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/

VFW (2019)

I say this a lot, but this is one I'd been meaning to get to for a while now. When my wife and I subscribed to AMC+ so she could watch Mad Men, I knew I had no excuse to not make it happen, but then she got all the Mad Men episodes on Amazon Prime, so every month I wasn't watching this was another $10. Instead of renting it for $4, I've spent like $40 or $50 with the subscription at this point. Anyway, in addition to us, Bulletproof and Mitch at the Video Vacuum have covered this too.

VFW is about some aging veterans whose relaxing VFW location is under siege after a young lady (Sierra McCormick) escapes to there with an evil drug dealer's drugs. Now he wants them back, so he sends a host of drug addicts over to violently retrieve them. Our vets, led by Stephen Lang, can't have that, so they go about fashioning weapons out of anything they can find, and ready themselves for wave after wave of attacks. Will our heroes survive the night? 

This is definitely a good deal. The prodigious cast is the biggest selling point, and director Joe Begos doesn't sell us short on that. There are no bait-and-switches here, the names on the tin are names you see throughout. The fact that everyone involved is able to balance all of these stars in one location for a large chunk of the film is no small feat either, but between Begos's direction, and the talent involved, they make it work. Beyond Lang, we had DTVC Hall of Famers Fred Williamson and Martin Kove, plus William Sadler, George Wendt, and David Patrick Kelly. They can as easily give you a monologue as they can smash a baddie's face in, and make both just as believable. If there's a qualm, it's the dark lighting, which made it hard to see everything that was happening. It also betrayed the 80s throwback vibe the rest of the film was going for, from the music to the practical effects. The one thing digital cameras can't do yet is look like they're 80s movies shot on film, so we don't get the full comfort food effect that we'd get watching an actual 80s film. That's one qualm though in a movie that overall hits its marks and is well worth the watch.

We're always saying we're going to get more Williamson on the site, but this is now four films since December--though to be fair, one was a one-shot cameo in The Outlaw Johnny Black--so we're actually keeping to it for once. Williamson is pretty solid here. He's playing a Korean War vet, which means he's actually playing someone older, because he would've been 15 when the Korean War ended. I don't know if they thought he was too old to be a Vietnam Vet like the rest of the guys, but he would've only been in his mid-20s for the Gulf of Tonkin. It was an interesting decision, because I don't think they realized how old they were making him. Still, he delivers the Hammer performance you want, and it was great to see him in this. We're now at 32 films for him on the site, and if we keep doing one every other month, we may get him to 36 by the end of the year. We'll see if I stick to it.

Another Hall of Famer in this is Martin Kove. We don't see him as often--the last time was in August of 2022 when we did Death Match, and every two years sounds about right. That doesn't mean we don't love him, he's a Hall of Famer for a reason, one of the best to ever do it, and it's been nice to see him get more shine recently through the Cobra Kai TV show. Here he's one of the heroes, but still behaves in a way that puts everyone in peril. Unlike Williamson, who is someone we want to get as much stuff up as possible, with Kove it's more about films like this, or some of his PM stuff like To Be the Best that will get him back on the site; but who knows, maybe at some point when the bigger names are closer to completed, Kove may get more frequent tags. Right now he's at 18, so it could be some time before we get to that point.

There were a lot of other names that we don't usually see here on the site. George Wendt we've seen one other time, in the Dennis Hopper flick Space Truckers. As someone who grew up an hour north of Boston, Cheers was on quite a bit, and we all loved Norm. At some point the Cheers bar at Logan Airport had a likeness of him, and he sued them over it, which makes sense--you don't want to be associated with overpriced airport fare. The main star was Stephen Lang, and we've seen him one other time as well, with the Seagal flick Gutshot Straight. He's great here as the lead, and really carried things. I thought for sure he'd been in something else we'd covered, but when I looked through his bio, I saw almost all big screen credits. We also had David Patrick Kelly, who I thought was too young to be in a movie like this, but it turned out he was born in 1951. For an ensemble with names like this, he was a bit further down the priority list, but still turned in his usual solid supporting performance. Finally, we had the great William Sadler. Another one that hasn't appeared on the site yet, but last year he did a great interview with Jon Cross on the After Movie Diner podcast that you should definitely check out. After listening to that I became a bigger fan of his, so it was fun to see him here and finally get him on the DTVC.

