Review: Eliminators

Widowed Scott Adkins lives in London with his daughter (Lily Ann Harland-Stubbs). The parking garage security guard’s boring life is disturbed by nightly home invaders, whom he lethally dispatches. It turns out that Adkins’ current life isn’t much like his former one, a life he has attempted to escape for the safety of his daughter. However, this recent violent scuffle leaves him exposed, and American arms dealer James Cosmo has an old score to settle with him. Cosmo deploys deadly European hitman Bishop (Wade Barrett, real name Stu Bennett) to rub Adkins out. Daniel Caltagirone plays Adkins’ old buddy Ray who tries to help.

 

Scott Adkins teams up with WWE Studios for this 2016 action film, which means a co-starring role for then-WWE Superstar (and now NXT commentator) Wade Barrett as the heavy. Directed by James Nunn (who later delivered Adkins’ enjoyable “One Shot”) from a script by Nathan Brookes (the WWE Studios sequels “See No Evil 2” and “12 Rounds 2: Lockdown”) and Bobby Lee Darby (ditto), the result is diverting enough for Adkins fans and probably a bit better than usual by WWE Studios standards too. My overall rating is more reflective of these standards than any overall scale of quality measurement.

 

An eerily quiet opener leads to some Adkins arse-kicking as he deals with some not very bright home invaders. It’s a fun kick-off, no pun intended. The plot is also relatively engaging, if not earth-shattering. Wade Barrett and his marvellous speaking voice are well-matched with Adkins here. In fact, he pretty much steals the show. That’ll be no surprise to WWE fans, as while he wasn’t the greatest ring worker (and injury prone), his promo skills were uniformly stellar despite fairly mediocre material at times during his run with the company as a wrestler (He now commentates for their NXT developmental brand). It's a shame then that his supposedly feared assassin character is more thuggish and actually kind of an idiot. Fellow villain James Cosmo – the film’s one ‘legit’ actor I suppose – is creepily avuncular as the feared gangster patriarch. Sadly, he’s in too few scenes to truly stand out. The worst performance by far comes from Daniel Caltagirone as Ray, who is just distractingly bad. As for our leading man, Scott Adkins gives one of his more solid performances here. He also probably fares best of the UK actors trying on American accents (only Barrett/Bennett gets to keep his natural accent of the main players), one of his better attempts actually. The action is quite good, if not quite as plentiful as one would like perhaps.

 

No world beater by any stretch, but diverting enough for a certain (quite limited) audience. Almost exclusively (softly) recommended to fans of the two leads. They’re better than the film they’re housed in, which is just good enough.

 

Rating: B-

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chilly t
Read more

Review: Boyka: Undisputed

Yuri Boyka (Scott Adkins) is out of prison and fighting for a living, with ambitions for the ‘Most Complete Fighter’ to make a real name for himself. However, after an opponent dies during a fight, the deeply religious Boyka starts to have a crisis of conscience. He tries to make amends with the man’s widow, which eventually pits him against a local gangster (Alon Moni Aboutboul, quite good). Anything with Scott Adkins will generally get me interested, and although this series peaked with the superlative “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , this 2017 film from director Todor Chapkanov (director of the SyFy movies “Copperhead” and “Ghost Town” ) is no slouch in a series yet to deliver anything less than solid entertainment. Producer Isaac Florentine is missed in the director’s chair, but Chapkanov gives us at the very least the series’ most dramatically ambitious entry, as Adkins’ ‘most complete fighter’ Yuri Boyka continues on his journey to redemption here. In this one, the
Read more

Review: Ninja 2: Shadow of a Tear

Scott Adkins is once again Casey, an American proponent of the martial art of Ninjutsu. When Casey’s pregnant Japanese wife (Mika Hijii) is rubbed out, he’s on a vengeance mission to find her killers. A friendly face, Nakabara (Kane Kosugi) turns up at the funeral, and suggests Casey come to Thailand to deal with his grief in another country. Casey initially declines, but eventually takes Nakabara up on his offer. However, his wife’s murder still haunts Casey, and with intel supplied by Nakabara, the trail eventually leads Casey to a brutal drug baron named Goro (Shun Sugata).   I was extremely disappointed with the first “Ninja” , but had heard that this 2013 sequel from director Isaac Florentine ( “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , “Undisputed III: Redemption” , “Ninja” ) was a damn near masterpiece of the martial-arts action movie genre. Having now finally gotten my hot little hands on it, I’d say the hype is a bit much, but this is unquestionably a much better film than the f
Read more