Apparently, this is the third teaming of Good Guy Scott Adkins and Bad Guy Marco Zaror as adversaries in a Martial Arts ‘slayathon.’ Who knew? Standard issue genre stuff (okay, slightly substandard), but with enough offbeat perversity to keep you from tuning out. Adkins, a big handsome guy with big handsome fists and a big handsome suckerpunch kick, is just out of prison after 15 years and on a mission to grab (and protect) the daughter he left behind with the mother and the Latino mob boss who married her. Hard to imagine these three were ever a trio of bank robbers, but when she died, her final wish was for Adkins to save the girl from the man the girl thinks of as her father. Now, with a huge reward out to find the girl, death-master Zaror enters to kill anyone who gets in his way. (Often with a curved knife hidden inside his prosthetic metal hand. Dozens slaughtered along the way by Adkins and Zaror, but hard to get too worked up since our teenage victim is such a willfully blind pain in the ass, it’s tough not to root against her. And we’re also constantly pulled out of the action by Adkins remarkable resemblance to Ryan Reynolds. (Check out the left side in three-quarter profile.) Reynolds & Adkins' striking resemblance might be put to better use remaking some doppelgänger classics: THE IRON MASK? THE COMEDY OF ERRORS? THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER? It couldn’t be sillier than this.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Technically, director Ernesto Díaz Espinoza liberally moves to slo-mo on the fights (to show balletic grace?), more effective are the digital stutter effects he adds here and there, pixilating the image into a sort of living poster.
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