Hellfire (2026)

There was a time when the newest Dolph film would sit in my Netflix queue as I eagerly anticipated when it would finally be released and sent to me, and I would review it soon after. Now we live in the world of streaming and rent VOD, so I need to wait for a $1 movie night from Xfinity instead of ponying up $6 to rent it, which happened last weekend, so we're able to get this review on the site now.

Hellfire is an Isaac Florentine joint that takes place in 1988/2022 and involves a town in Texas/Arkansas that has been totally taken over by drug kingpin Harvey Keitel, and he forces the townsfolk to pack his drugs and do other crimes for him. That's when drifter and former Vietnam Vet Stephen Lang drifts into town, looking for work doing odd jobs so he can get some food and move on--or is he? When he sees a wheelchair bound Chris Mullinax and his daughter Scottie Thompson being terrorized by Keitel's son Michael Sirow, he decides to step in and show off a little Lang Fu. The problem is, has he made more trouble for the town than if he'd just left well enough alone? And is having a mustachioed Dolph as the corrupt sheriff enough to save this movie?

The answer unfortunately is no, because he's barely in this. While it has its moments, and I liked a lot of the modern Western touches, the film misses in a few key areas. One, we get long stretches of nothing happening, especially to start, and I was okay with that because they were building tension, but when we did finally get action, with a car chase leading into a cat-and-mouse shoot-out in an abandoned factory, it was more repetitive than action, which made me feel like "is that it?" Second, part of that tension is wondering if Lang will save these townsfolk, and spoiler alert, he doesn't. Wait, what? Aren't the townsfolk the whole point? Apparently not, so let's just gun them down and massacre them all. And then third... I'm sorry, I need to come back to the townsfolk massacre, so Lang comes into town, and they all end up dead as a result? And this all happens while Lang is lying on the ground with a massive head wound, which he eventually recovers from to deliver some Lang Fu on the baddies. Good for him I guess. If I had had to pay $6 for this I would've been pissed, and if I didn't have a review site where this would've been content, I would've been pissed paying $1 for it, but when it finally makes it to streamers like Tubi, it might be an okay way to spend 90 minutes.

Movie number 77 on the site for Dolph, and while he's not in it much, he does play a mustachioed Southern sheriff, so there's that. I don't know how much more we need from Dolph at this stage in his career, though maybe him being the star would be it? In fact he did a film similar to this, Missionary Man, which I have in my top 20 Dolph films (you can find our Dolph Lundgren Letterboxd list on the left sidebar), and in which he didn't let everyone die. Anyway, 77 means he's close to the 80 Club, which would be a massive milestone among many massive milestones Dolph's had on the site. To get there, we have Sharknado 5, which he's barely been in, but we can do; and the dreaded Fat Slags, which I've been warned against, but will have to do eventually. From there we'll probably need to wait for One Last Shot or Straight Shot to come out, though doing something like Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice would also work. So 80 will happen, it's more a matter of if than when, and you can be sure when we do movies number 78 and 79 for him, this paragraph for those will probably read like this one does.

Our film's other Hall of Famer is director Isaac Florentine, and while this is technically his most recent film out, it was shot in 2022 before his second-most recent film, Hounds of War, which Ty and I will be covering on an upcoming podcast episode. Speaking of Hounds of War, it's one of only three films of his that we haven't reviewed on the site, the other two being High Voltage, which I've watched and was going to be reviewed in this slot until I had a chance to get this movie on cheap rental; and Desert Kickboxer, which as far as I know is on YouTube, but is the only one of his I haven't seen. I think High Voltage is a great comparison to this one, because they both play out like modern Westerns, but High Voltage has a higher action quotient, and has a more fun premise too. Because I'm not counting Max Havoc: Curse of the Dragon as one of his directed films--Albert Pyun did most of it, but it's still enough for Florentine to get tagged--this makes 15 for him now on the site, and I'd say out of those 15, this is maybe 15th, or 14th above Assassin's Bullet, which makes this sound horrible, but instead I'd say that this shows the high floor Florentine has with his films, because it's not that bad. 15 directed films also puts him alone in fourth all-time on the site, behind Pyun (44), Fred Olen Ray (17), and Joseph Merhi (17), and while three movies left may sound like he can catch Ray and Merhi, they both have a lot more to review, so even if he does catch either of them, it'll be short-lived until he gets more stuff out there. But still, a great run, and as we said, if this is the worst of them, that's not bad.

