Sisu: Road to Revenge (2025)

"Tremendous, Gory, Action-Packed Entertainment"

Following its UK cinema release late last year, Finnish writer-director Jalmari Helander's sequel to his own 2023 SISU which I reviewed here is getting a digital release from Sony. You don't need to have seen the first film to enjoy this one though, which also begins by making it clear that SISU isn't the name of our protagonist, but rather it's an untranslatable Finnish word that describes white-knuckle determination despite all hope being lost. And, like the first film, that's pretty much what you get for the next 90 minutes, although arguably better.

It's 1946 and World War II is over. Unfortunately Finland has seceded part of its border to Russia, which means the house belonging to living Nazi-killing legend Aatami (a returning Jorma Tommila) is now 120 km away from the Finnish border. Never one to let such a trifling matter get in his way, he dismantles the entire house, loads it onto a lorry and sets off for Finland.

Meanwhile, Stephen Lang's Yeagor Dragunov is being set up by the script (by way of dialogue from an equally excellent, equally villainous turn from Richard Brake) as the baddest of baddies, who killed our hero's children with a shovel "to save on bullets". His mission? To stop and detain our hero at all costs.

And that's it for setup. The rest of the film is one long series of encounters between the good guy and the baddies, heavily influenced by silent cinema in general and Buster Keaton in particular, George Miller's MAD MAX movies (especially THE ROAD WARRIOR) and Warner Bros. cartoons. In fact SISU: ROAD TO REVENGE could be considered a feature length live action Road Runner movie par excellence, and if you like (and especially if you love) any of the above you're going to have a terrific time with this. There's a brilliant bit with a truck and a jaw-dropping laugh out loud sequence with a tank, culminating in an extended climax on a train which is as funny and tension-filled as it is explosively satisfying.

And now the housekeeping. First of all Aatami has a dog and I know some of you will be wondering so: It does not die.

Second, I'd normally post the trailer here but SISU: ROAD TO REVENGE has been given an extra boost to its publicity by having a tie-in burger created for it, so if you fancy eating one while watching the film (they haven't sent me the Sisu Stack for review - yet - but I can certainly vouch for the film) here are the details:

Jalmari Helander's SISU: ROAD TO REVENGE is out on Digital from Sony and is available to Buy or Rent at home now

Zero (2025)

The new film from Jean Luc Herbulot (SALOUM) is getting a UK cinema and digital release from Blue Finch.

An American man wakes up on a bus in Dakar with a bomb strapped to his chest. It's already counting down as a voice (played by Willem Dafoe) tells him he's going to have to complete five missions before he will be set free. The first involves obtaining a mobile phone from a well-known wrestler and the tasks escalate from there. 

Along the way he encounters another American in a similar situation, with the two being expected to work together on the tasks. Meanwhile they continue to try and find ways to escape their situation while attempting to discover why they have ended up as they have in the first place.

This all sounds fairly generic and entertaining Hollywood thriller stuff, but this is a film that may well subvert your expectations from that point of view. Seasoned fans of this sort of plot may well be able to guess what's going on, at least in part, but it's still worth sticking with this one until the end.

Herbulot's previous SALOUM was a horror picture about mercenaries getting more than they bargained for in a remote town. ZERO is an effective and engrossing action picture that at less than 90 minutes doesn't outstay its welcome. It also suggests Herbulot might be keen to become a one man Senegalese exploitation industry and on the basis of these two eminently effective films that is to be both admired and encouraged. Here's the trailer:

Jean Luc Herbulot's ZERO will have a limited cinema release on Friday 25th July 2025 before coming out on Digital on Monday 11th August 2025

Into the Deep (2024)

"Above Average Modern Exploitation Film"

INTO THE DEEP, is getting a Digital, Blu-ray and DVD release from Signature Entertainment, and, despite the generic box art, it's a film that's definitely more fun than a lot of similar fare currently out there.

As a child, Cassidy (Scout Taylor-Compton from Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN films) was traumatised by seeing her father partially eaten and then dragged to his death by a shark. She's now an oceanographer, but that's thanks mainly to the efforts of her grandfather (Richard Dreyfuss) helping her overcome her fears.

