Bullet Points: The Tracker (2019)

For those of you keeping track, this review of 2019’s The Tracker that you are about to read is the 37th Dolph Lundgren movie that has been reviewed on Bulletproof Action.

For those of you interested in checking out the other 36 Dolph Lundgren movies we have reviewed on Bulletproof Action, allow me to direct you to our Dolph Lundgren Collection.

Now on to the review…

• Flashback: The movie begins with a flashback sequence narrated by Dolph Lundgren. We see Dolph’s character, Aiden Hakansson, when he was just a 10 year old boy going on his first hunting trip with his father. Aiden’s father didn’t just teach Aiden to hunt, he taught him how to track… which sets Aiden Hakansson on the path to becoming a TRACKER… I guess. We really don’t get much more background on who Aiden is or why anything that is about to happen to him happens.
• 40 Years Later: Fast forward 40 years and Aiden now has a family of his own. Aiden along with his wife and his young daughter are in Taranto, Italy enjoying themselves at a festival of some sort, when from out of nowhere Aiden’s wife and daughter are kidnapped. Shortly there after Aiden receives a phone call… if he wants his wife and daughter back he needs to cough up $500,000 dollars… sounds like a page out of the old Taken playbook except there is no happy family reunion in The Tracker. Despite his efforts to save his family and the efforts of the local police, Aiden’s wife and daughter are found dead.

• 10 Years Later: After the tragic deaths of his wife and daughter, Aiden now finds himself living in Los Angeles. Aiden receives a phone call one evening from a detective in Taranto who has reopened the murder case on Aiden’s wife and daughter after finding a new lead. The detective doesn’t provide any details over the phone and instead gives Aiden instructions on when and where to meet him in Taranto so they can discuss it. Aiden does not hesitate to make arrangements to make his way back to Italy. When Aiden arrives he goes to the sidewalk café as instructed and he waits and waits… but the detective never shows up… the waitress knows the detective, as he lived right down the street from the café, “lived” being the keyword as he apparently committed suicide shortly after making the call to Aiden… something is rotten in Taranto. Aiden goes to the apartment building where the detective lived and meets the detectives friend and neighbor, Ray Martin (Bruce McGuire, Zone Troopers). Ray confirms that his detective friend was killed and did not commit suicide, that most of the police force in Taranto are corrupt and even shows Aiden all the clues and leads his detective friend had collected that all pointed to a powerful crime boss named Lupo (Bruno Bilotta, Double Team).
• Fast Track: This would have been a great moment to put The Tracker on the action fast track and have Aiden Hakansson start tearing through corrupt cops and Lupo henchmen before finally getting to the man responsible for the deaths of his wife and daughter. Instead the movie continued at the same deliberate pace, with Aiden getting to do some action hero stuff, but not nearly enough. Aiden does get an assist from Antonio Graziani, a newly transferred cop to Taranto, who did some digging of his own into Aiden’s case and decided to step up and do the right thing and help Aiden. Antonio may be the most fleshed out character in the entire movie, he has motivation, he has compassion and he has a very pregnant wife who moved to Taranto with him, making him a sympathetic figure when he puts himself in harm’s way in the latter stages of the movie.

The Tracker did one thing really well… casting Dolph Lundgren as the lead. Then The Tracker proceeded to do a bunch of things not so well making it another forgettable entry in Dolph’s ever growing filmography. If you are a Dolph Lundgren loyalist you may want to give The Tracker a watch if you find it on your favorite streaming service or perhaps at the Dollar Tree, but I wouldn’t go out of your way to track it down.

In a perfect world, instead of Dolph making 4 or 5 DTV movies per year, these producers, who some how managed to get these movies financed, would combine their resources to make 2 Dolph DTV movies a year, with Dolph getting the same amount of money as if he made 5. And the 2 movies would be of a higher quality and be movies that fans of Dolph Lundgren would thoroughly enjoy and may actually want to watch more than once. But sadly we do not live in a perfect world.

But even in this imperfect world, I have some Bonus Bullet Points for you…

• Shock Jock: The aforementioned one good cop in Taranto, Antonio Graziani, was played by Marco Mazzoli. Mazzoli is Italy’s answer to Howard Stern, hosting the popular Lo Zoo di 105 program on the Radio 105 Network.
• The Name Game: Not to be confused with 1988’s The Tracker starring Kris Kristofferson or 2001’s The Tracker starring Casper Van Dien and Russell Wong.
• AKA: The working title for the The Tracker was The Stranger, but they must not have wanted it to be confused with 2010’s The Stranger starring Steve Austin or 1995’s The Stranger starring Kathy Long and Andrew Divoff.
• I’m Getting Too Old For This Shit: It is likely a combination of my age and poor font choice, but the on screen text that was used for some of the credits and in the establishing shots to tell us when and where the story was taking place was way too tiny even on a big screen TV.