Finally, this is technically a horror film in addition to action, and as you've probably noticed, we don't do as much horror on the site here. In the past year it looks like we've done five horror films in addition to this one: three of which were directors we follow, Albert Pyun, J. Horton, and Harley Wallen; another was a documentary on W.A.V.E. productions; and the fifth was a Julie Strain movie in March of 2023. Part of it you see right away on the IMDb page, where this movie has 112 critic reviews. Adding my review to that ecosystem means it's probably only going to be seen by people who regularly follow the site, and while that's not a reason for me to not cover it, it's the reason why we do more action than horror, because action fans tend to find us more easily from IMDb when they're looking a film that maybe has 20 critic reviews--or in some cases even less. Horror is always going to be something I love though, and this film with its mix of horror and action elements reminded me how much I enjoy it, even if my pile of "to review" films is mostly action.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently this is available on AMC+. If you're already subscribed that's great, just don't end up like me and paying $10 a month for a service you don't really need just to make the film happen. Hopefully it'll make its way to the free streamers at some point.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9894470

And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.

Gutshot Straight (2014)

I've had this one in the can for a bit. I watched it free on Vudu, grabbed the images, and then that was it, it was relegated to the world of pay on demand. This was the last Seagal I had left in the can that I needed to review, so I figured it was time to finally make it happen. In addition to us, Cool Target has done this as well.

Gutshot Straight has George Eads as a down-on-his-luck poker player in Vegas--is there any other kind in movies?--who is propositioned by a creepy older guy played by Stephen Lang--does he play any other type?--to have sex with his wife. None of that sounds good, and after some shenanigans, Lang ends up dead, and Eads and the wife, played by AnnaLynne McCord, need to figure out what they're going to do. Maybe this is Eads's ticket out of his down-on-his-luck life, or maybe it's the kind of thing that will just get him in deeper. We wouldn't have a movie if it wasn't the latter, and as he gets in deeper, he doesn't know who to trust, so it's going to take all of his poker savvy--plus a little luck--to get himself out of this jam. Hopefully he and his straw fedoras make it out alive.

This was what exactly what you'd think it was, a modern Noir that unfortunately due to the fact that it was made in 2014 instead of 1954 has none of the charm and allure of those films; and because it wasn't made in 1994, it doesn't have the avant garde indie element that gets you through those--plus no Linda Fiorentino, who could take even the most "we've seen this before" Noir and make it compelling. The thing is though, as a Seagal completist--I don't even know if "fan" properly describes me anymore--this is a fascinating entry in his filmography, plus we have other names like Tia Carrere, Vinnie Jones, Loni Love, and Ted Levine to add to the ones I've already mentioned, which makes this slightly more elevated. One area where the film loses me as a Film Noir, is I don't know if George Eads is enough of a patsy, and AnnaLynne McCord enough of a femme fatale. When I think of something like The Last Seduction, the power dynamic between Linda Fiorentino and Peter Berg is evident; but Eads can't bring himself to be that Peter Berg schmuck enough, and McCord isn't Fiorentino enough to compensate. Throw in the creepiness of Lang's character, and now added to a dynamic that's not so compelling between Eads and McCord, I have Lang being so creepy I want to run away from him. Again though, I'm here for the Seagal, and this is enough of an interesting entry for Seagal completists.

We're now at 38 films for Seagal, but the issue is, the only one left is End of a Gun, and that hasn't been free to stream in forever. After that, I guess it's Clementine to get him to 40. Maybe for him Clementine in Koren with no English subs would be worth it for that. Here he plays a mob boss that Eads owes money to. It's the perfect kind of Seagal role, he gets to be all powerful against Eads's groveling for another chance to pay his debts. In looking at his bio, he doesn't have another role or film like this, so in that way this is a fascinating entry. I had it in my bottom five when I discussed Seagal with the guys from Comeuppance on their podcast a few years ago, and on further reflection, I think that's a little harsh, as Seagal has really tested our loyalty in ways much worse than this movie. Speaking of which, in terms of future Seagal reviews, there's also the issue of his True Justice movies, of which I think there's 11. For those who don't know, when Seagal's TV show True Justice was released on DVD, instead of releasing it a set of the episodes, they paired episodes off and packaged them as standalone movies. If I were to do those, we'd be talking about Seagal for the 50 Club. I don't know, maybe just outside the 40 Club is the best place for him instead...