On holiday on Reunion Island (south west of Madagascar) with her husband, the two of them embark on a sea trip on the rickety old boat of her husband's old friend Daemon (Stuart Townsend - THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN's Dorian Gray). 

There's another couple along for the ride, too, and when they all decide to engage in a spot of diving a shark appears and bites the arm off one of them. Then a gang of drug smugglers looking to pick up a cache of heroin that has been dumped nearby turn up and everything gets a whole lot worse.

INTO THE DEEP starts off like a lot of modern-day low budget movies of its type - glamorous location footage, name star wheeled onto give a speech that justifies their name being on the credits, and diving scene that goes on a bit too long and allows you to start thinking you can find better stuff on YouTube. But when the pirates turn up the film suddenly decides to become a proper, good old fashioned action movie, with Jon Seda's snarling pirate leader just the right side of moustache twirling, and plenty of shenanigans and gun battles to liven things up. 

INTO THE DEEP is being sold as yet another shark movie but it's actually better than that, so don't be put off by the poster. If you fancy the modern equivalent of the kind of stuff a studio like Cannon Films used to put out you'll have fun with this. Here's the trailer:

INTO THE DEEP is out from Signature Entertainment on Digital Platforms on Monday 27th January 2025 and Blu-ray and DVD on Monday 3rd February 2025

Plane (2023)

The cinema (by which I mean the great big building we go to watch a films in with other people) is having something of an exploitation renaissance at the moment, evoking fond memories (in those of us old enough) of the days when not everything filling the multiplexes was big budget Hollywood product. Now we can enjoy the likes of ORPHAN: FIRST KILL (great), COCAINE BEAR (good fun) and WINNIE THE POOH: BLOOD AND HONEY (it might be worth giving this one a miss, actually) on the big screen with like-minded people so we can all cheer and clap and (sometimes) boo together, and hooray for that.

At the top quality end of the exploitation scale is PLANE, the kind of film that would have come out on VHS in the 1980s, been directed by Antonio Margheriti (under a pseudonym of course) and starred someone like David Warbeck as the pilot whose plane gets thrown off course and ends up in a pitched battle with drug dealers in an exotic island location.

This time around it's Gerard Butler who, in order to cut costs, is ordered by his bosses to fly his charter plane through a storm rather than around it, leading to the inevitable crash on an island in the Philippines that turns out to be the headquarters for a crime syndicate. Apparently the police refuse to go anywhere near it which is bad news for them and great news for the audience. Soon the passengers are being held to ransom by the bad guys and it's up to Gerard and convicted murderer Louis (Mike Colter) who just happened to be on the flight to save everyone. 

You don't have to be an 80s exploitation fan to love PLANE but if you are you'll appreciate touches like the 'Meanwhile in New York' bit which could be straight out of an Enzo G Castellari or Umberto Lenzi movie of the period. Gerard Butler has been in some right old rubbish but he's very good in this and provides the kind of strong presence the film needs to keep your willing disbelief suspended as high as the altitude the titular aeroplane reaches at the beginning. The director responsible is Jean-Francois Richet and I hope he becomes a name to remember. As it stands PLANE is a thunderingly good, edge-of-the-seat style action picture put together by people who know how to get their audience clapping and cheering by the end. Great stuff. Lionsgate's Blu-ray comes with over 40 minutes of extra stuff, with three making-of featurettes with interviews with cast and crew. This Is Your Captain is 15 minutes about Gerard Butler, PLane Clothes is 7 minutes about (unsurprisingly) the costumes, and Brace For Turbulence is 20 minutes about the stunts and special effects. No commentary track but you do get a trailer, which you can see here anyway, with Gerard looking suitably angry:

PLANE is getting a digital release from Lionsgate on Monday 13th March 2023. It comes out on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD on Monday 24th April 2023

Bloodshot (2020)

"UPGRADE Upgraded?"

Vin Diesel continues his bid to be the biggest action star of the 21st century with this science-fiction actioner from first time feature director David S F Wilson, getting a 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD release from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

After a gruelling day rescuing hostages in a third world country, soldier Ray Garrison (Diesel) is relaxing with his wife in the kind of Italian hotel where Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan are probably downstairs doing Roger Moore impersonations. But before either can raise an eyebrow Ray and his wife have been abducted, tortured and shot. They Ray wakes up.

