Wasn't expecting a true masterpiece, but having taken a serious look at the cast, premise, and looks of this one, thought was gonna maybe get by the lucky film noir/thriller/murder mystery/ action genre, and, possibly get to delight myself with some sort of little gem, maybe even a cult film! Man, was i wrong? First off, the disappointment to realize that all the great genre actors i was looking forward to see in action were in just for few minutes, and, in mostly contrived roles: Dolph Lundgren looked rather stiff here, and obviously, looking like, as if he was not even completely well aware of the dreary script, and, Vinnie Jones was real bored, you could tell he was just there for the check, then, even other people like William McNamara, or Domiziano Arcangeli were badly used, and of mere, if any service, sadly. Randy Couture is more in the movie, but, maybe the role wasn't completely developed, or the footage wasn't even enough to cover anything else other than some slick, yet very shaky images of trivial violence, with wild panoramic's on actors falling dead cold in absurd, and unexplained circumstances, and, in any case he just appeared mostly disoriented, and without a real motive other than playing a sexy villain. The movie has a very poor story, made of that pulp fiction, that is not stylish or cool, but, just heavily insisted without significance, becoming a sum up of glossy, yet very gratuitous shots, framed over banal vulgarity, and some true exploitative nudity like in some of those Italian "policemen vs. gangsters" C grade flicks from the 1970's, but, without Fernando De Leo, instead, almost feeling, as if it had been filmed a decade later, with that annoying video clip's gloss, so stereotypical of late 1980's, early 1990's US most conventional action's shockers. There are 2-vaguely- main characters, however, the actors playing those parts are unfortunately quite bland, and, not all that interesting to watch for one thing, even though, one should say that they seemed to work hard to make sense of such a cheap mess, at least! All together this is basically just a very ambitious movie, completely gone awry, and, wasted, forgettable, badly directed, and paced: just some bad B movie, a bust! It is primarily truly missing indeed all of those (possible,perhaps?) opportunities, by under utilizing somewhat of a cult cast, while, instead going straight to the old cable standards, and just bringing down rotten, and all broken up, what could have (maybe) been initially a way more intriguing type of hard boiled idea, if it had been of course rightly developed, and, staged with a really more pertinent focus, since what you read about the story is again unfortunately way more promising than the ultimately very disappointing, almost total nonsense, "delivered" plot by this contrived final product! I know if i had gone to the theaters, i would have asked for my money back. Literally!
Review of Ambushed
