Dolph Lungren plays an honest cop who is going to testify about police corruption on the force. First, he has to drive around a rookie woman police officer. Will they spend the rest of the day running from the corrupt cops wanting him dead? Of course, they will. Will they get into a lot of gun fights where everybody shoot at everybody else? Of course they will. Does this make for a pretty clichéd but pretty entertaining movie? You bet it does. I have definitely seen much worse films than this one. Sure it is predictable (is it a coincidence that one of the dirty cops looks like Al Pacino in Serpico) but it is fun to watch. You are not going to watch Oscar winning stuff, but it is worth your time to rent this movie out.

I was looking forward to Dolph's latest effort especially after waiting over a year since his last release, the completely underwhelming DETENTION. This one seems to be a return to the films made in the mid-to-late 90s by say Dolph's compatriots like Steven Seagal, Sly Stallone, and Jean-Claude Van Damme. The story here is basic, a cop confronting corruption in his unit, out to stop them and to stop them from either killing him or discrediting him and clearing his name after the bad guys set him up. And here Dolph resorts several times to using the karate and related martial arts that he has not used much if at all say in his last picture. And it is welcome too.

The fight scenes, to their credit, are more realistic than most depicted, and are not very long, although that fact contributes to the realism. Dolph takes on several creeps giving a store owner some crap and takes them out with either a kick, or a punch or a combination of the two. The guys don't say fight for five minutes straight, for example, although I wouldn't mind seeing such fights even though they are never all that real but they are helpful in moving the plots of these flicks along.

The action is better here than in the usual Dolph flicks and seems more realistic than say in DETENTION, with both sides getting into the action, Dolph getting hit at one point; and all are better staged and edited, and they look like they fit with the story instead of simply existing.

The time factor also helps move it along with Dolph having only one! day to train his new partner, find out who is behind the corruption and to foil the perpetrators.

It is good to see Dolph back and I look forward to the next one.

In Direct Action Dolph is an LA cop about to expose the rampant police corruption that surrounds his precinct every day.Before he can testify his fellow cops decide he is better of sleeping with the fishes,which puts Dolph into survival mode and on the run.Will he survive in the end?I think we already know that.

Direct action is the 2nd pairing of Lundgren and veteran Director Sidney J. Furie.Both quite capable here.The plot has been done countless times.The supporting cast is okay.Polly Shannon does pretty well here.But what nearly sinks Direct action is over-Ambition.The budget for this was clearly too low.The movie ends up looking way TOO cheap for its own good.The script while okay,has its fill of clichés and twists that you can see coming a mile away.

On the plus side,Dolph gets to demonstrate more of his martial arts prow-less.The fights are pretty good.

I think some producer should put up about 10 million or more for the next Lundgren flick.He cannot keep making them so cheap.After all the good things I had heard about DR,It came off as a major disappointment.

Its still better than the latest Steven Segal trash.

5/10