what was going on. Some of the acting was dreadful eg the priest and the very experienced Thai actors. There was no real character depth or arcs, 2D comic strip stuff.

The direction seemed non-existent in terms of creativity. It looked like a series of half-baked TV commercials stitched together rather than a plausible feature film.

Would you ask a writer to be a DoP? No, obviously not , so why ask a DoP to be a writer? Is it arrogance or lack of humility? I guess this was an expensive vanity project - The cool locations and lead actor could have been used to create an edgy crime drama if the producer or director paid an experienced script writer and acting coach 5-10k . Hope to see similar locations and crew create a much better 2nd feature.

At first the movie has a great atmosphere, the soundtrack works and the opening scene truly set the tone for what to expect in this movie. However the lead actor could have been better cast instead of this Bruce Willis meets Daniel Craig like guy. At times his accent can be incoherent The second the movie goes down hill is when the fight with the big tall guy after he brings the pretty woman home.

The fights were well choreographed but the issue unless I missed quite a lot not having subtitles for the other language was what made this get boring. It's an action movie so it's not like I'm going to miss much.

Without ruining anything I didn't like the ending either. I watched this 2 days ago and already forget most of the movie.