I bought Cover-Up purely on the grounds that I needed a third DVD for a three for £10 deal and it had Dolph Lundgren in it. The movie was released in 1991, so it falls right inbetween some of his best movies( Dark Angel and Showdown in Little Tokyo).


The movie follows Mike Anderson (Lundgren), a former soldier who now makes his wages as a reporter. He is in Israel where unknown enemies have attacked a US military base and a mysterious ‘Package’ has been stolen. An Iraqi terrorist group are being blamed.

While there, Mike meets up with his ex-lover Susan (Lisa Berkely – in her only role) and his old buddy Coop (John Finn - Nowhere to Run). Susan is now rather hostile towards Mike, due to an incident in Rome where he apparently abandoned his friends for his job. Susan and Coop are now engaged to be married.

But when Coop is killed in a car bombing, Mike is wanted by Military superior Lou Jackson (Louis Gossett Jr. – The Punisher), who is trying to cover up what was in the package.

But it soon becomes clear that the two are really fighting on the same side, and Jackson informs Mike of what was in the package: a deadly chemical that kills everything it comes into contact with. But the shocking part is who is behind the theft of the chemical, and what great master plan they have for it…

Now, if this review was a bit short, that’s because Cover Up was incredibly boring. The plot is sort of like a land based Agent Red, and we all know how that turned out.

The funny thing is, the acting is actually quite decent, with Gossett Jr. his reliable self, and him and Lundgren working well with each other like inn 89’s Punisher.

The music is pretty drab, but isn’t anything really horrible.

The movie really doesn’t have much else to say about it, there are scandalously few action scenes, and I mean, who goes into a Dolph movie hoping for anything but action scenes?. To add insult to injury, the ones that are there are garbage. Only the ending, where Dolph races against the clock to reach a church bell that will release the gas, killing loads of innocent people.

Admittedly, the plot twist is quite good, but seeing as the movie is so boring, it really can’t save the movie. The Israel setting was used much better in Jean Claude Van Damme’s 2001 outing The Order.

I was actually surprised that this movie was made in what was really Dolph’s heyday. It reminds me of those rubbish films he made in the late 90s like Sweepers.

To be honest, I’m reluctant to even recommend this to Dolph fans, seeing as it has so few and so bad action scenes that we don’t even get to see what the big man does best. I really would recommend skipping this to pick up some of Dolph’s more action packed movies.

The movie is wasted potential. The talent involved is good enough, the basic plot is as well. Had they actually put some action in the movie, then it probably would have fared a bit better.

With that said, it isn’t the worst movie ever, it is far more watchable than crap like Gangland,With Friends Like These
, or The Howling 3:The Marsupials, seeing as it is a competently made movie, but you just get that horrible ‘made for TV’ feeling, that you really shouldn’t be getting from a movie made in the days when Dolph was in the Cinemas.

Year: 1991
Titles: Cover-Up


Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD