Hidden Agenda

It's almost become a given that as action stars age, their movies become exponentially worse, and dumber. Dolph has not been immune to this trend as evidenced by some of his most recent outings.

Which is why I was so pleasantly surprised by his latest (and last? if rumors are to be believed) film. HIDDEN AGENDA is by far Dolph's most intelligent, and probably best, movie to date. It is what MISSION IMPOSSIBLE I&II and ERASER aspired to, but failed to deliver.

The script is well-plotted and the writing crisp (I noticed it's the same writer, Les Welden, who wrote Van Damme's best recent-memory film, REPLICANT) with some nice one-liners delivered with tongue and cheek savoir-faire by Dolph. But it is the directing which stands out. Marc Grenier, whose other films I have not yet seen, delivered a terrific looking film on what was clearly a limited budget. He also got a nice performance out of Dolph who is usually constrained to one-sentence grunts and kicks. The action and suspense were plentiful as were the twists and turns.

Overall, a must-see for any Dolph fan, or any movie goer who likes intelligent, suspenseful films. It's a shame films like this one get relegated to direct-to-video status when so many other horrible movies find the big screen just because stars are in them. My $8 would've certainly been better spent on this than half the films I've seen this year.

****1/2 out of 5 stars.

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

If you're an avid action fan,you'd have to have been living on planet Mars for about the past month and a half not to have heard newspaper rumours that apparently Dolph Lundgren,our favourite DTV action star,is quitting acting for 20 years.

If this abhorrent rumour is proved to be true (and pray to God it isn't!) ,then HA is a fine movie to depart on.

The plot is basically a spin on Arnold Schwarzenegger's Eraser,with Dolph as Witness Protection Agent Justin Price,who must put a face to a mystery assasin who's bumping off his people.It is truly as hard-to-follow as M:I-2,and way too jumbled for a movie of this sort.

The action scenes,however,are brilliant,working on both the fight scenes,the gunfights and the explosions.This delivers the goods Dolph fans have ordered with their rental fare,and the Swedish man will always be the king of DTV action movies,no matter what the outcome.

Speaking of the fans,don't let his previous film Agent Red put you off from seeing another movie with him in it,let's just say this is a much more,er,PROFESSIONAL effort.***

I admit up front I'm not a fan of this genre. I have never seen a Jean Claude van Damme film, only saw a couple of the Rocky movies, I've seen one Schwarzenegger and one Stephen Segal. Though I knew who Dolph Lundgren was, I'd never seen him or one of his movies.

Tuning into what I thought was a different film called "Hidden Agenda," I got a look at all 6'5 of Dolph Lundgren, the high cheekbones etc., and thought I'd give this "Hidden Agenda" a try.

This film is apparently different from other Lundgren films according to other reviews, but I can't judge it on that basis.

In the story, Lundgren plays Jason Price, a former government agent. His job is to help people disappear. However, it appears that a hit man called The Cleaner has somehow infiltrated Price's group and is knocking off people the FBI wanted to protect. It's up to Price to find out who it is.

This is one of those films where you can't tell the bad people from the good, so everyone is suspect. There were lots of things blowing up, car chases, and fights, but I found it entertaining and involving.

I wasn't familiar with the other actors in the film except for Francis X. McCarthy, but they were all good. The only strange thing was the film had a "dubbed" sound to it, even though it wasn't dubbed. Perhaps they had to re-record the sound in a studio - don't know.

Anyway, not bad for my first Lundgren foray. He's quite good at what he does.

Dolph Lundgren stars as Jason Price a NSA agent who after losing a witness in his protection agency investigates the leak and finds out that there's more then what meets the eye in this mediocre thriller which is definitely a nice looking feature but the plot is just too hard to follow making this for Dolph Lundgren fans who will ignore the plot and just enjoy the action. Still it remains one of Lundgren's better movies in quite awhile.

Ex-agent(?) Price(Dolph in an atypical role, if he does still sport a gun... and automatic pistol) designed the Daedelus program to hide those who must not be found. He's asked by a criminal(?) named Elkert to help him out with it, and then his friend and colleague(?), Sonny goes under, as well. But something goes wrong, and the team behind it, including our lead, have to determine what's going on, before The Cleaner, the perfect(and anonymous) assassin, finds his next victim. This is a picture of two halves, the first one a thriller(with insipid suspense music), second one an action flick(with an overly techno-sounding score). It holds your attention better in the latter, with numerous reveals to the onslaught of plot twists(at least most of them do surprise us), though by the end, several things feel unresolved(it doesn't help that it has no specific "villain", or a central goal for our heroes), and it consistently feels too vague, to the point where you can't trust anyone. The one-liners are few and bad. Storytelling is severely lacking, with this being immensely confusing. You probably have to watch it several times just to figure out what's even going on, and before attempting to sit through this more than once, well, you'd have to come up with a reason for doing so. The filming is decent, although coverage on the fight scenes(as well as lighting, sometimes) is below average. This uses slow-motion, and sometimes, still frames(...yeah, wrap your head around that one) in those bits sometimes, and it doesn't do so to good effect. There is some violence, strong language and brief sexuality and topless female nudity in this. I recommend this to fans of mindless entertainment. 5/10