The Detonator

The CIA secret agent Sonni Griffith(Wesley Snipes) travels to Romania for investigating a gunrunners and avoid the selling a nuclear weapon.Meanwhile he's killing Romanian gangster at a national soccer event,he's interrogating,gunning down people and burning suspects.Griffith is arrested at the Romanian semifinal cup match.Then is jailed but is freed by his friend ,the CIA agent Michael Shepard(William Hope).He's assigned a new mission ,scorting the Romanian named Nadia(Silvia Colocca).But he aware that Nadia is pursued by Josef Bostanescu(Tim Duttom),a megalomaniac nasty,he owns the stadium and soccer team and is preparing the biggest deal he've ever made.He tries to get from Nadia the information he needs: the location where are the thirty millions of dollars that she hid of her murdered ex-husband and accountant of Bostenescu and he wishes for buying the atomic bomb.When an information into CIA is leaked,allegedly from his chief(Michael Brandon)and reveals where are placed ,they must fight to survive against the gunrunners and save themselves.

The movie displays suspense,thriller, unstopped action and lots of violence when the killing happen.It's an average actioner movie with some entertaining moments but also with no sense scenes.Wesley is nice as action hero ,his early performances were as serious actor in dramas ,later turning as tough action man in films with big budget like¨Money train,Murder at 1600,US Marshall and Blade trilogy¨,although nowadays he solely movies with middling and low budget like as ¨Unstoppable,7 seconds,Chaos,The marksman¨.The movie is produced by Andrew Stevens Entertainment Inc.Andrew Stevens(son of Stella Stevens) was a famous actor of the 80s,today turned in successful producer,besides is produced by the starring Snipes and by Pierre Spengler,he's a veteran producer of known movies like the saga Superman-Reeve and the classic Three Musqueteers. The motion picture is shot in Castel studios of Romania where have been film the last vehicles of Steven Seagal and Van Damme.

Since Wesley Snipes descended(or Ascended)to the world of DTV action movies the result has been Miss,so-so,and miss.Unstoppible was weak.7 seconds was entertaining.The marksman was the proverbial scraping of the septic tank.

And what of The Detonator?We'll anything would be above suffering the Marksman again.But the Detonator holds a small amount of merit that is hampered by a lazy star and Low budget.

Sonny Griffith is a not-so-by-the-book Covert op who busts illegal arms dealers in Poland.When his latest assignment ends up a bullet-buffet leaving a pile of bodies;Sonny then is ordered to escort a witness; Nadia (the ever-hot Silvia Colloca) to the US.Trouble is; Sonny is being duped by a traitor in his own organization who is keeping his trail hot for Gangsters with Nuclier Ambitions.

Snipes delivers in the action department.He is in half-blade mode here.He actually does well in the first 15 minutes of the Detonator,before descending into pure sleepwalking mode that ruined the Marksman.Colloca does more than look pretty.There is some conviction to her scenes.A lot of the actors look familiar,and have been in the last 3 or 4 Seagal/Snipes movies.Its always good to see Michael Brandon again.

The action is telegraphed here.But never boring.Running,car chases,Fights.Director Po-Chih Leong seems to have gotten better after the Seagal farce;Out of Reach.He does a credible job.But is constantly hampered by the low budget.Enough with the eastern Euro-locations.Its cheapening the movie's look.Vancover cannot be that much expensive can it?

The Detonator ends just average.It does not have the so-bad its fun aspect of Seagal' Mercenary for Justice. But it is nowhere near as entertaining as Van Damme's Second in command.Nor as thrilling as Dolph's Mechanik.Perhaps Dolph should direct Wesley next eh?

Its high time The producers pump a little more money and thought into these DTV titles with the kind of money they are making from them.Its only fair.The result could be a high seller perhaps?

Snipes would be advised to try making this one his last DTV action flick.Its sad to see YET another waste of this gifted actor's Talents.

