Bullet Points: Direct Action

Rummaging through the DVD bargain bin at my local K Mart, I happened upon an 8 pack of action movies for only $5 and I couldn’t resist. One of the 8 movies in this collection will be the subject of this installment of Bullet Points.

I always get a little nervous when I pop a Dolph Lundgren movie on. I’ve seen some great Dolph movies and I’ve seen some pretty unwatchable Dolph movies. Fortunately, Direct Action proved to be closer to great than it did unwatchable.

• The Premise: Dolph plays Frank Gannon, a member of the Direct Action Unit. A highly trained division of the police department, featuring only highly decorated officers with at least ten years on the job. The DAU has more freedom in doing their job allowing them to get maximum results. Unfortunately some members of the team, including Captain Stone (Conrad Dunn), have started to abuse the power and are illegally profiting from their elite police work. Frank is not on board with this dirty business and is set to testify in front of a grand jury. But Captain Stone of the DAU and the rest of the team don’t plan on letting Frank get there.
• Extreme Justice 2: This movie reminded me a lot of the Lou Diamond Phillips/Scott Glenn film, Extreme Justice. LDP and Glenn play cops in a secret division of the LAPD known as the Special Investigation Section in that one.

• A Female Partner?!?: Extreme Justice wasn’t the only movie Direct Action borrows from. Frank is assigned a new partner and get this… she’s a woman. Frank has a reputation of not doing well with rookie partners, so surely a lady cop won’t last 5 minutes with him, right?  Wrong! Billie Ross (played by Polly Shannon) while somewhat bumbling at times, stands up for herself and proves to be a valuable partner as the movie goes on. Plus, she kinda has a crush on Frank.

• A Job Well Dunn: Conrad Dunn of Stripes and Death Warrant fame, lives up to his end of the deal as the evil Captain Stone. Stone is a manipulator, he tries to buy off Frank’s silence with money and a promotion. And when that doesn’t work he just keeps stooping lower and lower… not only does the man stand to face jail time if the truth comes out, he’ll also lose literally MILLIONS of dollars. As they say, desperate men…

Direct Action was a well paced 97 minutes. It features a healthy does of Dolph opening up a can of whoop ass. You’ll get plenty of gun fire and the icing on the cake, a van blows up! Direct Action has set the bar somewhere between average and above average for the other 7 movies in the 8 pack.

I’d say this is a must watch for Dolph fans, especially fans of Dolph playing the good guy. And really any fan of action movies will be able to enjoy this one as long as you aren’t looking for a movie to reinvent the action wheel.

Here’s a few more Direct Action Bullet Points…

• Sidney J. Furie: The director of Direct Action is Sidney J. Furie. Anyone who knows action movies knows Sidney knows how to DIRECT ACTION. Get it? Some of Furie’s other films include Iron Eagle, Iron Eagle II, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and another Dolph movie, Detention.
• Oh Canada: Despite the movie being set in the United States, you may notice that the vehicles have Ontario license plates. The film was actually shot in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The wrestling nerd in me would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Hamilton hosted the original Royal Rumble event in 1988.