Détention

To most, Dolph Lundgren isn't the best of movie performance material. It also doesn't help when a fairly well known actor goes into hiding by making hit or miss films because of outside problems. What's odd though, is that Dolph Lundgren hasn't had any publicity issues. And if he has, it's been well covered up because there have been no reports about it. You would think that after making popular films like Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991) and Universal Soldier (1992), he would have continued to make big hit screen movies like his other muscle counterparts. Instead Lundgren went into an almost two decade absence on the big screen.

So, because this movie was released in 2003, this is half way through his absence. At this point he was making Direct-to-Video films and Detention (2003) is one of these. Problem is, it didn't do anything for me. Even worse is that the title only exists because of the setting that its in. The story is about a group of criminals who break into a school to get a vanload of cocaine out of the country. And the only man that will get in their way is a gym/history teacher who's holding a detention after school. His name is Sam Decker (Dolph Lundgren).

This already doesn't sound very promising. Here's what works, which isn't all too much. If you (the viewer) want to see Dolph Lundgren play a role that is in his genre but dressed like he's going to work at a cubical, this is it. It's very interesting to see Lundgren be a character without armor and big weapons. Another notable part of this movie is the supporting cast. Even though they aren't memorable characters, they do carry some charm because of how various individuals act in different situations.

One actor who I found to be putting a lot of effort to make his character stand out was Alex Karzis as the main villain. A lot of the time Karzis would make strange gestures, faces or remarks that made me look at the screen and say (while chuckling) - "What was the point of that?" But hey, it kept my attention. The only other piece that worked in this movie was the music by Amin Bhatia. But even that I don't favor all too much because there was no theme, even if the music sounded average. It did lose me now and then so ehhh.

Now to the bad. In all honesty, there was a very thin story. The premise is just a setup for Dolph Lundgren to go jumping through windows and shooting handguns. There is a little bit of a flash back that involves post traumatic stress but is only to be given away one more time for a brief moment to reveal a connection. What's even weirder is that even when this movie doesn't have much of a story to go by, it manages to drag itself at various intervals. Which brings me to the last point, the action was very sporadic. It really wasn't present all too much. It felt very diluted, which I think is rare for a Dolph Lundgren movie.

I'm also going to guess that the direction to this movie wasn't great since it was headed by Sidney J. Furie, the director of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987). It's hard to say. I was on the fence for this one. It doesn't please me like most of Lundgren's movies but it doesn't disappoint that badly either. I hope I don't run into anymore Lundgren movies like this.

It offers a few interesting concepts but its concentration is lacking. Its cast also tries to show some charm but its script and minimal action provide little to work with.

A trivial plot, a bad interpretation.. One of the worst Dolph movie.

A bunch of Canadian exploitation legends were put together to make this movie - writers Paul Lynch (PROM NIGHT, BULLIES) and John Sheppard (BULLIES, AMERICAN NIGHTMARE), as well as the legendary director Sidney J. Furie (IRON EAGLE IV), who lost any directorial ability he may once have had a number of years earlier! Not that Lynch and Sheppard have had exactly stellar careers.

The movie appears to be a rip-off of the 1987 movie TERROR SQUAD, which was goofy fun. You think that with more at their disposal, this movie would be better than that one. Think again. Despite the considerable budget ($10 million), movie looks extremely cheap, with the production values of Canadian TV dramas that are typically made for about a tenth of that value! That might have been forgivable had the movie been exciting, but it isn't. None of the action scenes is particularly good. In fact, a number of them have stupid touches. (Why, when Lundgren holds a shield, doesn't the shooter just shoot him in the legs? Why, when one of the protagonists knocks a bad guy down, do they immediately run away instead of using the chance to beat on them more?)

In fact, the whole movie is full of stupid things. Why would a lockdown on the school lock down the fire exits as well? If the school is locked down, how did they get to the roof? Most importantly, why on earth did the bad guys think using a high school was their best choice? In fact, the more I think about the movie, the more dumb things come to my mind. I could go on and on, but I won't. Lundgren understandably doesn't seem that enthralled by it all, but you have to give him credit for at least putting some effort in his performance. At one point, his character reads a Clive Cussler novel. Do that instead of watching this movie - you'll be a lot more entertained, I assure you!

I'm not sure where this genre got it's start. 'Blackboard Jungle'? It's also reminiscent of Tom Berenger's 'Substitute 1' and '2'.

Dolph's lean, and in top form, as he takes on recalcitrant students and a gang that's bent on taking over the high school.

The gang members have lots of strangely colored hair, assorted tattoos and body piercings, if you like that sort of thing, but when they shoot they can't seem to hit anything.

I especially enjoyed watching the thug on a motorcycle in a high school hallway who could neither catch nor hit with a machine gun a cripple running away in a wheel chair.

Grab the popcorn and settle back for an hour and a half of not too serious fun.

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

Sam Decker (Dolph Lundgren) is a history teacher at Hamilton High School who has tired of the attitude of the students and hands in his resignation.However,on his last night there,he is asked to supervise a detention class when drug runner Chester Lamb (Alex Karzis) and his cronies highjack the school,trapping him and the students inside.However,what he or no else had counted on was Sam,and the fact that he is also a former marine.

A couple of years back,Lundgren announced that he planned to retire from movies to spend more time with his wife and kids.However,he must have had a pretty poor pension plan or he must have just found out the hard way that the bills still needed to be payed,for all he appears to have done is taken a two year sabbatical (during which numourous projects in the pipeline either never came to fruition or were just plain scapped) before headbilling this very promising looking thriller from Sidney J Furie,who I remember as the helmer of the rather entertaining Iron Eagle movies from the late 80s.

This is a movie that I was really looking forward to seeing (and,given the lengthy wait that always seems to occupy the release of new Dolph movies to these shores,believe me,you learn how to look forward to them) and that I really thought and hoped was going to be a really entertaining movie.

Alas,the most stinging disappointments come when your hopes are really high.And,as I said already,Detention is a major disappointment.

The plots to similarly themed and plotted movies such as Under Siege and Passenger 57 have hardly been anything less than implausible,but the story here is just ridiculously improbable and utterly stupid,and just gets sillier and sillier as it progresses,like a snowball rolling down a steep hill.This is complimented by an uneven,patchy script that tears everything that looked appealing about the movie to shreds.Much like another film of Dolph's,1995's The Shooter,this is billed as an action film but said action is practically non-existent,rendering an already uninvolving affair in to something even more labourious and tedious.Karzis is a ridiculously camp,pantomine-ish villain and just gets more embarrassing as events roll on.

Detention is ultimately that most disheartening of bad films,an idea that,though done before,had the potential to be brilliant but ultimately emerges as actually less fun than a detention you may have suffered during your ol' school days.It's a little worrying too,actually,as another upcoming film of Dolph's (looks like that retirement really was a spur-of-the-moment thing!) by the name of Direct Action also has a really interesting sounding premise.One can only hope that this is just a minor glitch in the system and that that film really delivers what it promises.*