The two other big names in this were the lead, Stephen Lang; and the lead baddie, Harvey Keitel. Lang was great as the stoic, humble hero, and while maybe the Lang Fu was a bit much, the rest of it really worked. Keitel was a more interesting one, because I caught Who's That Knocking at My Door a few days before I watched this, and the difference in Keitel between the two films was immense, not just because of the difference in age and difference in the quality of the movie. It was hard to reconcile that they were the same person. His part was small here, and didn't require a lot from him, but it does help the film if he's the baddie for even only a few scenes. And then I want to mention Michael Sirow, someone we're more likely to see on a podcast episode with Ty. He does a great rage bait baddie, and reminded me that before we had rage bait on Instagram or TikTok as a way to farm engagement, rage bait was reserved for movies like this, and was designed to enhance the viewing experience, not be the viewing experience in and of itself. It feels like a more noble pursuit, Sirow playing the biggest jerkoff he can so we root for Lang that much more, as opposed to an algorithm pushing me more content of a guy putting insulting bumper stickers on F-450s after their jerkoff owners double-park over two ADA accessible spaces. Less algorithm-drawn rage bait keeping me on my social media apps, and more Sirow taking one for the team like the professional actor he is, that's what we all need.

Finally, I feel like this seventh paragraph is becoming "what song did the film's title get in Matt's head this week?" And true to form, the song is The Prodigy's "Fire," which samples The Crazy World of Arthur Brown's "Fire," repeating the line "I am the God of Hellfire, and I bring you... fire" over and over. In 1997 I went on a school trip to England, and being a Prodigy fan at that time I got as many of their UK release singles as a could, assuming there was no way I could get them in the US. Turned out I was wrong, because as the band had blown up in the States, soon after all of those import CD singles were not only available, but they were cheaper, and I wouldn't have had to lug them from tour stop to tour stop--and would've had more money for the pubs, which was a big deal for an 18-year-old like me who wasn't legal to drink in bars in the US. Also, soon after the trip, I saw a freshman wearing a Prodigy T-shirt, and suddenly they weren't as cool to me anymore. Ah, the capriciousness of youth, right? And here we are almost 30 years later with me remarking about the whole thing in a blog post.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Rent VOD is currently the only way to go on this, and I'd say unless you get a discount, you're better off waiting. This is more a free-streamer time-killer than a $6 splurge, and if you're really craving Dolph, he has like 30 movies in Tubi, you could always give one of those a rewatch.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14507394/

Wrong Turn at Tahoe (2010)

I know, it's not 2010 yet, but that's the year imdb lists for it, so this is the first official post of the new year. The film was actually released last week, but I couldn't review it then due to our Golan-Globus celebration, so I tabled it until now. If you've seen it at Walmart, or in your local video store, and wasted your money because I didn't warn you in time, let me know. I can't refund your money, but I can at least offer a personal apology.

Wrong Turn at Tahoe is a Noir-ish thriller that borrows from everything from Pulp Fiction to Goodfellas to Ghost Dog (that's two Ghost Dog mentions in a week!). Gooding jr. plays a hatchet man for a local gangster (Miguel Ferrer) and finds out a local drug dealer, named Tahoe, wants Ferrer dead. So, unlike Robocop, Ferrer becomes proactive and takes the dealer out first. Problem is, he's the best dealer a local mafioso, played by Harvey Keitel, has, and now Keitel wants retribution. As things spiral apart around the warring gangsters, can Cuba get out in time before he's pulled under with the current?



There are two types of Film Noir in this world: the good, and the self-indulgent, and this was the latter. Conversations about foot massages and Big Kahuna burgers: very cool. Conversations about whether fat chicks give better blow jobs: stupid-- and even dumber when given to us as if it were very cool. The plot twist at the end, which I won't give away, made no sense based on the rest of the story, meaning the writers wrote themselves into a corner. I'm also not sure where this movie took place-- it looked like the Pacific Northwest in the winter, but everyone had New York plates. This just didn't work.

I think had it not been so obviously derivative, I would've liked it more. What made a film like City of Industry work, and a film like The Limey not, was the derivative-ness. It's almost like the latter was grabbed by a studio and remade to make it more like Pulp Fiction, while the former stood alone as decent Film Noir. Wrong Turn at Tahoe was different, in that the film makers seemed to just take every cliché out of the Tarentino rip-off handbook. Perhaps, in that sense, it was art, because it was like a collage of clichés pasted together in a Warhol-esque manner-- but that would be giving the film too much credit.



Ah, Mr. Gooding jr. Comfortable here? Feeling all right in the world of DTV? Can we get you anything, maybe to make your stay a little nicer? If you want, we can place your Oscar in one of our strong boxes we keep behind the front desk. I'm not sure you'll be needing it anytime soon. How did this happen? Somewhere in the mid-oughts his Radios and Boat Trips caught up with him, and Daddy Day Camp was not the right response. I'd ask why he's decided to do DTV actioners and Noir-ish thrillers, but why doesn't matter anymore, because he's done like 1o of them already, and I need to catch up, because I've only reviewed Hardwired, which was released less than a month ago. Like I said, Cuba, you'll be here for a while, and I can't wait to have you as a guest. The ice machine is right next to Mr. Lundgren's room.

