Bullet Points: Hunt To Kill
With WrestleMania coming tomorrow evening it felt like a good time to check in on one of the greatest wrestlers in the history of the WWE. I’m talking about the Texas Rattlesnake, Stone Cold Steve Austin!
When you come across Hunt To Kill on Netflix or however you do you movie watching these days, you’ll notice that Austin shares starring credits with BPA favorite Eric Roberts. Whether that excites you or not isn’t the point I’m trying to make, though. While Roberts does indeed share the screen with Austin for a short time, this is far and away the Stone Cold show.
Synopsis: U.S. Border Agent Jim Rhodes (Austin) just moved into the mountains of Montana after nearly being killed by some drug pushers in Texas. Along with his rebellious daughter, Rhodes just tries to get by until a band of thieves threaten to ruin their new and peaceful existence.
- Austin/Roberts Tag Team Champs: After the opening few minutes I was all-in on the potential for a good buddy cop relationship between the two stars but SPOILER ALERT it was all stolen from us when Roberts doesn’t make it more than a few minutes into the film. There was also the possibility of him reappearing later but alas, it was not to be.
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- Bad Guy Stereotypes: The team of villains, a rag tag group of thieves, do their best to cover all of the stereotypical roles that you would expect to see in an action film. They have the computer guy, the black guy, the expert fighter, the hot chick, and the cruel leader. I always think of the movie Cliffhanger. That is how you do the stereotypes right. Sadly, Hunt To Kill’s misses the mark when it comes to the bad guys. It would have been much better if Eric Roberts had played the main villain instead of the guy they had.
- Hostage Amateurs: Whatever your thoughts are on the crew of evil-doers, they no doubt fail at taking hostages. They have Stone Cold and his hot daughter captured but they all go to sleep at night without so much as a person to keep watch on them. Austin wakes up in the middle of the night and nearly kills his way out of there but is thwarted at the last second by Gary Daniels.
- Speaking of Gary Daniels: He provides the bad guys with a legitimate fighter to face off against Austin. Daniels doesn’t quite get his “WrestleMania Moment” but by the time they do finally face off, I was getting pretty bored with the film and needed a good beatdown to bring me back.
- Dirtiest Player in the Game: Gary Daniels doesn’t lock on the figure four and he won’t break Ric Flair’s World Heavyweight Title record anytime soon but he low blows Austin like a champ.
- No Sell That Shit: Austin gets shot a couple of times and falls off a cliff but is never worse for the wear. He must have had that “babyface fire” goin’ !
- Shamelessly Saying the Title: Steve Austin knows that if you want to sell out stadiums and put asses in the seats you need to plug the hell out of your gimmick. Whether that means selling merchandise to a million kids or shamelessly saying the title of the movie right before offing the bad guy.
It’s the weekend, have some extra Bullet Points !
- The main bad guy never reloads his revolver. It’s something I can’t unsee and I will never take a villain seriously if he can’t even reload a pistol !
- The big baddie also reminded me of the knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. He just wouldn’t die !
- The annoying daughter gimmick is in full effect here.
