Stash House

Dolph Lundgren simply has a face for villains. For this reason, he played the Russian boxer Ivan Drago in Rocky IV. I was even more pleased when he ultimately took on a positive role in The Expendables, as that suits him well too. However, Stash House is a return to old ways. He is never quite the righteous hero, as proven in One in the Chamber, but Stash House presents him as a pure antagonist. A young couple buys a new house, or rather, they can afford to buy it. The husband wants to surprise his wife by allowing her to move into the new home for her birthday, assuming she agrees. Why wouldn’t she agree? The place looks perfect. Of course, it’s far from perfect. It’s somewhat a fortress and somewhat a prison, as it becomes for the titular couple. Two assassins are after them, looking for something in the house. It’s a very predictable film that doesn’t offer anything interesting within the action genre and is perhaps too long for a film where nothing significant really happens. Two characters want to survive, while the other two want to obtain something extremely important at all costs. Ultimately, it’s an ordinary action film that recycles scenes from other movies, fails to come up with anything new, and doesn’t even allow its main star to shine properly. I assume Dolph was meant to sell this film. The space at the end is good, but his character is ridiculous. (02/03/2013)