Sweepers

my dad came home one day with a DVD double feature, he'd paid a £1 for it and it feature two Dolph films, Bridge of Dragons and Sweepers. Needless to say i was happy, i love b-style action movies and my dad had just picked up two potential winners.

Bridge of Dragons for the record was pretty good, not a classic but a fun action movie.

Sweepers however was a huge letdown, it starts brightly enough the whole opening scenes on the minefield are pretty cool and after the 'Roadhouse' style bar-fight scenes i thought i was in for a good time...then it all goes wrong. It's hard to pin-point what's wrong with this film, it's a basic story easy enough to follow and there's come decent action, it's just so stale and normal it makes me sick.

i find it hard to understand why people make films like this, what were they trying to achieve? generic pap overall, but still it was watchable...if your a Dolph fan, check it, if not avoid.

3/10

This film was a real snooze-fest interrupted by brief flashes of action. In fact, most of the action took place at the beginning and the end. You could skip the whole middle.

Dolph Lundgren sure didn't show the action hero we saw in The Punisher or Universal Soldier as a demolitions expert in taking apart land mines.

Claire Stansfield was equally flat as the woman who recruited him to help rid Angola of a new type of mine.

Someone even compared Lungren to Commando Arnold. What a joke!

I imagine that there is a market for movies like this in foreign countries.

Very disappointing movie to say the least. A "cheap shot" if you will.

However, the only good thing about this movie is the collaborative interaction between Hollywood (American)and African (predominantly South African) actors/crew: which is POSSIBLE. As a South African it was also quite funny to see Dolph Lundgren drinking "beer" from a bottle labelled with a well-known South African beer brand. This taking into account the supposed script location to be "Angola".

Judging Claire Stansfield for the first time(not having seen any of her earlier movie efforts)it seems she'd be better off displaying her physical features in a movie genre that requires it. Acting prowess, as far as she is concerned, is non-existent. I'll rate this movie 3/10 for effort and just going through the motions of movie making.

1998 Dolph Lundgren action flick with a surprisingly decent budget for its time, telling the story of a humanitarian minesweeping operation in Angola which uncovers a covert operation that is planting new and deadly mines. The movie kicks in about halfway through and has some good action spots with the ending set piece, in particular, being impressive. It's not the best Dolph has to offer and for the first half of the movie he doesn't do much except drink and shout but it gives you a Lundgren fix in the end

Another cheesy B action vehicle from Dolph Lundgren during his prime in the 90s. Sweepers doesn't have a ton going for it, but as a schlocky bad action movie, it's perfect.

The premise is strange, and it works for an action movie. A minesweeper learns of dangerous new mines being planted, and tries to find the distributor. Dolph goes full Indiana Jones here, wearing the same kind of clothes, even the hat, and he also wears a leather jacket in one scene.

Dolph is the best actor here, elevating the proceedings with a certain level of class and charm that the movie really doesn't deserve. Bruce Payne was ok, but this is definitely not one of his best roles. Everyone else was meh.

Keoni Waxman, a director most notable for his B and C-list action films, is responsible for 9 Steven Seagal DTV movies, and 2 Steve Austin ones. It's unfortunate, as he's a good action director, and he stages some nice set pieces.

The action is obviously the reason to watch. The opening battle scene was cool, if slightly laughable, the house shootout, bar fight, jeep/helicopter chase, house fight/shootout, mineshaft fight and shootout, and final battle aboard the train were all good. The movie's strength is in the last 15 minutes, and the train sequence was cool. The movie looks to have a pretty high budget, with lots of practical effects and tons of explosions. It's thoroughly satisfying.

It's another excellent piece of B entertainment overall, and it's one of Dolph's more underrated films for sure. I recommend it to action and Dolph fans. It's a bad film, but enjoyably bad.