Unlike some of the reviews written here, I didn't hate this movie. It is a movie that COULD have been much better than it was. Not Oscar material, true, but much better than it was.

I thought the plot had a good hook and through line. Granted, this movie was badly written. And TERRIBLY directed and produced. I mean, how many irrelevant flashbacks can you have? Why were we there? What exactly is the point of the opening sequence? It seems like the producer(s) watched American Beauty a few too many times and thought 'I'll use that in an action movie!' I thought the movie wasn't that badly acted. Wesley Snipes did a credible job, he just ran afoul of some bad direction. And once this movie hit the production room, things just got worse. The main actress, I think, had the same problems. Some of the other acting was suspect, yes, but it was a low-budget flick. Again, I would say it is the director's job to pick that up and correct it.

As an overall recommendation, I would agree with the first review I read that this movie is not worth seeing. Or maybe it is worth seeing, if you are a film student and want to see what NOT to do.

3/10, and that's giving it praise.

Such has been Wesley Snipes' career despite his obvious talent that he has had to take up many shoddy projects just to keep his coffee warm. Nevertheless, it's always good to see Wesley Snipes kick and punch and shoot the bad guys. When it comes to action flicks, he's a reliable hero and a natural. But if that's why you wanna watch this movie, don't. Chances are solid that you won't even last the full length of this movie in your seat.

This is a low-budget, straight-to-video affair that does barely enough to be considered a movie. 'Could've been good' can be said about lots of movies but let's not go there with this one because nearly everything would need to be redone from the scratch to make something good out of the plot. Acting is meh while everything else is just plain trash. CGI used in simulating action scenes is low-class and pathetic. Tim Dutton impresses with his persona; I wouldn't mind seeing him as a villain in other serious projects. Pretty Italian actress, Silvia Colloca, is mostly irritating trying to pass off her flat chest as a well-endowed bosom with the help of a push-up bra. Eeek! William Hope is one of those actors who can't perform badly even if he wanted to.

VERDICT: Avoid, unless you have nothing to do in your life like I do.

SIMILAR & BETTER movies: Matt Damon's BOURNE series, Spy Game, Ronin, Casino Royale

I rented this movie last week and after watching Snipes' 7 Seconds movie, this one was definitely a significant improvement.

One of the things that bothered me was there were numerous areas where I could not understand what was being said and I even hit the remote to go back again and again and still remained stumped. There was no English closed-captions/subtitles option on the DVD, so I was stuck with moving on. One comment from numerous Asians I know whom have come to live in the USA and have learned to speak our language is, "I try to watch African-American movies, but can't understand what they are saying." I had a few areas of trouble with understanding some English spoken in Van Damme's movie Second in Command and that DVD didn't offer English subtitles/closed captions option either.

The second main thing that bothered me was with the sound affects. If you close your eyes and listen to the gunfire and explosions ... they all sounded the same, like someone banging a bat against a piece of thick glass. I appreciated the sound in one scene near a swimming pool and could hear the pool's water, but then poof the sound of this just disappeared ... but was nicely replaced with the sound of a light breeze through the trees. At least in this movie the irritating same old clapping boom boom sound was absent for the background action scenes. But, do all car engines racing around in streets and different guns being fired and numerous explosions have the same sounds? This movie like 7 Seconds contains pretty much the same visual candies and the car chases really could get lessened and shortened. They reek of filler padding to add length to what would probably be a TV length show if cut out. We have come to expect action films to have loads of visual candy, but the combination of lackluster sound affects and padding took this movie down more notches than it deserved. The visuals were good, but my ears were insultingly assaulted. LOUD can go only so far before I'm mentally handicapped.

Once again, the script was very good and so was the acting. There was not as much of Snipes' bopping heads as other movies. Snipes has a tough guy image that perhaps he should shed and consider calmer/quieter scripts. This movie would have done better if it had less padding and a better sound crew (plus add subtitles!). I wasn't disappointed in watching this movie and would recommend it for at least a one time viewing. I wouldn't buy the DVD.