Castle Falls

As a Dolph fan it's great seeing him in bigger films again (Creed II (2018), Aquaman (2018), The Expendables 4 (2023)) and with this film finally returning to the director's chair in over a decade (with the last film, Icarus (2010) going through quite some changes from Dolph's original version), but don't worry he's still got it!

Unlike what you might expect from a Dolph and Adkins movie, this plays off more like a drama in the first 50 minutes and only after that dipping heavily into the action. The story itself keeps you engaged with Dolph and Adkins as long as you're a fan of either actors, but does have its flaws. The building that's being blown up within 90 minutes doesn't have any 'rush' to it, most characters act rather casual and the few locations where there are explosions planted (and they can't use guns) end up having little impact either. There are also plenty of other little gripes (rarely reloading guns, gunshots echoing through the building with nobody outside noticing, people falling off the building while dozens are watching it, etc), but they don't really affect the enjoyment of the film and are semi-forgivable considering tons of action movies have these smaller 'flaws' as well.

While the characters of Dolph and Adkins are well-developed the bad guys are as generic and uninteresting as you can get and sadly the 'leader' of the bad guys is a stunt performer (Scott Hunter), but his fights ended up rather disappointing. As for the rest of the action scenes, they're well directed, choreographed, edited and performed.

Some transitions (especially at the beginning) felt a little rough and the soundtrack also wasn't great (and even slightly out of place at moments), but in general this is a well-made DTV film that will please any Dolph or Adkins film.

This was an actual modern martial arts film. -Probably the first I've seen where the fights are based on what we currently know to be the most effective and real approach to hand to hand combat.

And it wasn't overdone. -It wasn't a bunch of guys from the gym deciding to make a movie. The story came first, and the fights made sense, the skills baked into the story rather than the story being an excuse for them. That's competence, right there. Competent scripting.

As for the realism... I mean, the moves were all recognized and real MMA tactics. Nobody walks away without getting hurt. Nobody flies through the air. And no 100 pound girls bring down man bears. (The film did feature a girl, and she fought like a girl. She was a mean b****, and you wouldn't want to run into her in a dark ally, but she was a girl and the script and action dealt with her very believably.)

And best of all.., it was a solid story featuring Good Guys and Bad Guys, and some grey guys in between. But the hero was.., heroic! Damn! How often do you see that?)

It was mid-budget, nothing fancy, nothing to mark it as a Block Buster or make it stick out in the culture swirl. Sadly, it won't be remembered. It didn't look like 'money', but it was competent and engaging and satisfying. Nothing about it was stupid. (Though, I was making "Hurry Up" motions with my hands at the hero when he found the money. "Get out! Go Go Go! Stop being.., a regular guy who isn't used to this kind of world and who is taking a moment to deal with a 3 Million Dollar windfall... Okay, I get it, but still... GO!")

But seriously. Competent. Engaging. Satisfying. Nothing stupid.

Those are pretty rock solid hashtags. In today's insane media landscape? Yes.

Recommended!

Castle Falls is tightly scripted and efficiently directed film features Adkins and Dolph Lundgren. It is impressive to see these two martial arts action legends work together and play off of each other's strengths; both give strong performances. As for the action; the film does not disappoint it has well choreographed impressive fight scenes. It delivers solid entertainment, thrilling action sequences, some nail-biting tension broken up with some comic moments. Castle Falls won't please everyone as some will surely complain that it is slow at first but I feel that it was needed to set up the actions of the characters and make the audience care for the outcome. This is a smaller budgeted affair so don't go in expecting huge action set pieces.

Nowhere in the entire movie I saw the character of Lundgren wearing sunglasses, so how come in the poster he got one.

The plot has been done countless no of times before, none of the fights are brutal n the end a big piece of cake.

But still I enjoyed it cos of Lundgren n Adkins.

Granted, I hadn't even heard about the 2021 action thriller "Castle Falls" prior to sitting down and watching it. But I figured that since the movie had the likes of Scott Adkins and Dolph Lundgren in the lead roles, then chances were that I would be in for a fair enough movie. And I will also say that the movie's cover/poster was actually interesting enough.

And now that I have seen "Castle Falls", I will say that it was watchable. But that was also about it. For an action movie, then writer Andrew Knauer just didn't really deliver anything outstanding or memorable. Everything in "Castle Falls" was essentially something that had been seen and done in a lot of other similar movies, and often better done.

It should be said that the action sequences in the movie were nice, and there were a fair amount of action sequences, so that definitely make up somewhat for the lack of originality in storyline and script. But, of course, there is only so much that pure action can do for a movie.

It was actually fun to watch Scott Adkins and Dolph Lundgren on the screen together in this movie, and they certainly made the movie bearable to sit through. And I will say that this 2021 movie definitely outranks a lot of Dolph Lundgren's previous low budget action movies, so a step in the right direction.

If you enjoy action movies, then by all means give "Castle Falls" a chance. Just don't set your expectations high.

My rating of director Dolph Lundgren's 2021 action thriller lands on a mediocre five out of ten stars.