Silent Trigger

Dolph Lundgren's 1996 vehicle here is a pretty unique production. A 90s action-thriller with heavy existentialist aspirations, the feature manages to attain most of its ambitions via the surprisingly careful touch of director Russell Mulcahy. It's got some problems that threaten my rating and may limit it to a niche audience, but for the most part, this is a successful experiment the likes of which Lundgren has yet to reproduce.

The story: A mysterious sniper (Lundgren) and his spotter (Gina Bellman) face a series of internal and external threats as they prepare to eliminate a target from an unfinished high-rise building.

From a thematic standpoint, this is an extremely ambitious effort for an action movie starring a performer best known for punching people. The first time I saw it, I thought of how easily this could have been turned into a play. There are only four prominent cast members, all generally inhabiting a single location, and there is an emphasis on character scenes with few action highlights. Sergio Altieri's screenplay mixes a typical action premise with heavy doses of noir and a touch of absurdity, creating a micro-world wherein alien codes of conduct are natural and the namelessness of characters is taken for granted. Though Russell Mulcahy can be a heavy-handed director, he's very in tune with Altieri's story and manages to create a tense, intimate atmosphere that's oftentimes more chilling than his attempts at horror have been. There are some lapses and excesses to this moody atmosphere, but for the most part, the filmmakers are very successful at striking the tone they want.

The one major qualm I personally have with the picture is its treatment of Gina Bellman's character, which makes painfully clear that this is a movie written by men and for men. Bellman's talent shines through even in the most indignant of situations, but aside from the usual tropes of turning a highly-trained female operative into a damsel and a random sex scene, it's a challenge to find any statements or actions the character makes that aren't in some way critiqued by her male counterparts.

The action content is measured. It's pretty sparse, but what's there tends to adrenalize. The worst of these scenes is the single brawl that Lundgren had with sadistic coke-fiend Christopher Heyerdahl, but the best scenes involve the use of Lundgren's unique sniper rifle. Two major shootouts compose the highlights of the action, and Lundgren's weapon of choice – with its immensely powerful bullets but agonizingly slow rate of fire – gives these scenes a unique pace that you don't get when both sides of a firefight are blazing away with automatic weapons. The uneven nature of these gunfights, combined with their infrequency, may understandably leave some action fans unfulfilled, particularly if the story is not to their liking either. Essentially, this is an action movie that asks you to take a chance on something other than the strength of its action, and if you'd rather spend your time on less of a gamble, Lundgren has an entire library of other flicks to check out.

Personally, I had a good time with this one. The fact that the star has not attempted to make another film along these lines is a little disappointing, since Lundgren does well with the minimalist touch. Nevertheless, this helps make SILENT TRIGGER something of a hidden gem, and if nothing else, the strength of its production places it on the list of high-end offerings among Lundgren's non-theatrical features.

This movie was a very pleasant surprise. I figured it was just a BIG turkey, but no. Silent trigger is a very styleful actionflick. Nice photography and a cool storyline, and Dolph delivers (yeah).

An unusual actionmovie and Dolphs best too date.

It's AWFUL, a nothing, plotless "film"!!! And I can't take the female lead seriously when she spends the whole movie moping around, staring, breathing loudly, and talking like a 900-number operator. Someone in the production CLEARLY had a girlfriend they wanted to show off. But at least they could have made her interesting and believable! It's insulting to give a woman that kind of role and then just make her act like a model. They barely bother to fake being interested in having her appear believable. Dolph Lundgren, the only reason I watched, sleepwalked through it.

Where is the story? Where is the plot? Where is the point?? Altogether absent! This wouldn't even be suitable for a 30-minute TV episode. I'm actually offended by how pointless it all is, and I tend to enjoy a lot of random, low-budget films, so I have a high tolerance for schlock. But this isn't even to that standard! The only reason it's worth even a star is 1. That Dolph is nice to watch despite his limitations (I really like him, but he's never been charismatic-the closest he ever got for me was Universal Soldier, and his role was a psychopathic mass murderer who wore the ears of his victims, so...) and 2. The early-to-mid-90s Cinemax-like track that just made me want to watch Strange Days.

I'm not even gonna touch on what "happens" in the "film" because it's offensively non-existent. This movie had to have been a tax write-off or a money laundering scheme.

The movie has a good plot, great acting, interesting stuff, well scripted bad guys, and is very beautifully shot. The flashback of the shooter and spotter were interesting, one of the two security guards is one messed-up-in-the-brain, coke-sniffer, the other was a very annoying by-the-book rookie, the shooter was a "paranoid" man, and the spotter was a beautiful woman that "got along with everybody", or so she thought, I would dare say Russel Mulcahy did an excellent job at directing and recommend it.

I liked it... I like Dolph Lundgren... not everything was good, but who cares... Gina Bellman... beautiful woman with a fantastic sensual voice... it was a pleasure listening to her voice... I'm not going to say anything about the movie and there's not much to say... a shooter, a spotter, nothing new, but everybody did what they had to do and for me it's enough... if you want you can give a look and then deciding, otherwise I did it and I'm not regretting anything about... if you want an Oscar movie, this is not indeed, so forget it...