Détention

Detention is like a cross between "The Breakfast Club" and "Die Hard", only without the character development of the former or the special effects budget of the latter. The result is surprisingly entertaining and often wonderfully tasteless. In short, Detention is one of the better lightweight action movies to hit video shelves in some time.

Dolph Lundgren has spent the past few years mainly appearing in relatively gritty low budget action films like his directorial debut "The Defender" and its follow up, "The Mechanik". While I enjoyed both of those films, it comes as a nice surprise to see Dolph appear in something as stupidly entertaining as Detention. Make no mistake about it - this film is dumb in a very big way. You could get a bad case of RSI from writing down all the goofs and plot holes. However, what it lacks in credibility, the film more than makes up for in enthusiasm and an almost 1980s approach to action. There are very few dull computer effects here, just a lot of old fashion shootings and a couple of decent explosions.

The story involves Dolph's character, Sam, struggling with his disillusionment as a teacher at an inner city high school. Sam decides to resign but is asked to supervise detention on his last day. Unfortunately for Sam, he finds himself locked in the school building with a bunch of his delinquent students and an incredibly camp and violent crime boss called Chester. Conveniently, Sam is an ex-soldier and he calls on his military training to fight the intruders. The story is as clichéd and derivative as it sounds. Nevertheless, it allows Dolph to flex his action hero muscles and provides plenty of opportunities for senseless violence.

Detention benefits greatly from an undercurrent of black humour and a touch of irony. The characters are all pretty amusing, from the crack smoking, foul mouthed students, to Chester and his woeful to the point of being funny one-liners. The film also contains one of the funniest and most ridiculous chase scenes ever captured on film when one of the bad guys chases a wheelchair bound student (Dov Tiefenbach in another interesting role) on a motorbike. Sam's ability to turn a trolley into a metal covered battering ram, complete with metallic spikes, in a matter of minutes is similarly mind boggling.

The special effects are generally pretty basic but there is enough blood and shooting to keep action fans happy. Sidney J. Furie's direction is lively and he keeps the pace mercifully brisk. Sidney has been making genre films since the 1960s and he's still churning out good work. Detention is not a great film and it never pretends to be one. It is, however, 90 minutes of hugely enjoyable, dumb fun. If nothing else, watch it for the wheelchair chase sequence.

Detention has Dolph Lundgren former army ranger and now history and gym teacher getting stuck with supervising Detention on his last day of school. Lundgren is kind of disillusioned with teaching and surely babysitting for some of the worst motivated kids in his school is one find sendoff.

However on this day after 3:00 pm the school figures prominently in the plans of Alex Karzis and his gang of criminal misfits to pull off a robbery of drugs confiscated by the police. There's even crooked cops in on it.

Between Lundgren's kids and Karzis's gang it's quite the struggle. The whole scheme is something you might find in a Mel Brooks film and in the case of Karzis he never figured some folks would be staying after school or it would be someone like Lundgren. It's like an episode of the old A-Team series.

In the spirit of that old show, you might enjoy this rather goofy film.

STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs

Sam Decker (Dolph Lundgren) is a history teacher at Hamilton High School who has tired of the attitude of the students and hands in his resignation.However,on his last night there,he is asked to supervise a detention class when drug runner Chester Lamb (Alex Karzis) and his cronies highjack the school,trapping him and the students inside.However,what he or no else had counted on was Sam,and the fact that he is also a former marine.

A couple of years back,Lundgren announced that he planned to retire from movies to spend more time with his wife and kids.However,he must have had a pretty poor pension plan or he must have just found out the hard way that the bills still needed to be payed,for all he appears to have done is taken a two year sabbatical (during which numourous projects in the pipeline either never came to fruition or were just plain scapped) before headbilling this very promising looking thriller from Sidney J Furie,who I remember as the helmer of the rather entertaining Iron Eagle movies from the late 80s.

This is a movie that I was really looking forward to seeing (and,given the lengthy wait that always seems to occupy the release of new Dolph movies to these shores,believe me,you learn how to look forward to them) and that I really thought and hoped was going to be a really entertaining movie.

Alas,the most stinging disappointments come when your hopes are really high.And,as I said already,Detention is a major disappointment.

The plots to similarly themed and plotted movies such as Under Siege and Passenger 57 have hardly been anything less than implausible,but the story here is just ridiculously improbable and utterly stupid,and just gets sillier and sillier as it progresses,like a snowball rolling down a steep hill.This is complimented by an uneven,patchy script that tears everything that looked appealing about the movie to shreds.Much like another film of Dolph's,1995's The Shooter,this is billed as an action film but said action is practically non-existent,rendering an already uninvolving affair in to something even more labourious and tedious.Karzis is a ridiculously camp,pantomine-ish villain and just gets more embarrassing as events roll on.

Detention is ultimately that most disheartening of bad films,an idea that,though done before,had the potential to be brilliant but ultimately emerges as actually less fun than a detention you may have suffered during your ol' school days.It's a little worrying too,actually,as another upcoming film of Dolph's (looks like that retirement really was a spur-of-the-moment thing!) by the name of Direct Action also has a really interesting sounding premise.One can only hope that this is just a minor glitch in the system and that that film really delivers what it promises.*

A trivial plot, a bad interpretation.. One of the worst Dolph movie.

DETENTION

You know it is never a good sign when you can honestly say the best actor in the movie is Dolph Lundgren.

This film is bad... the story is nothing new. The acting was terrible. and there were so many things in this film that were so pathetic is was unbelievable. I mean, the bad guys looked like they belonged in Layztown. They could not shoot a non moving target, let alone students running away from them.

There was one scene where it felt like the A-Team. The students were hiding out in the Gym at their school, but in the gym just so happened to be an archery set all ready for them.

I still don't fully understand why the bad guys were in the school in the first place.

Honestly, this is a really bad B movie... funny in places, but not for the right reasons.

I will give this film 4 out of 10.

Dolph is lucky Stallone even called him for the Expendables after this film.

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