THE BOTTOM SHELF:
Dolph rocks out in new release

November 5, 2009 by Richard Pierce 

Walking down the new release aisle of the video store and seeing a new Dolph Lundgren movie has always felt a bit like Christmas morning to me. I become elated with childlike excitement, snatch the DVD off the shelf and begin dancing around the aisles, smiling and chanting, “Dolph! Dolph! Dolph!”

Sometimes my excitement results in free rentals too. “Just take it and get the hell out now! You’re scaring the customers!” the video store manager often shouts.

My closest friends have always been aware of my fascination with Dolph – some perhaps a bit frightened by it. A few are still bitter about the time I skipped my best friend’s birthday party because “Universal Soldier” was on TV. But hey, maybe it’s time to move on, Jeremy! Twenty-first birthdays aren’t really that big a deal.

Simply put, Dolph Lundgren is the effin’ man and all naysayers will have to answer to me and my series of karate moves I’ve learned from repeatedly watching such Dolph classics as “Showdown in Little Tokyo” and “Red Scorpion.”

If you got a problem with Dolph, you got a problem with me.

This week, Dolph’s latest action flick “Command Performance” came out on DVD and Blu-Ray.

I chose to view the film on Blu-Ray, having never experienced Dolph in the high-def format. And I must say, seeing Dolph kick ass in 1080p, hearing bad guys cry out for mercy in rich 7.1 sound, being able to witness this much Dolphy action in HD was, well, a life changing event.

“Command Performance” is about a drummer named Joe (played by Dolph) performing as an opening act at a rock concert in Moscow for some Britney Spears-type pop singer named Venus (Melissa Smith). Of course, a team of terrorists crash the party in order to kidnap some government official’s daughter and it’s up to Joe to run around the arena and save the day.

Basically, it’s “Die Hard” at a rock concert.

In addition to being the film’s star, Dolph also acts as co-writer and director. And I gotta say “Command Performance” looks great. A huge cut above the average direct-to-video action fare.

So step aside, Mel Gibson! Outta the way, Clint Eastwood! There’s a new actor/director on the block and he knows how to roundhouse kick the crap out of you.
No one directs Dolph but Dolph.

“Command Performance” has a lot less action than the usual Dolph flick, but still has a couple of memorable moments. One involves Dolph killing a bad guy by driving his drumstick into the dude’s head.

Never seen that before. Holy crap.

The film doesn’t quite exploit the “Die Hard” rip-off genre as well as others have (Dolph himself has done it better in his “Die-Hard”-in-a-school movie, “Detention”), and this is mostly due to the film’s lack of action.

Dolph’s character is described as a seedy ex-biker with a mysterious past who hates using guns. Which I interpreted as a great set up for, “I like to do my killin’ by hand.” But sadly, there’s no martial arts fighting in “Command Performance” at all.

Come on! All they had to do was say Joe is a seedy ex-biker with a mysterious past who also happened to take a couple Taekwondo lessons as a kid and people would have totally bought into the fact that he inexplicably knows how to fight.

Lord knows action fans can suspend disbelief. I mean, hell, Steven Seagal has played a scientist in like three movies!

“Command Performance” is one of Dolph’s best movies in recent years, far better than my last Dolph review, “Retrograde,” from which I still haven’t recovered.

This one gets a “pretty darn good.”