Savage Dog

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.

Martial arts actor Scott Adkins usually has a good sense of what film projects to pick, so when I found this particular film of his on Netflix, I took the opportunity to see it. It's not one of his very best movies, but overall it does have enough good things to warrant it a recommendation. Yes, it could have been a lot better than it ultimately is. The script is for the most part a collection of plot turns and occurrences that you will have seen many times before. The characters are also not that new as well. There are also some slow patches that will on occasion have the viewer telling the movie to simply get on with it. Also, there is a weird narration device throughout that doesn't really add anything, instead coming across as a possible post-production patch-up job.

But most people don't watch movies like this for their writing. Instead, they watch them for plentiful (and well done) action sequences. And when it comes to this part of the movie, things are pretty well done. The action (a mix of gunplay and martial arts) is very well crafted. In fact, it's pretty brutal, exciting, and bloody at times; whoever provided the fake blood for this movie probably comfortably retired when filming was completed.

As I indicated earlier, this is far from a perfect movie. It certainly isn't for everybody at any time. I would say that if you are in the mood for some brutal and well crafted action, and don't mind sitting through an awkward and very familiar story, the movie will grab your attention for 95 minutes.

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.

The setting was interesting, in this country at this moment of History. We don't see that very often. But the movie lacks beautiful scenery. Everythng is filmed so close.

As usual for Adkins movies : gunfights are boring, martial arts scenes are good (but not as good as in the Undisputed series).

The finale drags on too long.

The pitch could have been interesting but the movie gets lost.