Review: Castle Falls

A desperate prison guard (Dolph Lundgren) with a terminally ill daughter hears from an incarcerated gang leader that he hid $3 Million in cash inside an abandoned building that he stole from a rival criminal gang. He sets about entering the building and nabbing the cash to pay for his kid’s cancer treatment (Said kid being played by Lundgren’s own daughter Ida). Adding a fly into the ointment the building (formerly a hospital) is rigged with explosives and set for demolition very soon. Scott Adkins plays a down-on-his-luck ex-MMA fighter now making a buck as part of the building’s demolition crew when he stumbles upon the cash and sees literal dollar signs. Meanwhile, as these two men are about to collide and the explosives set to detonate, outside a ruthless gang of crims (led by Scott Hunter) are about to enter the building. They aim to claim the cash for themselves as Hunter’s brother was the true owner of the loot.

 

Not-bad, if somewhat poor man’s version of Walter Hill’s “Trespass” directed by and starring Dolph Lundgren (who previously directed the similarly not-bad “Command Performance”), both films obviously owing to the popular Bogart film “The Treasure of Sierra Madre”. Director-star Lundgren and fellow arse-kicker Scott Adkins are no Bill Paxton and William Sadler, but this 2021 film is at least a step-up from their previous pairing, the lame adventure flick “Legendary”. The film takes a while to set things in motion, which may annoy some but I appreciated it to some extent. That said, the sense of urgency provided by the rigged explosives does clash a bit with that slow-ish plot and character set-up early on.

 

Both leads are good, though I always think Lundgren makes more a more interesting villain than hero, and he's definitely a good guy here or at least he’s understandably motivated. Still he’s actually a decent actor and effective here nonetheless. Unfortunately, it ultimately doesn’t have enough action, and despite being 6 foot 4, veteran stunt performer Scott Hunter has zero intimidation factor as the lead villain. He lacks presence despite his size and that neck tattoo looks ridiculous on him. Even worse is henchwoman Kim DeLonghi in a woefully unconvincing ‘bad girl’ turn. These issues are enough to stop the film from being worthy of a recommendation, despite good work by Lundgren and Adkins. When we do get some action, it’s good fun with aging Lundgren still big and strong enough to hold his own. Adkins has a less interesting role than the director-star but gets the better of the action, kicking henchmen down elevator shafts and so on. A big plus is that the film gets in and out in under 90 minutes, which is nice.

 

Scripted by Andrew Knauer (the slightly underwhelming Schwarzenegger vehicle “The Last Stand”), it’s certainly serviceable if not a whole lot more than that. One best left to fans of the two leads, this one is OK but won’t offer much to anyone else.

 

Rating: C+

 

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