Did you know Steven Lang was creepy? Like I don't know if anyone plays a creepy person better. I think he sits off in a corner at a mostly empty Starbucks, watches as a guy who has seats everywhere to sit, but decides to sit next to the only other person in the place, and says "yeah, that's it right there." Maybe he rides the subway, and when a guy makes sure his stance is wide enough to touch the women sitting on either side of him, unlike the rest of us who think "what a weirdo!" he smiles and says "that's what I'm looking for right there!" Perhaps he goes to the gym, under the guise of working out, but instead watches the guy who thinks the woman that just happens to be on the machine next to him must have a thing for him, and waits for the guy to harass the poor woman who's just trying to get some exercise. "Oh man, when she said 'I already have a boyfriend,' and he acted like he wasn't really into her... oh that's it right there! Why didn't I bring my notebook!" If you're a creep, Stephen Lang is out there somewhere studying you. He has fake female Twitter accounts just hoping you'll send him a DM. "Oh, you have a wife and a daughter, do you? So you just wanna be friends? Of course you do. Everyone just wants to be friends until they DM me a picture of their genitals, and I'm mining your creepiness all the way to my next role as a creepy guy who wants someone to sleep with his wife in front of him." In all seriousness, wouldn't Lang be great as Falwell in the dramatic film version of that scandal? I would watch that as quickly as I watched the Hulu documentary. Here's to you Stephen Lang, turning creepy into an art.

I couldn't believe that this was only our fourth Tia Carrere film on the site, but when I looked over her bio, the DTV stuff she's done doesn't always make it on here. She doesn't have as many action films, at least not DTV ones. She has a small part here as a guy who hits on Eads to get him to buy her a drink, and he stiffs her--all while creepy Stephen Lang watches, ready to get his hooks into Eads. To be honest, I think she would've been better as Lang's wife. She's still a good amount younger than him, but she also has the power to manipulate Eads in a way that could be more Postman Always Rings Twice. In looking over her bio, I don't know how many more films of hers we'll do, but she'll always have some big ones to her credit: Showdown in Little Tokyo, a great episode of The A-Team, and of course the iconic Wayne's World, which put her on the map. She also has a Seagal True Justice two-episode movie, True Justice: Lethal Justice, so maybe we will see her again. Let's hope so, because she's one of the greats, and seeing her in a scant role here just reinforced that.

Speaking of the woman who played Lang's wife, AnnaLynn McCord, we've actually covered a film she's been in before too. Kinda. She did a film called Fired Up, which was about two football players who join the cheerleading team, and hilarity ensues. I called it "Ski School at cheerleading camp." I don't know if you remember at that time, but for films like that that grossed over $10 million at the box office, instead of doing full posts, I gave them a paragraph at the end of another post, in this case the fanny pack spectacular Cyborg Cop. I didn't realize this, but whatever method IMDb uses to gather external reviews, it still caught that paragraph on Fired Up in its net, and it's part of the external reviews for that film. I have no idea how many of those I did, because the reviews on Blogger are listed by the main post, but eventually what I ended up doing was turning those paragraphs into full on Wild Card posts on Fridays, back when I did multiple reviews a week. I always think someday I'll go back through the reviews and catalog things like that, along with replacing the photobucket images (don't get me started on that scam outfit!) with the actual images, and remove all the old broken mattmovieguy HTML links (that one was on me for forgetting to update my card with the domain service), but it just seems so daunting. At the same time, people are constantly finding those old posts, so it would be nice for them to have the same experience as we get now with the new ones.

And with that let's wrap this up. I discovered that as of right now, you can stream this free again on Plex and Vudu. For Seagal completists, I think that's the way to go, and it's worth it for that. I guess if you're a Stephen Lang fan, to see him channel his most creepiness might be a draw too. Either way, free to stream is the way to go if you're venturing in.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2252552

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!