Miguel Ferrer was not believable as a vicious gangster. That's it. And because he wasn't believable, it came off as him trying too hard, which wasn't a good look for him. He was amazing as the ode to young 80s greed in Robocop, so we know he's good, he just didn't do it here. What's crazy is how believable Cuba Gooding jr. was as the hatchet man, which is a stunner, because I think if you asked me going in who would work better, I'd say it was the other way around. Very disappointing.



We love Harvey Keitel at the DTVC. We've reviewed two of his films, Bad Lieutenant and Star Knight, and this third effort is certainly closer to the latter than the former, though the people making this would watch a Star Knight and think how much better they are than it, and watch a Bad Lieutenant and think how great they are at emulating it, and they'd be dead wrong on both accounts. It's funny that Cuba Gooding jr. is the one with the Oscar and Keitel isn't. I think Gooding should've won in '96 (though I wouldn't have argued with Macy in Fargo), and if you look at the people who won in the 90s when Keitel did some of his best work, it's hard to make a case for Keitel against the other winners, other than 1992, when Keitel should've won for Bad Lieutenant (which he wasn't even nominated for) over Pacino's lifetime achievement Oscar for Scent of a Woman.

Stay away from this. If you see it and think "I like Harvey Keitel", rent something else with him in it; or think "I liked Ferrer in Robocop", then rent Robocop; or think "Ooh, Cuba Gooding jr., I loved Pearl Harbor!-- well in that case you shouldn't be reading my blog.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1393000/

Bad Lieutenant (1992)

I first saw this film in high school. We were all still feeling the buzz from Pulp Fiction, and were looking for anything else that had anyone we liked from it. When someone came across this, starring Harvey Keitel, it was a sure bet, and became a quick hit amongst my friends.

Bad Lieutenant has Harvey Keitel as a cop living life on the edge. He's constantly strung out on drugs, is extremely crooked, and now is in it deep to a bookie after some bad baseball bets. As this is going on, a nun is raped inside her Catholic church. Keitel is assigned the case. We watch as a once talented police detective solves the case while his life disintegrates in front of us.



This might be, bar none, the best film ever reviewed on the DTVC. It's kind of iffy as to whether or not it even belongs on here. Really, it's an indie flick that was passed up for mainstream success due to it's NC-17 rating. But it's popularity subsequently came when people picked it up in their local video stores. Most were probably like us, and saw Harvey Keitel on the cover after seeing Pulp Fiction and Reservoir of Dogs, and figured it would be cool. Maybe it doesn't fit with a Bridge of Dragons or Out for a Kill, but we don't make that decision, the movie industry does.

Watching this in high school, it was just awesome to watch Harvey Keitel do a bunch of drugs. Now that I'm older, I think I have a greater appreciation for this film. The overall feel is more French New Wave than early nineties US indie. The shots, the beats: I felt like I was watching Goddard. The other thing that made it more European was the explicit way sex was dealt with. The only time the violence matched the sexual intensity was when the nun was raped, which was very visceral. I think it's one thing American and Asian film makers can learn from their European counterparts: sex is not anything to shy away from. As far as I could tell, the sex was the biggest reason this film got an NC-17. Maybe Captivity could've been NC-17, and this rated R.



Harvey Keitel is amazing in this. You may remember the only other film of his I reviewed on here: Star Knight with Klaus Kinski, where Keitel kept his Brooklyn accent only to mix in Shakespearian English to make himself more medieval. This film is nowhere near as comical, as you can imagine. Harvey Keitel's performance won him the Independent Spirit Award for best male lead, and it's apparent why. The raw emotion he brings to the role makes it as difficult to watch, yet impossible to turn away from, as I feel director Abel Ferrara intended. Al Pacino won his lifetime achievement best actor Oscar for Scent of a Woman in 1992, but I think anyone who's seen both pictures would've considered Keitel's performance superior. (As an aside, Pacino was nominated for best supporting actor that year for his role in Glengarry Glen Ross, which I thought was better than Hackman in Unforgiven. Of course, Alec Baldwin was better than Pacino in Glengarry... but I digress.)

The nun being raped was a very graphic scene, but it was also used as a means to introduce some real questions regarding faith and spirituality. Keitel in one moment is calling the Catholic church a racket, then later is begging Jesus to give him a direction. The nun refuses to cooperate in the investigation of her own rape, because she had forgiven the boys that perpetrated the crime, and feels that is what God wanted. Keitel tries to reason with her that she doesn't have that right, because arresting and punishing the boys could prevent other women from going through what she went through. It's interesting that religion would be debated in the midst of this depraved storyline, and yet fits organically.



