Castle Falls (2021)

Castle Falls (2021)

 

Starring: Scott Adkins, Dolph Lundgren, Vas Sanchez, Scott Hunter, Kim DeLonghi, Connor Lyons, Justin B. Wooten, Kevin Wayne, Eric Gray
Director: Dolph Lundgren
Action Director: Tim Man

 

Once in a while, the universe surprises you with talent in unexpected places. Take Dolph Lundgren for example. He often plays these superbuff action heroes, albeit ones whose intelligence is often questionable. Even just looking at him, you wouldn’t expect much from him. And yet, Dolph Lundgren has a degree in chemic engineering and is a fairly intelligent individual, despite the roles he plays. Moreover, he’s actually a pretty decent movie director. I liked his early directorial effort The Mechanik; I thought it had a great atmosphere and some solid action. On the same token, this COVID-19-era action drama shows considerable talent on Lundgren’s end, with a strong set-up, some solid (if ultimately unremarkable) action, and great use of a (mostly) a single location.

Scott Adkins plays Mike Wade, an over-the-hill MMA fighter who has lost his last fights and has been relegated to “sparring partner” status at his gym. After a failed attempt to convince his former coach to let him back on board—he takes one one of the up-and-coming fighters and loses after falling on his bad shoulder—he packs up and heads to Birmingham, Alabama for a fresh start. He finds temporary work demolishing a defunct hospital that the mayor intends to transform into a commercial center.

Dolph Lundgren plays Richard Ericsson, a prison guard whose daughter Emily (Lundgren’s real-life daughter, Ida) is dying of leukemia. Ericsson’s health plan is slow on the decision on whether or not to fund the homecare nurse who takes care of Emily. When the hospital calls to inform him that there is a surgery that might save her life, they mention that his plan will only cover 50 grand of the procedure, leaving him to foot the of the bill: four-hundred thousand dollars. As he laments to the hospital employee, “My house isn’t even worth that much.”

Ericsson’s fortunes are about to take a turn for the better. There’s a black inmate at the prison, Lando (Eric Gray), who is constantly being harassed by the white convicts who occupy his block. The latter are led by a white supremacist named Damian Glass (Abominable’s Robert Berlin). Glass hates Lando because the latter stole his money and hid it somewhere. Lando makes a deal with Ericsson: he’ll tell him where the money is hidden if he transfers Lando to the South Block, where the rest of the African-American prisoners are housed. Desperate for money, Ericsson takes up Lando on his offer.

Glass is able to relay the info about the stolen money to his brother, a drug dealer named Deacon (veteran stuntman Scott Hunter, whose credits include Gemini Man; Suicide Squad; and Avengers: Endgame). Deacon rounds him his cronies and has Ericsson followed until the location of the money is revealed: Castle Falls Hospital. That would be the same place Mike Wade is working. And what do you know? On the last day of the job—the same day the building is to be leveled with explosives—Mike discovers the money in a cabinet somewhere on the eighth floor. Let the games begin!

Castle Falls reminds me a more action-oriented version of Trespass, which was a great suspense film which also involved people looking for riches in an abandoned building. Trespass was more about the suspense, and the action didn’t really kick in until the final reel. Lundgren, however, spends about half the film setting up the characters and their inevitable (and violent) meeting, after which he deftly jumps back and forth between suspense and action. Lundgren even sets up some great shots, like someone falling out a window to their death, but with the camera placed a few hundred feet away at an event the mayor is holding. Although we see the body falling, everybody at the event is oblivious to the fact that people are running with guns and killing each other in front of them.

While we’re not dealing with the most complex characters ever written, we see enough of them that we feel sympathy for the protagonists. Dolph Lundgren turns a heartfelt performance early on and is a bit more cautious and strategic in his approach to entering the building and dealing with the bad guys. Conversely, Scott Adkins’s Mike Wade is a decent man whose been dealt a bad hand—his career ended prematurely and he now lives out of his truck—but with his life on the line, any and all of his pent-up anger from the recent disappointments in his life gets released in brutal moments of fury.

The action was directed by Tim Man (Triple Threat and Ninja: Shadow of a Tear), whose name doesn’t show up in the end credits. The opening match pits Adkins against stuntman Evan Dave Taylor, and the two put on a good display of MMA, from kicks and punches to jiu-jitsu holds and takedowns. The action is more MMA-oriented, with haymaker punches, more basic kicks (roundhouse and side kicks), and more groundfighting and shooting (the wrestling technique). Adkins doesn’t get many opportunities to unleash his famous bootwork, but he does perform a jumping sidekick with both legs. Adkins does throw down with co-star Dolph Lundgren, who was about 62 years old at the time of filming. Although Lundgren is still in good shape for his age, it’s clear that the man is slowing down and his punches aren’t as strong as before. Or the fight choreography might simply have been rushed and end result is that some of the hits come across as weak in that particular fight.

While not the best film in any of these guys’ filmographies—Dolph Lundgren, Scott Adkins, or Tim Man—I thought that the general direction was good and the action was brutal enough to make for a fine way to spend a scant 80 minutes of your free time.

This review is part of our "September of Scott" at It's a Beautiful Film Worth Fighting For.