Starring: Steve Austin, Dolph Lundgren, Eric Keenleyside

You may like this if you liked: Maximum Conviction (Keoni Waxman, 2012), Recoil (Terry Miles, 2011), The Expendables (Sylvester Stallone, 2010)

Tommy Wick (Austin) works as a debt collector for Big Doug (Keenleyside), partly to pay off the huge debt his imprisoned younger brother has to Big Doug. Tommy is offered a job: Deliver a mysterious package to a local crime lord known as ‘the German’ (Lundgren, who I believe is actually Swedish) and all his brother’s debt will be wiped clear. Of course due to some hardly subtle hints, Tommy and ‘The German’ have a history. This may shock everyone here, but things do not go according to plan as various local gangsters attempt to kill Tommy and get their hands on this ‘package’.

Another week, another straight to DVD action film starring ageing action stars, this week it is the turn of seasoned thesps Austin and Lundgren. If you do watch this, then you get exactly what you expected. Some half baked copy and pasted plot intertwined with Austin trying to show us he can still pull off his favourite wrestling moves. There are plenty of ‘twists’ in the plot that are blatantly obvious, but it is almost a comforting feeling when watching. If an unexpected twist was to happen, it would be so disconcerting and unexpected that the world may well stop spinning. There is of course the usual less than subtle characterisation to clarify to all of us who the good guy and the bad guy are here. They almost go out of their way to remind us as with all films of this genre; the good guy goes out of his way for his family, never hurts an innocent person and even gives the bad guys the chance to call it quits. The bad guy is just a ruthless bastard who will happily kill everyone they see and take great enjoyment from doing it. I will let you figure out which one is which. It is just as well we have such subtle character traits; otherwise it would be so confusing!

Of course as a film in its own right this is pretty awful, but it would be unfair to judge it by those standards. Everyone involved knows what they are making and never even thinks they are producing anything else. The title and the cast means you are going to watch it with certain (low) expectations, and these are firmly met. For what it is this is fine, Dolph and Steve deliver (get it?) exactly what we all expect. This is forgettable nonsense, but good fun that is extremely easy to watch. Would we really want it any other way?