One interesting element of the plot in this is Keitel's gambling problem, which spirals out of control as he bets on a playoff series between the Dodgers and Mets. The series is made up for the movie, and part of it involves the Mets coming back from an 0-3 series deficit. As many of you may know, twelve years later, the Red Sox pulled that feat off in reality against the Yankees. I considered how that would play out if the movie was remade, and I think the use of the fictitious series works better. I could see Keitel maybe betting that the Yankees win game 4, after they shelled the Sox in game 3. But betting against Pedro in game 5, and then Shilling in game 6... no one in their right mind would do that. And a lot of baseball analysts at the time were saying if the Sox could get game 4, they were set up to push a game 7, and that's what they did.

This is a case where being a person who peruses the shelves at the local video store for anything with a recognizable person on the cover can lead to more than just a silly movie that everyone can laugh at and make fun of. This is the diamond in the rough (though the film is pretty rough on it's own), and it's a film of such a high quality that it'll amaze you that it wasn't released in more theaters. Again, Hollywood's loss is our gain.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103759/

Star Knight (1985)

In the endless search for more Klaus Kinski films, I found this bad boy. Also listed among the stars is Scorsese and Tarantino mainstay Harvey Keitel. Kinski paired with Winston The Wolf? This had greatness written all over it, and I didn't hesitate to pull the trigger when I saw it on Amazon.

Star Knight is a Spanish sci-fi/fantasy film involving an alien visiting a medieval Spanish manor. The lord's daughter finds the ship while swimming naked one night, and falls in love with the one alien aboard, a man who looks like the lead singer of any 80s New Wave band. Kinski plays a mystic employed by the lord from time to time to help him out, and he talks to the daughter upon her return. While everyone in town believes the ship is a dragon, and the alien a warrior of evil riding it, Kinski and the daughter know better. Enter Keitel as a swordsman looking to become a knight and also looking to marry the lord's daughter. He promises to slay the dragon and kill the alien controlling it. He and the local priest give it a go, and hilarity ensues. They take the ship from the alien, and accidentally fly it into space, while the alien stays home and marries the lord's daughter.



This movie is remarkably horrible. This was like MST3K bad. Think Deathstalkers and the Warriors From Hell, only add in Keitel and Kinski, which makes it all the better. This passed the true test of a great bad movie, when it entertained people who usually don't like to watch the crap that I do. There was just no way you couldn't find this funny.

Kinski was Kinski in this. He's in it slightly more than in The Creature, so I'd say it's worth a look if you're a fan of his. He lives up to his standing as a card carrying DTVC Hall of Famer, especially in the way he wears his ridiculous outfits. We spent the movie trying to guess how much he made, what demands he had for the production, and how he might have gotten along with Keitel. His name was top billing, so I have to assume that that was a stipulation on his participation. I must say, he's pretty tame in this, though. No Cobra Verde style freak outs, so in that sense, it was a little disappointing. Overall, a Kinski-esque effort.



Keitel was a whole other story. Anyone who's ever seen Last Temptation of Christ remembers his role as Judas, where he kept his New York accent. In that role, it just seemed to work, and it was one of the more inspired decisions Scorsese made in making that movie, at least for me. In this, he also retains the New York accent, but speaks in this Shakespearian tongue that sounds hilarious. Everytime he had a line, he elicited laughs. "Thow haath fohrsaken me!"

Being a Spanish movie, the Spanish director and Spanish writer included an ode Spain's greatest literary figure, Cervantes, with a Don Quixote like character called the Green Knight. I think we were supposed to juxtapose his genuine chivalry with Keitel's self-interested brand. I dug it. It was especially cool when the alien donned his gear to fight Keitel at the end. The whole thing was a touch of class in a movie that desperately needed it and more.



The inside of the alien's ship looked like something out of The Dark Crystal or Krull, both movies I'd think a film maker wouldn't want to have his film in the same sentence as, or even worse, be accused of ripping off. From the outside, the ship reminded me of Close Encounters. I was worried Richard Dreyfuss might show up, and was thankfully spared that pain. Finally, when the ship left the Earth's atmosphere, for some reason it turned into an animated cat toy, you know the ones with the bell inside the wire cage ball. I know it's 1985, and technology wasn't the best, but someone had to think that looked worse than just continuing to use the toy model of the ship that we saw on Earth. I'm not complaining, because it was just another thing for us to find funny, just curious how that decision was made.

This movie is probably too poorly made to be worth buying for more than a buck or two. If you see it to rent, snatch it up immediately, because it's perfect for a bad movie night. It's the kind of thing MST3K would've made a great episode with, and now you and your friends have the opportunity to see what you can do with it. My friends and I are big Kinski fans, and on that score, I'd recommend seeing too.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088870/