Black Lotus

On the surface Black Lotus seems like the type of movie Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jean-Claude van Damme would've starred in when they were in their prime. Unfortunately even by those standards this movie falls short. I knew this would be rough to sit through when we get an opening sequence that seems like it's trying to rip off Christopher Nolan's Tenet although it's no where near as good. You know those foreign action movies on Netflix that look really bad from every perspective except for the action and some flashy visuals? Black Lotus is essentially the same quality as one of those Netflix foreign action movies. Maybe slightly worse.

The acting from everyone including Rico isn't good. (Although it was hard to tell if some actors were dubbed or not.) Frank Grillo is the only one here who actually felt like a professional. Speaking of Frank Grillo by this point I think he's above doing movies like this so I can only assume he had bills to pay or something. So bad writing, bad acting for the most part. Well at least Rico Verhoeven can sell you on being a badass action star right? Wrong. With better writing and a better director maybe. Also I thought Rona Lee Shimon who's the female lead here and best known for Netflix's Fauda came off more badass here than Rico did.

I understand Rico Verhoeven has a dream to make it as an actor! But is there no one who can tell him he simply has no screen presence nor charisma on the big screen. Even if the the script, dialogue, direction and other elements were on point this still would've been a bust! Frank Grillo is a solid actor with some good work under his belt. Rico has the same but not in acting! It is remarkable that no one slammed the breaks on this train wreck. Rico seems to be a stand up guy with qualities but this is not it. Action stars are seldomly great actors but they often have a presence that compensates! I would think twice at taking another run at this. I would rather not do it than do it (this) badly! There have been very few actors of Dutch origin who were able to carve out a decent career in the US / english language movies and they could actually act. I doubt this will be even remotely successful in the Netherlands let alone internationally!

Luckily the movie looks really cheap so they might make a euro when all is said and done. A sequel seems completely out of the question and who would want one? I do hope Rico wins his next match in the ring though, that's were he stands out!

I went to the premiere om wednesday. Dutch studio's should really stop making action movies. This movie belongs on Netflix...or even better, just make it a free gift on the next Glory PPV.

The only reason I gave this movie a chance was because I'm a fan of fightsports, so Verhoeven and Grillo caught my attention. But the dialogues and the accents really ruined the movie. You really need subtitles to understand Marie Dompnier her English. The action and 'flashback' scenes are full of B-movies cliches and not in a fun way as you would expect from like a Van Damme or Stallone movies these days.

I'm really sorry for Frank Grillo. He didin't deserve this review, he's a good actor in my opinion.

I really couldn't stand it anymore after the first half...so I walked out. I have never done this before in my whole life.

The only thing worse then this movie....was the fact that I forgot my keys and had to go back.

I went in knowing or at least suspecting this was not going to a blockbuster. Being Dutch I of course wanted to see Rico's first feature performance.

What I find most off putting is the accents of the actors. If one has to protray an American or other native Englsh speaking national, they should at least have the ability to speak the languange in the correct accent. Or just let them speak their own languange in certain scenes and not pretend to let them be American.

The action editing here and there was incoherant. In the fist action scene it was hard to follow who was who. The cinematography was ok though but I don't understand the blue darkening filter in the end scene. It was clearly day time.. Pacing was slow and in the slow moments I was checking my instagram feed more than the movie. I didn't mind the score too much.

The plot is failrly standard, nothing special. Rico's acting was actually not as bad as I feared but obviously not A-list level yet. The dialogues were pretty crappy however.

Not sure what Frank Grillo was doing in this movie but he has had his hits and misses to be honest. His acting is fine and what you would expect from him. The rest of the acting on point for... B-movies.

All in all it's one of these straight to DVD movies.

There's some nice scenery and decent cinematography, and an adequate score for a B film, but the rest is all underwhelming. Maybe casting a stronger lead may have made this film more watchable, because Rico Verhoeven can't act. I'm sure part blame goes to poor cast directing, but it seems the rest of the cast held their own, so I can't say for sure. Verhoeven was just too bland, expressionless and carried himself like a big doofus. He was ok I guess in the action scenes, although hard to tell from the poor fight choreography. The female Interpol agent had a better fight scene at the end and looked more like an action star than Verhoeven. The only person who carried most of the film was Grillo, who wasn't on screen much, and he deserves much better than this mess. The writing was just a bunch of variations and cliches from much better movies in this genre. Even at a mere 90 min runtime, the pacing was slow and the story lacked urgency and was underwhelming, and just dragged onto the next predictable scene after scene.