Or rather, he's brought back to life by one-armed (he's got a cybernetic limb instead) Dr Emil Harting (Guy Pearce) who tells Ray he's been reanimated by being infused with nano technology. He's also now virtually indestructible, as every time he's injured the nanobots flowing through his veins can  rebuild him. Ray escapes the high tech institution and hunts down his wife's killers. But that's just the beginning of the story.

Based on the series of Valiant comic books, and very much in the spirit of Leigh Whannell's (superior) UPGRADE, BLOODSHOT has more money, more stars and more stunts (the climax is especially over the top) but it's missing the emotional core that made Whannell's film so effective. That said, if you fancy a couple of hours of explosions, stunts and Vin growling you could do a lot worse than this. Extras on Sony's Blu-ray include two minutes of out-takes, a ten minute featurette on directing the film and another of similar length on the cast. You also get twelve minutes of deleted scenes and an alternate ending, which has the option to be played with a director's commentary. There is no commentary track for the main feature. 

BLOODSHOT is out from Sony on 4KUHD, Blu-ray and DVD on Monday 8th June 2020. It's already available on digital download. 

The Annihilators (1985)

"Terrific Trash Entertainment"

DEATH WISH 3 meets THE A TEAM in this movie that any bad film club would be proud to show, and which Arrow has just now gathered the nerve to release on Blu-ray.

A metaphor for how THE ANNIHILATORS was directed?

We start off in the Vietnam war, where our crack team of five soon-to-be vets have to defeat a couple of enemy soldiers in surroundings that look less like the forbidding jungles of APOCALYPSE NOW and more like a nice field that might easily be accessed by a main road out of Los Angeles.

A villain!

We flash forward to the present and a caption tells us we are in the town of Atlanta Now. One of the team, in saving his buddies back in 'nam, has ended up in a wheelchair and now lives in a rundown part of town where gang violence is rife. One gang in particular is threatening his neighbourhood through a combination of bad acting and ludicrous appearances. One has a silly voice, one looks like Charles Dance on steroids, and their leader appears to be the son of Worzel Gummidge.

Worzel and his gang

Worzel Jr kills our hapless legless veteran with a meat tenderiser and soon the old team are getting back together to take on organised crime in downtown Atlanta, roping in all the locals to give them a hand. 

A tense moment

None of the above really does justice to what a marvellously entertaining bit of daft old rubbish THE ANNIHILATORS is. It's not just that the direction is stilted, that a lot of the acting is delivered with all the passion of a frozen leg of lamb or that the music sounds like someone who doesn't know very much trying out the keyboards in his local music shop.

A tiny vest

Thrill to all that weird graffiti! The bizarre product placement! The frequent obvious spelling mistakes on signs! Can you spot the camera crew in the reflection of our heroes' van? We could! 

Product placement!

The extras on Arrow's disc are a couple of ten minute featurettes. one where star Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs is interviewed, the other is a piece on director Charles E Sellier Jr by film-maker Davil O'Malley. You also get a rather absurdly drawn out 'censorship comparison' showing the two seconds of a stab wound that was cut by the BBFC some time back but which has since been restored.

Action!

There's the usual reversible sleeve with artwork by the always excellent Graham Humphreys but no booklet, presumably because anyone asked to do it sat as open-mouthed as you will by the time THE ANNIHILATORS is over. 

The riotously enjoyable daft-fest that is THE ANNIHILATORS is out on Blu-ray from Arrow on Monday 13 May 2019

Proud Mary (2018)

A twenty first century action thriller that borrows liberally from movies of previous decades (including the 1970s - a bit), PROUD MARY comes to UK DVD courtesy of Sony.

Mary (Taraji P Henson) is a hit woman working for an organised crime syndicate in Boston. When her latest hit leaves a young boy without a father, she finds herself keeping an eye on the lad and, when he collapses in an alley after being badly beaten, she takes him in. Little does Mary realise that this is only the beginning of how her world is about to radically change. 

