Hard Rush (a.k.a. Ambushed), 2013.
Directed by Giorgio Serafini.
Starring Dolph Lundgren, Vinnie Jones, Randy Couture, Gianni Capaldi and Carly Pope.
SYNOPSIS:
In the frenetic underbelly of LA, a DEA agent closes in on an international cocaine smuggling operation run by a criminal mastermind. When the agents love interest goes undercover with the drug dealers and finds herself deeper then she can handle – the case becomes personal and finds himself combating ruthless killers and dirty cops in an all-out action filled finale to bring the criminals to justice.
With Dolph Lundgren and Randy Couture currently busy filming the big budget action spectacular, Expendables 3, now would seem a good time for the respective stars to release another in a line of their straight to video action flicks. Dolph’s line is of course bigger, with a career spanning almost 30 years, most of which have been spent in video land. Randy is a relative newbie to the punching people in the face movie genre. As it happens we have Hard Rush here, which stars both Lundgren and Couture, with Vinnie Jones thrown in for good measure. So with such a cast you’d expect your fair share of breakings, mixed martial arts pummellings, and heads caved in by car doors. Largely, you’d be right too.
Now there’s something that is becoming all too common now in the straight to video world. With the rise in piracy, along with the struggling world economy of recent times, the budgets in these films have gone from slim to positively anorexic. It used to be the case that someone like Dolph Lundgren would headline his own straight to video film. A company would sign him up for a film, and they’d all but have made their money back before the film was shot. He’d get comfortably over a million dollars to headline a film, even a DVD premiere.
A number of things happened. The ensemble pic, in no small part because of the first Expendables film, became popular in the action genre. There had previously been a belief in the straight to vid world that bringing together two action stars wouldn’t necessarily double your takings, and thus paying out two big fees for two stars didn’t make fiscal sense. Now however there is a way around this. Aside from HD making it quicker and easier to shoot these films, it’s also possible to get a star name in for perhaps half, or a third of a shoot and paying them less. If you do this with two or three established action icons, you then have the ability to sell the film with their name and face on the posters, even if they’re not playing the lead, or if they in actuality don’t have as much screen time as you’d expect a protagonist to have. For example see the two recent Universal Soldier sequels. The posters sell it on the image of Jean Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, but their screen time is minimal. Van Damme is little more than a cameo in the most recent one.
Hard Rush is also a good example of this. The cover has Lundgren, Couture and Jones’s names prominent, with Lundgren and Jones as the main images on the cover. Make no mistake though, the main focus in this film does not appear on the front of the cover. In actuality the film centres on low level drug dealer Frank (Daniel Bonjour). He and partner Eddie (Gianni Capaldi) want to move up the ladder and become major players and in Frank’s case he wants to earn enough to get out of the game early. They soon find themselves catching the attention of Vincent Camastra (Vinnie Jones) a psychotic crime lord, and dirty cop Jack Reilly (Couture). Meanwhile DEA agent Maxwell (Lundgren) starts homing in on all the criminal activity leading to an inevitably bloody climax.
The film is pretty average, even as far as these flicks go. The major problem is that there just isn’t enough of the three stars. Lundgren and Jones are decent, without needing to stretch themselves at all. Jones is typically villainous and relishes dishing out the odd beating. Lundgren plays a cop with a strong sense of morality, but it’s a one dimensional role and we never get beneath the surface at all, but largely due to the lack of screen time to do so. Randy Couture doing a Bad Lieutenant routine gives his best performance yet, but is still sadly underdeveloped as a character. Given the task of holding the movie and maintaining interest, Bonjour and Capaldi do their best but they’re up against bad writing and the expectation of the audience, who are here to watch Lundgren et al.
The film was shot very quickly and it shows often. Scenes lack drive with the film only sparking to life with the brief action scenes. The fight scenes, though rushed have enough energy, although the editors are a little slo-mo happy. Also, evidently it seems the film opted to do all the gun effects in post. It doesn’t appear as if live blanks and squibs were used much, if at all. There are flashy split screen moments which serve no purpose but to remind us that this film largely feels 15 years out of date. Though you’ll be left craving more, the action delivered is mostly pretty slick and stylish, with a bone crunching finale between Lundgren and Couture.
Director Giorgio Serafini is serviceable, while the cinematography by Marco Cappetta is not too bad. Though the film has been shot in HD, at least some effort has gone into lighting the picture, whereas in many low budget films shot on HD there’s a tendency to cut corners with lighting, or use 100% natural light to save more time. The music is forgettable and at times too intrusive.
In all this is fairly forgettable. If you’re after a bit of straight to vid action for some Friday night, switch the brain off thrills, the least you’d expect is for something to do what it says on the tin. Unfortunately the tin in question here, oversells the key ingredients, Lundgren, Jones and Couture. They’re all fine, all doing a solid job, but you’re left wanting more, whilst Jones’s part in the story is left unresolved, leaving a gaping plot hole by the end. A week after the release of Hard Rush, comes Blood of Redemption. It’s largely from the same crew, and features Lundgren and Jones again, this time aided by Billy Zane and Robert Davi. That looks more promising, but will it deliver more of what it promises from the cover?
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Be sure to read Tom’s interview with Hard Rush star Gianni Capaldi.
Tom Jolliffe
