Review: Hard Target 2

After accidentally killing his best friend in a match, former top MMA fighter Scott Adkins now barely scrapes by fighting in street tussles in Bangkok, Thailand. Rich American Robert Knepper offers Adkins a heck of a sweet deal for one fight: $500,000. He agrees and is soon flown to the Myanmar jungle where he quickly realises Knepper has fed him to the wolves. Knepper is the head of an organised game hunt, where the game being hunted is human! Rhona Mitra and Temuera Morrison are among the other blood-thirsty hunters.

 

The king of the direct-to-DVD sequel director Roel Reine (“The Marine 2”, “Death Race 2”, “12 Rounds 2: Reloaded”, “The Man With the Iron Fists 2”, “The Condemned 2”) collaborates with the king of the direct-to-DVD action movie Scott Adkins for this perfectly fine 2016 sequel to the JCVD/John Woo ‘classic’. To be honest, all this variant of “The Most Dangerous Game” needed to do was be better than “Turkey Shoot” and “The Condemned”, and indeed it does that, though 1987’s “The Running Man” is still my favourite of these sorts of things. Speaking of “Most Dangerous Game” variants, the film this reminded me most of isn’t the first “Hard Target” so much as the direct-to-video “Surviving the Game” where homeless man Ice-T is hunted down by a bunch of rich creeps. There’s even a little “Wrong Bet” to the plot early on for good measure.

 

For my money this is Reine’s best film to date as director, and as his own cinematographer the film also looks terrific. Although it’s clearly overlong (this would’ve slapped at 85 minutes), this is good fun and better than it has any right to be. As with the first “Hard Target” the most fun here is provided by the villains, chiefly Robert Knepper and Rhona Mitra in this one. I never watched “Prison Break” but here Knepper offers up a weathered Peter Weller meets William Fichtner vibe that is enjoyable enough to get around a bit of a lack of menace. He works. Rhona Mira is no great actress but she can be well-utilised, and here her constantly surly attitude is a hilarious scene-stealer. She’s lots of fun. Less fun is Temuera Morrison yet again wasted by Hollywood (Reine even threw him into “The Marine 2” previously), here as a boring henchman. The man can act and has mammoth, volcanic presence but Hollywood just doesn’t seem to care, either that or the man himself is just working for food. Acting-wise, star Scott Adkins isn’t having one of his best here. He struggles with the American accent and is a bit flat. The man is no Olivier even on his best day as an actor (“Avengement”, “John Wick Chapter 4”), but I still expect a bit better than he offers here in the acting department. Thankfully, Mitra and Knepper pick up his slack.

 

Adkins helps make up the difference when in action, his chief asset. Although once the plot kicks in there’s less opportunity for Adkins’ martial arts skills to be deployed, what martial arts and MMA we do get is well staged. Adkins is a bad arse, and the fights are brutal, impactful and fun. I gotta say though, for an MMA fighter Adkins’ character sure is suspiciously hand with a machine gun and driving a speedboat.

 

If it weren’t so slow and overlong, this direct-to-DVD sequel would be even better. As is it’s quite a bit of fun, even if star Adkins is a bit outshone by co-stars Mitra and Knepper. Adkins fans will still want to see it as it’s one of his better-made films with a durable story as scripted by Matthew Harvey, George Huang (he of “Swimming With Sharks” fame oddly enough), and Dominic Morgan. In fact, the drop-off in quality between the first film and this one is fairly minimal, unless you’re a particular fan of John Woo’s directorial wankery perhaps.

 

Rating: B-