MISSIONARY MAN (Dolph Lundgren, 2007)

[manudenis2005]

Quote:
People really like him and it reinforces my belief that he never got the chance to peak as a big action start like he should have. It is not too late, but Lundgren has taken matters into his own hands directing his latest feature, Missionary Man.

That's so true.

[Nathan]

This is the Article in DVD Review, an interview with Dolph. The interviewer hasn't even seen MM and asks him more about other people than his own film but at least its promotion and publicity and did feature an MM still along with Drago, Punisher etc stills.

DVD Review haven't seen your latest directing effort, Missionary Man, yet. What's it about?

It's a modern Western. I came up with this concept because I thought if I set it today, on an Indian reservation, it wouldn't be as expensive as a period piece, but it uses some of the same storyu elements as a period Western. A stranger rolls into town on a motorbike, and he goes to a funeral of a local Native Indian who ends up helping his family against thugs who're terrorising the town. But as the film progresses you realise that he's not there for that puropse, he's there to get revenge, to get redemption for something that happened a long time ago...



Who would you say influenced you as a director?

Clint Eastwood has a great, simplistic style. It never fails to amaze me how he's so economical with his editing, his storytelling. Especially in post-production, when you want to keep tinkering with your picture, but I hear stories about him where his editors'll show him the cut and he'll turn round and say, (Does pretty good Clint impersonation) "I think we're done then." (laughs). He knows if you mess with it too much it loses something special, that X-factor.



Would you think about a full-time move from acting to directing?

It would be nice to do that. I've acted in about 40 movies, mostly in the action genre and you end up playing similar characters al the time, whereas as a director you can have more fun on the other side of the lens. I think you can express yourself better as a director.



Back in the '80's an action hero had to be built like a concrete outhouse. What do you make of today's heroes?

It change. The movies today have to be smarter, more unpredictible and the people expect that, and as a filmmaker you've got to try and keep them guessing. I don't think they're as fascinated with the individual. In the '80's it was all about Sly and Arnold - he was Mr Universe, he was actually really physical, a top athlete - but the most important thing these days is that the guy is a good actor.



Do you still do a lot of training?

I haven't slacked off that much. I still lift almost as much as I used to 20 years ago. And I spar. Of course, you get a little slower, but I like that challenge of getting hit and not making things too easy for yourself. I'm trying to keep it up, not just for my job but also to feel good.



You used to do loads of your own stunts. Do you still like to get stuck in?

Yeah! On the last movie I didn't have a stunt double, because I wanted to use the money for something else. I'm not going to do crazy stuff like setting myself on fire or doing high-falls but I did things like that when I was younger and less smart (laughs). I still try to do as much as I can. I think the audience like to feel the actor in there, especially in my case as they've seen it in the pst and they expect it to be old school.



Sylvester Stallone made his comeback this year. What do you think of Rocky Balboa?

Like everyone else I was sceptical when I first heard about it, but I thought he did a good job. I think that the world is getting so fast now that people appreciate old-school stuff things that they've seen when they were kids, names like Rambo and Rocky. And if the filmmaker does a decent job then people are going to see it.



The new Rambo movie looks like a proper old-school action flick!

I've used that myself, and I think Stallone's madea wise choice to make it pretty violent and realistic, because if you kill someone its not a pretty sight. Some recent movies are so sterile and impersonal that people shoot a lot of fast camerawork, you don't really see what happens. You don't feel it.



Your first movie, was the 1985 Bond film A View to a Kill. What do you make of the gritty updating of the Bond franchise?

I think it was good. Look, I'm a fan of the old Bond movies too, especially the Sean Connery movies, because he certainly had that air of actually being a dangerous guy - you actually believed he could kill somebody. And that's important, that sets some action leads apart form others, it adds a bit of an edge, a mean streak. And then with the newer Bond they've tried to bring that back, I enjoyed it.



MISSIONARY MAN IS OUT 4TH FEBRUARY ON REGION 2, COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES HOME ENTERTAINMENT.

[Krom]

here's a "not too good, not too bad" review (can't please everybody right?)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6462/Missionary+Man

I hope this is only from a promo screener because it only mentions 2 deleted scenes featured...

Also I'm annoyed when DVD reviewers confuse rating the DVD image quality with the film's cinematography. It says

"The anamorphically enhanced 1.85:1 image would not be bad if the whole entire look was not a retro-sepia tone."

well if it's a creative choice, then it has nothing to do with the technical aspects of the DVD (mastering, encoding and compressing)!

but anyway I'll retain this:

People really like him and it reinforces my belief that he never got the chance to peak as a big action start like he should have. It is not too late, but Lundgren has taken matters into his own hands directing his latest feature, Missionary Man.

To its advantage, it is ambitious and maybe a transitional work that could make Lundgren a hot property again.

There are just 2 deleted scenes.

[Mosquito]

The new Rambo movie looks like a proper old-school action flick!

