Review of The Package (2013) by Per Gunnar J — 18 Dec 2014

This is a direct to video movie with Dolph Lundgren so it is fair to say that my expectations where not really that high. Nevertheless, I do like action movies and I do have a faiblesse for Dolph Lundgren. If nothing else we share the same country of birth. So I sat down to watch this movie yesterday.

I have to say that I was surprised. This movie is surprisingly good. Compared to the average direct to video action-flick it is very good indeed. Both Steve Austin and Dolph Lundgren are great as the tough silent gun-slinging hard-hitting bad guys. Yes both of them are really bad guys although one of them not so much and the other one so very much. I really liked them walking through the movie leaving a trail of surprised, knocked out or dead, mostly dead actually, people.

The story is not really that bad and it has somewhat of a twist to it even though that twist is fairly easily guessed once you are a bit into the movie. There are plenty of action using both fists and guns. I felt it was pretty well done. A wee bit stupid and illogical at times of course but nothing that ruined the enjoyment. The movie moves at a brisk pace yet there are enough material in between to tie the action together in a logical (logical for a direct to video action movie of course) way.

Dolph Lundgren have never exactly been an actor who would win any awards for his character portrayal or actual acting performance. I have to say that in this movie he is doing a god job of the role though. "The German" is not just a dumb thug that muscled himself to the top. I quite liked Steve Austin as well. Dolph and Steve are the ones that carries the movie. The rest are mostly props.

I would say that this is a classical "boys" movie with two classical macho heroes. No silly attempts to put some comedy into it with juvenile jokes. No heroine to save. Just the guys slugging it out. Well, of course there is the obligatory sex-appeal female in the movie but she is one of the bad guys so, not surprisingly she is not around for the grand finale.

Bottom line: this is a fun classical action movie and I definitely enjoyed it.