The problem with PROUD MARY is that it isn't terrible, but it isn't terribly good, either. Everything about it feels slightly off. The opening music and title sequence suggests we're in for an updated Pam Grier - Jack Hill exploitation picture but sadly no-one involved with this is able to give the movie quite the sass and self-confidence it needs to pull that off. Editing varies between lacklustre (the opening post-credit sequence suffers because of this) and then sudden rapid fire in some dialogue scenes, where it quickly becomes wearing. 

Prominently billed cast members Neal McDonough and Xander Berkeley are hardly in it, and poor old Danny Glover looks as if he's having quite a painful time in any scene where he's not sitting down. 

Better direction would have been an immense help, as PROUD MARY never seems to settle and decide what it wants to be. A big part of the problem is that for much of the running time star Taraji P Henson plays the lead role less as a ruthless and hardened assassin and more like a tired, hungover office employee who has been landed with looking after her younger sister's little boy for the weekend. In fact the movie might actually have worked better if that had actually been the plot. As it is we are left wondering how someone like this has managed to be quite so successful in her chosen profession when even a small child can get into her massive gun cupboard.

The movie also echoes Luc Besson's LEON with an intriguing gender switch, but there's far too much talk and too little in the way of action. Things do get eventually going with a final guns 'n' cars sequence that's quite fun but by then it really is a case of a bit too little a lot too late.

Sony's DVD release comes with three behind the scenes featurettes. 'Mary's World' has interviews with cast and crew, 'The Beginning of the End' details the shooting of the climactic action sequence, and 'If Looks Could Kill' is all about the design of Mary's 'look'.

PROUD MARY is out on UK DVD from 

Sony from 30th July 2018

Dragon Blade (2015)

“Epic Jackie Chan Chinese Period Action Picture”

Toplining Jackie Chan and with substantial roles for both John Cusack and Adrian Brody, big budget Chinese action epic DRAGON BLADE gets a UK DVD & Blu-ray release courtesy of Signature.

         It’s around 50BC, and Jackie Chan’s Silk Road Protection Squad gets framed for smuggling gold and sent to work in a labour camp. John Cusack’s Roman legion turns up having been framed for treason and together they form an allegiance that allows them to rebuild a city (Jackie’s gang’s punishment) and go after evil Roman Adrian Brody (who framed Cusack). Eventually all the allies of China have to gather together to defeat the evil Romans leading to an epic climax. 

         DRAGON BLADE is a big budget Chinese historical action picture that was a big hit in its country of origin. If you’re planning on watching it it’s probably worth bearing all that in mind, because I suspect the film-makers concentrated more on making the battle sequences epic (they are excellent), getting the fight sequences right (they’re pretty good as well) while ensuring any relevant bits of Chinese history were correct (I can’t vouch for that but one hopes so). 

         The reason I’m saying this is because to Western eyes there’s actually quite a bit wrong with DRAGON BLADE, but in a world where we have movies like Paul W S Anderson’s preposterous but utterly entertaining POMPEII I’m not sure how valid such criticisms are. Certainly the opening of the movie is pretty incoherent, and throughout there are jumps in the narrative that don’t seem to get explained at all. In fact, it feels more like a severely edited and compressed version of a five hour epic than a film that was intended to last under two hours.

         As well as a fair bit of bafflement, people who get upset by this sort of thing will probably get their knickers in a twist that it seems to take evil Adrian Brody about a day to march his army the 8000 miles from Rome to the site of the action. But then they’ll also be the ones to point out that Adrian’s scheme wouldn’t have worked because Romans didn’t inherit titles the way this film thinks they did. If that, or the idea of a flock of eagles turning up at a crucial point to save the day is all a bit too daft for you, you’d probably better stay away.

The rest of us, however, can have a ball with this as long as we leave our brains at the door, not question anything too much (or at all, actually) and simply revel in the fights, which are great, the battles, which are great, and some of the locations and production design, which yet again are all great. DRAGON BLADE is incoherent, inaccurate and a bit inane. It’s also majestic, sweeping and epic. 

DRAGON BLADE is out on DVD & Blu-ray from Signature Entertainment on 14th March 2016