Témoins en sursis

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.

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.

The movie has a very mysterious twist to it. You don't know who is good and who is bad, along with surprising scenes that you won't believe are possible to occur. The movie is exciting and incredible. The movie includes two hot chicks, and other scenes that'll make you say "wow, how did that happen?" I recommend the movie to mystery and action fans.

I expected nothing from this straight to DVD thriller , especially remembering how painful were Lundgren earlier thriller efforts "Cover up" and "Jill ripps". I was somewhat pleasantly surprised . I've got something. One should not mistake "Hidden agenda" with a great movie , but it's reasonably entertaining time waster for a B-movie.

The plot seems to be inspired by the movie "Eraser" , however unlike Schwarzenegger movie it focuses more on the story than action set pieces (maybe because of the low budget) . This is techno thriller with only some action scenes here and there. Average action junkie might be disappointed. The movie actually feels realistic , something like this could happen in real life and that's a big plus for me.

The plot is fairly intelligent. The movie does make sense but it's unfortunately a little bit hard to follow . The main plot twist was too obvious and at the end the story gets muddled. This is one of those films where you can't tell the bad people from the good, so everyone is suspect. It kinda feels like there are too many characters in this movie. At the end not everything feels resolved and not every character motivations are clear. Big minus for that.

Lundgren gives a fine performance. It must have been a treat for him to play smart and classy guy , not muscle man. He gives his character Jason Price enough charm and intelligence to make audience care for him. Maxim Roy is very hot as the femme fatale and gives a okay performance. The rest of the cast is not bad , but nothing to write home about.

Director Marc S. Grenier obviously works on limited budget , but somehow manages to give this movie a certain atmosphere (the snow keeps falling all the time , the shots of city traffic are sped up ). Sadly , he fails when it comes to action scenes. The opening chase at the airport is decent , but things go downhill from there. The action scenes are badly "Matrix" stylized and the camera work is too shaky. The final gun battle is also poorly staged. In the end the action is below average.

The music is pretty cool . It's a quite catchy electronic score . The few CGI effects look like taken from 90's movie. The dialogues are decent.

Anyway , for a B-movie it does what it promises - provides harmless entertainment for one night. Compared to some other Lundgren movies (especially the rest of his DTV stuff) "Hidden agenda" is a quality movie. It remains one of Lundgren's better movies in quite awhile. I give it 4/10. Maybe I'm too harsh , if you're a Lundgren fan , give it one star more.

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