Hunt to Kill

Starring Steve Austin, Gary Daniels and Eric Roberts, the main villains in "The Expendables", here's another action flick for you. Except that it's a story you've probably seen before, or at least have seen enough elements of it.

Who hasn't seen a cop or gun-toting man have his daughter kidnapped and then he is forced to either help the villains or kill them all? I mean, really... the least you could do is substitute a son.

The best part of this film is towards the beginning after the heist. The interaction between the criminals is pretty awesome. Once Steve Austin shows up, it's kind of downhill. Not his fault, mind you -- Austin was terrific in his past work and is pretty decent here. The story just gets old quickly.

This is quite possibly the stupidest action movie I've ever seen. The plot, is cliché, sure, they all are in this genre now. There is a reason that Stallone and the Spermanator are famous for their abilities to make crappy plots work.

Stone Cold doesn't have that, the dude is a good actor, and was a great athlete, but they have to stunt doubles for him RUNNING for christs sake. And as awesome as a clash between "Steve "I drink beer and have rough sex with fear" Austin" and "Darth Maul" could have been, it's not. It's the antithesis of what you'd expect from such a showdown.

I mean, there is a low speed ****ing ATV chase, and seeing Austin pop a wheelie on a four wheeler to smash a bad guy into a wall, before shooting said ATV with a flare... Was beyond my tolerance for stupidity, I was hung over, on the couch, and helpless to turn this off since my xbox controller was out of reach. I'm warning you ahead of time so no one else has to suffer. Don't watch this.

Watching a movie with Steve Austin you know what you get. Action, decent plot. I can say I was not expecting an ungrateful teenager. She almost ruined the movie for me...

I put off seeing "Hunt To Kill" for a long time, after coming across several negative reviews of it; I only rented it the other day when I was able to rent it very cheaply. After seeing it, I can understand what provoked those negative reviews. To be fair, not everything about the movie is disappointing. The production values are pretty good, the British Columbia locations the movie shot at are attractive to the eye, and Steve Austin shows he can play a tough and charismatic protagonist. If he can get on projects with good scripts and directors, I predict he could have a healthy B movie career ahead of him. Unfortunately, "Hunt To Kill" is not well-written or directed. The movie is surprisingly dull for the most part, with endless bickering between the characters and very little action for the first hour. What action there is isn't well-constructed, with poorly chosen camera angles and edits. Eric Roberts fans beware: He only appears for just a few minutes.

HUNT TO KILL is a routine action vehicle for wrestler-turned-actor Steve Austin, who plays the usual unstoppable hulking hero type in this story about a gang of bank robbers who abscond to the forests to make their escape by crossing the border into Canada. Along the way they pick up Austin's daughter, forcing him in turn to become their guide under the threat of violence.

What follows is almost a scene by scene rip-off of Stallone's CLIFFHANGER, made on a much lower budget of course and without much of the finesse. Saying that, it's still a relatively entertaining B-picture, packing a plenitudes of action into the brief running time. It's certainly more entertaining than some of the rubbishy vehicles that director Keoni Waxman has made for Steven Seagal.

The film has plenty of faults, with poor character motivations and a dearth of originality in the screenplay (I was surprised when Austin fell down the cliff-face for a second time), not to mention tons of unbelievable stuff with the star shrugging off bullet hits and the like. But there's at least one decent fight scene (featuring the great, under-utilised Gary Daniels), a fun hammy performance from chief bad guy Gil Bellowes, a cameo from Eric Roberts, and a pacing that's fast enough for you to generally ignore the various problems.