I've used that myself, and I think Stallone's madea wise choice to make it pretty violent and realistic, because if you kill someone its not a pretty sight. Some recent movies are so sterile and impersonal that people shoot a lot of fast camerawork, you don't really see what happens. You don't feel it.

Dolph really takes the words out of my mouth here. Have I mentioned that I had to close my eyes during one car chase in The Bourne Ultimatum? I really liked the trilogy but... how fast can you go? They are overdoing it in many of the recent action movies. Also, Batman Begins: Christian Bale is a fantastic Batman and I love the dark twist the franchise has taken with Nolan. But do you remember the hand-to-hand fight in that mountain monastery in the beginning? I had no idea what was going on and how the hell he won that fight. Very annoying.

Very good to know that Dolph doesn't have any plans going into that direction. We want hand-to-hand fights and we want them old school, slow and dirty.

[Jox]

Given his films it would have been odd to hear him say the opposite, he already had stated he didn't really like wire stunts or over the top CGI, about 2 years go...

Bu yeah totally. That's why now I sometimes feel off because it's like did I miss something or people got new pairs of special eyes to watch those new action flicks we don't even have time to appreciate the action of?!

[Krom]

Yeah, Dolph's starting giving to us pure old school action. The last 10 minutes from MM are the best fight scenes since BlackJack and i can say that some parts are even better.

[Jox]

Check out Blaine's (the site's founder and former webmaster you have to thank first) interview report (with sightly more details about "Icarus"!)!

http://www.dvdschlock.com/2008/01/interview-dolph-lundgren.html

[Tom]

Slight loss of browny points for Dolph having watched Pale Rider the other night. He's borrowed (let no one call it stealing) a hell of a lot from that film. There's entire scenes, characters and plot lines lifted from it. Still, it's a good thing to copy I suppose.

[Jox]

Hum, so I heard... (I also think his green jacket with the belt costume was inspired by "The Outlaw Josey Wales") Have to check this one out again, I haven't seen it in like 15 years. Copying can be a good school to sort of learn the craft, and I believe this is what Dolph was searching (and already mentioned this one of the reasons he picked up the western genre). There's worth references out there than Eastwood...

[Tom]

As a UK resident, I have to say, if MM doesn't appear in the charts when it comes out, it'll be an absolute crime! I was in Tesco's yesterday and Asda later in the day and there in the charts was the absolutely horrendous Number One Girl, starring Vinnie Jones. True it's Vinnie and he's a brit, but it was part of Sony Home Entertainments fight factory (or kick ass action flicks) label, which MM is bound to be. Asdie from that there were another couple of really obscure DTV horror films I'd never heard of, starring no one of any sort of fame. I still hope I can fulfill a dream of walking up to a till, a real life checkout, and get the latest Dolph flick, without having to either travel miles, or merely end up buying it on the net.

[Tom]

http://www.thefilmfiend.com/2008/01/missionary-man.html

[manudenis2005]

That means Dolph did Pale Rider on bike.
That's pretty cool if you think about it.If Krom likes it ,this movie rocks!

[Mosquito]

I still hope I can fulfill a dream of walking up to a till, a real life checkout, and get the latest Dolph flick, without having to either travel miles, or merely end up buying it on the net.

Look at it this way: if you buy globally on the net you don't even have to leave your house and you have the choice between the best editions world wide. And isn't buying online much geekier than going to a Tesco?

[Mosquito]

Copying can be a good school to sort of learn the craft

Tarantino has built his entire career on openly copying. And I love his movies.

Blaine's interview was cool, I like his writing style a lot. But:

...i.e. we never really learned the background of Ryder, we didn't have to see the lovemaking scene, etc. Dolph replied that sometimes imagination is better than actually seeing it, and that he wanted to engage the audience's imagination

DAMN, DAMN, DAMN! Dolph, did I ever mention that I have no imagination at all? I really have to see things...

And:

Dolph said that he is currently working on a script about an assassin. He shared that he's interested in playing a bad guy once again, as he hasn't done it in 15 years (since his classic role as the Street Preacher in "Johnny Mnemonic.") He said that people seem to like him as a "heavy" so he's coming up with the story himself to write, direct & star in. In the film, the bad guy is the main character - like "Scarface" or "Leon"

Assasin is great... but rather than Scarface or Leon I'd like to see him as an "outspoken" bad guy like the Street Preacher or (even better) Sgt. Scott. Gosh, I think that supermarket scene is for sure one of his best performances... sends shivers down my spine every time I watch it. Creeping up silently from behind and just slicing a throat here and there would be a waste of talent.

[Tom]

I still hope I can fulfill a dream of walking up to a till, a real life checkout, and get the latest Dolph flick, without having to either travel miles, or merely end up buying it on the net.

Look at it this way: if you buy globally on the net you don't even have to leave your house and you have the choice between the best editions world wide. And isn't buying online much geekier than going to a Tesco?

But then no one gets to see my inane geeky and childishly delirious grin. Plus I get to engage in a Dolph conversation with one of those normal folk who don't watch DTV movies, when they inevitably ask me just why in the hell I'm buying a film like this.