Former wrestling star Stone Cold Steve Austin has had a clever approach to his recent movies: following his appearance in The Expendables, Austin has made a series of films which feature him alongside a particular crowd-pleasing action star. 2011’s Recoil teamed him with Danny Trejo, Maximum Conviction paired him with Steven Seagal, and now, in his latest film The Package, Austin is pitted against his Expendables co-star Dolph Lundgren.
The opening scene of The Package is a great one: Tommy Wick (Austin) and his partner track down a man who owes their boss Big Doug (Eric Keenleyside) money. Tommy’s partner is named Julio (Mike Dopud), although he looks nothing like a Julio and everything like a guy named Mike (the filmmakers seriously couldn’t have changed the name when a non-Hispanic actor was cast in the role?) Anyway, this is a typical opening scene for an action movie in order to establish the toughness of the lead character, but what makes it unique is that it is set in a bowling alley. Steve Austin beating someone down in a bowling alley is probably one of the best combinations since McDonald’s started doing Extra Value meals — it all just works together. Especially when Tommy finds a painful way to use the ball returner.
This great setup scene is followed by an unnecessary scene at a doctor’s office except to show the most subtly cleavagy nurses in movie history (well, non-dirty movie history). What this ties into is that Tommy is feeling like he’s too old to be a mob enforcer and that he should get into another line of work — something that his wife Darla (Kristen Kerr) agrees with. But Big Doug has a high paying job for Tommy and Julio that they simply can’t refuse: all they have to do is deliver a package to The German (Lundgren), an international crime lord. However, others want to get their hands on the package, and Tommy soon discovers that he has to fight his way to The German if he wants to finish the job.
Lundgren, as in One in the Chamber, is the standout despite his limited screen time. There’s a great scene where he is calmly making a smoothie as he explains to an enemy how painfully he is going to die. I know that sounds odd, but Lundgren’s natural charisma not only pulls it off but makes it one of the best scenes in the movie. However, that also says a lot about the movie when Lundgren making a smoothie is one of the most entertaining parts. This scene is evidence that writer Derek Kolstad, who wrote an excellent character for Lundgren in his script for One in the Chamber, knows how to get the best out of Lundgren. However, the rest of the movie doesn’t maintain that quality.
That’s because even though Lundgren is great, Austin seems bored. I ripped one of Austins’ previous films apart (Tactical Force) for its awfulness, but I didn’t have a bad word to say about Austin himself because he is generally solid in his action movie delivery. That’s not the case with The Package, and I’m not sure if it’s because the film tries to humanize Austin’s character more than normal (I hope I never see Austin in a makeout scene ever again), or if it is because the film resorts to giving him an incarcerated brother whose “debt” to Big Doug he has to work off in order to give him some indirect emotional investment in plot. Of course, Austin knows how to deliver a fight scene, but it is the minutes between that really drag.
What also drove me crazy is that just because this is a lower-budget action movie there is no excuse for poorly-executed action sequences. In Lundgren’s opening scene he gets ambushed by about four gun-toting guys in a restaurant. These idiots can’t hit Lundgren at a range of from what appears to be ten feet. Though Lundgren is using a much smaller man as a human shield, I can count the amount of times I have shot a gun on one hand and I would have little trouble hitting a 6’5″ man at that distance. The film’s director, Jesse V. Johnson, is a longtime stunt man and has directed a number of direct-to-video action films before this. I find it hard to believe that he couldn’t find a better way to construct this sequence with his experience.
As an action movie buff I’ll watch any movie starring the Expendables crew with little hesitation, and I always go into each one expecting an average action flick. This one was a bit of a letdown, with nothing innovative in regard to the action sequences and a dull story. Austin always shines when the material is strong, but in the case of The Package he doesn’t have anything particularly interesting to do.
The Disc
The Package is being released as a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack and DVD. Either way you won’t get any features, so if you buy the combo pack you’re getting two discs that are exactly the same.
Movie Rating: Not one of the better action movies for either Austin or Lundgren (3/10).
Disc Rating: Since there are no special features, if you’re an action movie fan check it out when it hits NetFlix rather than buying it (1/10).
The Package will be released on Blu-ray/DVD combo pack and DVD from Anchor Bay Films on February 19.
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