Chien sauvage

I found "Savage Dog" on Netflix and decided to give it a watch, as Scott Atkins have some fair enough movies every now and again.

"Savage Dogs" was not a particularly outstanding movie, nor was it a bad one. It was actually entertaining enough for what it turned out to be, just don't get your expectations up too high.

The story was straight forward, albeit quite predictable and generic. So director and writer Jesse V. Johnson didn't really throw the audience anything to think about. You simply just lean back and enjoy the ride for what it turned out to be.

As an action movie, then "Savage Dog" of course have martial arts and fight scenes. The fight scenes were adequate, although very visibly staged and choreographed to the extend where it wasn't looking all that natural. Well, except for the fight between Cung Le and Scott Atkins.

The cast was good and did alright jobs with their given roles, even though they had very little to work with in terms of storyline and plot.

This is a mediocre action movie, and hardly a movie that you will watch more than once.

I went into this as a random pick and mix film, they tend to be horrors.....this wasn't.

Savage Dog is an old school action flick starring Scott Adkins and the excellent veteran of the industry Keith David.

It tells the story of a disgraced former boxer in 1959 who finds himself at the mercy of a local baron who wants him to fight for money. It's full of your usual mindless action tropes and though the action certainly looks good it doesn't make it any different than 10k comparable titles.

The narration/performance by David is solid as usual, as for Adkins I don't see the appeal. The man is dull and lifeless much like Van Damme and Lungren were when they first started out in the industry.

Every square inch of this film has been done before and better. I may not be the demographic, I may generally not like action films and therefore am hard to please but this is so generic it hurts.

The Good:

Action looks great

Keith David

The Bad:

As shallow and mindless as they come

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Action movie actors start terrible and get marginally better over the years

I reckon if Scott Adkins was around in the 80s he'd be a very big star. As it is, he even struggles having a fan base in his "home" in the UK. But that doesn't stop him having decent success in quite a few movies in recent years. Also while I'm not sure if he's big in Japan (tonight), I do know he's big in Germany.

But even over here this particular movie will have some issues. Or rather limited success to be more specific. While the movie does try to give the whole thing a slightly different taste with its story it doesn't work that well overall. Also the action scenes are not the best he's done, stunt wise that is. If you're a fan of his work, this may be worth a look, but everyone else should probably spend their time otherwise

I read some reviews that say this is a bad movie, but good for Scott Adkins fans. I tend to disagree. The good thing about this movie is that the director and Adkins try something different, but end up making the same movie over and over. Adkins shows that he doesn't evolve as an actor. And as a martial artist, he reached his peak way before this one. It's easy to say that this movie offers more than Ninja 1 and 2, but at the same time it offers less than anything Adkins should offer.

Adkins works better as a co-part in a mainstream movie, because as a lead actor in B-movies, he is done and is going the same way Seagal, Van Damme and others are, who make too many (of the same) movies.

Adkins, you can do better, and less is more.

I had expected another standard martial arts flick but was pleasantly surprised to see that the director has put in some effort at character establishment , having some sort of story ...some effort at acting etc , and making the most of whatever little budget he had .... Make no mistake its still a low budget B level movie created mainly for martial arts fans ....but it was a refreshing take to see some effort being made to create a movie what we can call a decent one time watch...

Hope to see more from the Director ....