Review: Red Scorpion

Dolph Lundgren plays Nikolai, a dutiful Russian special forces soldier tasked with infiltrating and destroying an Anti-Commie rebellion in an African nation by killing its leader. When he gets there, though, he sees what those on his side of the fence are doing and he just can’t stomach it. He ends up helping out the other side and squaring off with brutal Cuban General Zayas (played by American Carmen Argenziano) and Nikolai’s own superior General Vortek (played by Brit T.P. McKenna). Al White plays one of the African rebels, Brion James a thuggish Russian soldier, and M. Emmet Walsh an Anti-Commie journo from America, covering the story.

 

In the late 80s, someone decided to try and turn Swedish-born actor and martial artist (and chemical engineer!) Dolph Lundgren into an action hero. He was certainly the right guy for “Masters of the Universe”, but this 1989 attempt at a Soviet “First Blood” from director Joseph Zito is pretty well below par. You’ll be shocked to learn that it’s not a Canon Group actioner. It certainly has the look and quality of one.

 

Lundgren has always been a lot more fun in villainous roles (“Universal Soldier” in particular), and casting him as a Russian special forces guy who develops a conscience is not a very good fit for him. In and of itself, the character is interesting, but Lundgren is singularly and spectacularly unappealing in performance whenever he isn’t kicking someone’s arse. At first his brute, blunt force demeanour is amusing, but it isn’t interesting enough to carry an entire film that isn’t exactly action-packed. In fact, it’s probably his worst and most robotic performance to date. Lundgren’s superiors want him to be a ‘perfect killing machine’, but is meant by the filmmakers to be an independent thinker. Lundgren plays the character…as a perfect killing machine, an obvious cock-up. A big black hole of charisma for a protagonist really weighs this thing down, as Lundgren just isn’t equipped for such a role. Sly Stallone is no master thesp, but playing a damaged and disillusioned former soldier pushed to the brink by an ignorant and pushy sheriff in “First Blood”, he was actually quite strong.

 

Lundgren really only works in the action scenes, which are fun, but few and far between. In action mode, Lundgren’s actually a lot of fun, even engaging in a bit of martial arts. However, the film really only has two memorable scenes. The first is an extremely uncomfortable torture scene that seems like the most painful acupuncture session of all-time. It’s ricockulous, but you will wince. The other memorable moment is at the climax where a certain someone loses an arm with a grenade still attached to it. That was really clever…or dumb. It was definitely something. For the most part, the film isn’t much of anything, with Lundgren’s midway trek out in the African desert with his literally spear-throwing native pal particularly interminable. Zito’s biggest problem as a director here is complete lack of affinity for pacing. This thing is painfully slow-moving, which for an action movie is terminal. The dreadfully clichéd music score by Jay Chattaway is no help either, I’m afraid. It’s very stock-standard, cheapo action movie score stuff (not unlike Chattaway’s score for the abysmal “Invasion USA”), typically drum-heavy (And what’s with all the Little Richard on the soundtrack? I love ‘Long Tall Sally’, but c’mon…). I think I even heard a fucking pan flute at one point. A pan flute! When you add in the fact that there’s not nearly enough action, it makes for really dull viewing. Zito’s abysmal “Invasion USA” might be the weaker film, but this film certainly shows the director was a better horror director (His “Friday the 13^th: The Beginning” was the original series’ mild best, and “The Prowler” also wasn’t bad) than action director by far.

 

Culturally, no one comes out of this looking good. Russians, Cubans, and Africans are all painted in really rank racial stereotypes, even for this sort of thing (Even Walsh makes Americans seem like loudmouthed, racist jerks). Personally I think the film was pretty outdated for a Commie Russia action pic by the time it came out, even “Red Heat” and “Rambo III” were pushing it a bit. Positing it from the point of view of a Russkie isn’t enough of a difference to matter. The not remotely Cuban actor Carmen Argenziano (who looks alarmingly like genre villain Michael Ironside, but with none of the menace) is an appallingly unthreatening villain. When neither the hero nor the villain are up to snuff, you’re in real trouble. Neither M. Emmet Walsh nor the late Brion James do what I would call good acting here (and James’ Russian accent is horrendous), but they are a lot more fun than anything else in this underwhelming B-grade (to be polite) action flick. Walsh in particular looks like he’s having a whale of a time, but one wonders how in the hell such a popular character actor ended up in something like this.

 

Feeling like an unused “Rambo” script crudely re-written to include a non-conformist Russian protagonist (played by a Swede), this is pretty lousy stuff for only the least demanding of 80s action movie fans. Even then you might be disappointed with how little action there is. The hero and villain are miscast, the script is offensive and clichéd, and the whole thing moves slower than a snail’s place. Scripted by Arne Olsen (whose stellar resumé includes “All Dogs Go to Heaven 2”, “Cop and a ½” and “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie”), from a story by Olsen, and the team of Jack and Robert Abramoff (who both produced the film and never wrote again), Zito himself also had an uncredited hand in re-writing the film.

 

Rating: D+