Review: Legacy of Lies

Scott Adkins plays a troubled, down-on-his-luck former MI6 agent who turned his back on that life after a horribly botched incident years ago (His wife was killed). Now he’s a ne’er-do-well single dad who participates in the odd MMA skirmish, not always on the winning end. Even his daughter (Honor Kneafsey) makes bets on his opponent winning. Yeesh. One day, a Ukrainian journalist (Yuliia Sobol) whose dad was an associate of Adkins back in the day, approaches him with a big story involving nasty Russians and nerve gas. Not his problem, not his interest. When Russian agent/torturer Anna Butkevich kidnaps Adkins’ daughter, he’s tasked with locating the now missing journalist who apparently has some top-secret material that Butkevich and her employer badly want.

 

Watchable Ukrainian-financed 2020 near-miss from Dutch director Adrian Bol isn’t one of hard-working Scott Adkins’ more memorable films. The box-art calling this Adkins’ James Bond is ridiculous hyperbole, but it’s definitely more spy-thriller than martial arts/action film for the most part. It’s nicely shot/lit, and the action is good when we get it, but the plot has been done to death and majority of the performances here are merely adequate. Adkins is Adkins, it’s not his best performance but he’s perfectly efficient nonetheless. The standout is Ukrainian-born Anna Butkevich (a model, radio presenter, and actress) as a pretty layered villainess. As for young Honor Kneafsley, I could take or leave her let’s just say.

 

Just OK Adkins outing with more plot and character than action, which isn’t as good as that probably sounds because the plot is mediocre. It needed more action to compensate for what is a very clichéd story and some rather weak supporting performances. I’d still take this over “Ninja”, “Legendary”, and “The Legend of Hercules” however.   

 

Rating: C+

 

 

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