Ryan Shoots First: Chokehold
Chokehold takes place under the backdrop of underground and fledgling MMA organizations. In many ways the movie resembles those type of events, a lot of excitement, a blitz of images and media and sound but once the fights begin and all that extra stuff stops it grinds to pace of two out of shape part time plumbers living out their past dreams of being the next MMA star (no offense to plumbers).
Chokehold “stars” Bulletproof Action Hall of Famer, Casper Van Dien, as a MMA trainer and meditation guru who is stuck as an honest man in a dishonest world. Mirrored with his struggles in mediocrity is the rise of his estranged daughter Zoey played by Melissa Croden. After her fathers death and the crashing of career she must start at the bottom to not only reignite her career and uncover the mystery of her fathers death but to also somewhat reconnect with the ghost of her father (not literally but that would have made for an awesome movie).
This movie was a roller coaster before it even began. A staggered release and a streaming delays made it difficult to even watch the film to review it. Bulletproof Action mainstay CTB and I joked that there was no way the movie would be worth all the trouble and I was already not expecting much from it even before experiencing the streaming difficulties. But eventually I sat down and started the film and I was surprised. The movie starts with a pretty great swelling score and some well orchestrated shots mirroring our two main characters. I was on board thinking “Ok movie maybe this won’t be that bad”. I saw Chael Sonnen over there playing a Texan fight promoter, we even had a big betting board with people just taking money which is one of my favorite movie tropes! Then Casper Van Dien’s character Javier suffers his demise and the film comes to a screeching halt. And it is a shame because CVD is one of my personal favorites, I would follow that jaw line anywhere. He looked in good shape and seemed to be engaged on the role, and then way too early in the film he is off screen. I told myself hey maybe there will be flashbacks to help establish his love for his daughter and he will have an impact on the film that way but not really. He is gone for the remaining hour plus of the film for the most part.
The movie just struggles to stand without Van Dien. Croden’s performance is wooden, there are some astonishingly bad Russian accents and it just drags on and on. It is a shame because in the first 20 minutes of the movie I was ready to be won over. I wanted to like Chokehold it drew me in with the music and lights and gimmicks but like a underground MMA fight it just couldn’t last into the late rounds.
