Hunt to kill - Caccia all'uomo

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...

It's ironic that anyone who claim to have wasted their life watching these kinds of movies, somehow still find the time to write a review about how much they dislike the movie... This action film, yes, "action" film, does enough to keep you intrigued. Could it of been better? Sure, but it is entirely watchable and entertaining. I also recommend "The Package" and "Maximum Conviction", if you enjoy Steve Austin movies.

Looks like I am 0-for-2 when it comes to DTV action flicks with "kill" in the title this month with this and Dolph Lundgren's disappointing THE KILLING MACHINE. Some genius producer corralled the villains (Steve Austin, Eric Roberts and Gary Daniels) from Stallone's THE EXPENDABLES and put them in a cheap-o film. Jim Rhodes (Austin) is a border patrol agent who is forced (via the hostage daughter routine) to lead a gang on an excursion near the Canadian border. The gang is led by Banks (Gil Bellows, looking rough) and they are trying to find the guy who double crossed them after a heist. After they get their haul, they leave Rhodes for dead but he uses his Rambo-esquire survival skills to get them. Zzzzzzzz. This is the first "Stone Cold" Steve Austin film I've seen and he is surprisingly personality deprived (surprising because of his popular wrestling persona). The film's highlight is a fight between Austin and Daniels, which ends with Daniels run through with a stick and Austin saying, "Sorry you couldn't stick around." Really...in 2010. Director Keoni Waxman did several of those awful DTV Steven Seagal flicks and offers nothing outside of the film being in focus and some good forest locations. It is one of those movies where bad guys uncover a bomb in a huge warehouse and everyone stands 2 feet from it while one guy defuses it instead of getting the hell away. Eric Roberts is the doomed partner is the prologue and is gone by the seven minute mark. Skip it...and that's the bottom line cuz "Stone Lukewarm" Udar55 said so!

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.

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.