The Detonator

Unlike some of the reviews written here, I didn't hate this movie. It is a movie that COULD have been much better than it was. Not Oscar material, true, but much better than it was.

I thought the plot had a good hook and through line. Granted, this movie was badly written. And TERRIBLY directed and produced. I mean, how many irrelevant flashbacks can you have? Why were we there? What exactly is the point of the opening sequence? It seems like the producer(s) watched American Beauty a few too many times and thought 'I'll use that in an action movie!' I thought the movie wasn't that badly acted. Wesley Snipes did a credible job, he just ran afoul of some bad direction. And once this movie hit the production room, things just got worse. The main actress, I think, had the same problems. Some of the other acting was suspect, yes, but it was a low-budget flick. Again, I would say it is the director's job to pick that up and correct it.

As an overall recommendation, I would agree with the first review I read that this movie is not worth seeing. Or maybe it is worth seeing, if you are a film student and want to see what NOT to do.

3/10, and that's giving it praise.

I've seen a few bad action movies in my days, but this one's just plain awful. I feel it's a waste of time to even write this but I'll make it short. Why this movie suck? here are 10 reasons: 1. Very amateurly directed and cut. 2. Bad bad bad acting of the whole cast. 3. Silly dialogs and too many clichés. 4. Too many plot holes, a lot of scenes don't add up. 5. Bad photographing (and a lot of continuity issues). 6. Ridiculously bad performance by the lead female actress. 7. Unreliable action scenes (and not too good, either). 8. Even for a Snipes movie, he shows a big lack of acting materials. 9. Outrageous accents (of all the cast). 10. Last, but not least - too many implausible facts, such as a tournament of soccer in the U.S., CIA needing to do background checks to get new information about their employees, a mattress that is explosion proof and so on. In essence - it's a waste of time, it's not funny, not entertaining, not even as a joke - DON"T WATCH IT!!! Seriously, just don't.

After an undercover mission in Bucharest to disclose an international gang of weapon dealers, the agent Sonni Griffith (Wesley Snipes) is assigned to protect the Romanian Nadia Kaminski (Silvia Colloca), the widow of an accountant of the Romanian Mafia. However, the CIA safe house is broken in by the criminals, and Sonni realizes that the information was leaked from inside the Agency. Alone, trusting only in his friend Michael Shepard (William Hope), Sonni fights to survive and protect Nadia.

The career of Wesley Snipes is downhill. I have just seen this flick, and it is another disappointing movie of this actor, whose career is presently very similar to Steven Segal's one. The movie has many explosions, shots and car chase associated to an awful story and horrible acting. First, the Afro-American Wesley Snipes is chased by the police of Bucharest, but they never find a black American man. I have never been in Romania, but I believe there are not many Afro-Americans in this country. His character does not like to bath, wearing the same clothes along many days. There is no chemistry between Sonni and the sexy Silvia Colloca, but she freely has sex, falls in love for him and shares her fortune with him. The boy that performs Nadia's son is horrible. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "O Detonador" ("The Detonator")

The CIA secret agent Sonni Griffith(Wesley Snipes) travels to Romania for investigating a gunrunners and avoid the selling a nuclear weapon.Meanwhile he's killing Romanian gangster at a national soccer event,he's interrogating,gunning down people and burning suspects.Griffith is arrested at the Romanian semifinal cup match.Then is jailed but is freed by his friend ,the CIA agent Michael Shepard(William Hope).He's assigned a new mission ,scorting the Romanian named Nadia(Silvia Colocca).But he aware that Nadia is pursued by Josef Bostanescu(Tim Duttom),a megalomaniac nasty,he owns the stadium and soccer team and is preparing the biggest deal he've ever made.He tries to get from Nadia the information he needs: the location where are the thirty millions of dollars that she hid of her murdered ex-husband and accountant of Bostenescu and he wishes for buying the atomic bomb.When an information into CIA is leaked,allegedly from his chief(Michael Brandon)and reveals where are placed ,they must fight to survive against the gunrunners and save themselves.

The movie displays suspense,thriller, unstopped action and lots of violence when the killing happen.It's an average actioner movie with some entertaining moments but also with no sense scenes.Wesley is nice as action hero ,his early performances were as serious actor in dramas ,later turning as tough action man in films with big budget like¨Money train,Murder at 1600,US Marshall and Blade trilogy¨,although nowadays he solely movies with middling and low budget like as ¨Unstoppable,7 seconds,Chaos,The marksman¨.The movie is produced by Andrew Stevens Entertainment Inc.Andrew Stevens(son of Stella Stevens) was a famous actor of the 80s,today turned in successful producer,besides is produced by the starring Snipes and by Pierre Spengler,he's a veteran producer of known movies like the saga Superman-Reeve and the classic Three Musqueteers. The motion picture is shot in Castel studios of Romania where have been film the last vehicles of Steven Seagal and Van Damme.

When the Rumanian Mafia break into the safe house he's storing their accountant, Snipes' bosses are angry with him. Telling only his buddy, William Hope, he gets ahold of Silvia Colloca, the accountants widow, and runs around Bucharest (the architecturally uninteresting parts) trying to keep her alive.

The script consists about 97% of crashing-cars stunts, and I figured out about three minutes in who in the CIA was leaking information to the bad guys. There are plenty of shaky-cam shots, and I think there may be more footage with the camera tilted than with the camera level. Although Snipes and Miss Colloca are both capable actors, this is a movie where more care was taken in making sure that the lady's brassiere always rises the same height above he blouse than the script. Unless you're one of those people who think that crashing cars and gunfire make a good movie.