Common sights in shops that sell DVD players are DVD bundles. These are cheap and cheery DVD players with about 50 movies, usually coming from those friendly people at Hollywood DVD or Prism Leisure, and usually comprising of a few good titles mixed with 45 of the company’s worst movies.

One of the movies that is always top billed in these packages is Dolph Lundgren’s The Peacekeeper.

This is a tale of Major Frank Cross (Dolph Lundgren - Dark Angel). Cross has been making the headlines for dropping aid to starving refugees against orders. He is given a choice: become the bodyguard of the president’s black briefcase, which controls the launching of nuclear missiles, or face a Court Marshall. Naturally Cross decides to take the black bag of President Baker (Roy Schneider – Jaws), but on his first day of work, the bag is stolen by some incredibly well prepared terrorists and taken to a missile silo they have also gained control of. But Cross has snuck in, and they never took out one of the silo men, Lt.Colonel Northrop (Montel Williams – Educating Matt Waters), and it isn’t long before the two have teamed up to fight the terrorist threat. But these are no ordinary terrorists. They are led by disgruntled former soldier Lt.Colonel Doug Murphy (Michael Sarrazin – The Second Arrival). Who was sent into Iraq to kill Saddam by the President, only to have had his mission aborted, and his team fired upon by his own side. He has been thought dead since, and insists that the President kills himself live on TV, or else the whole of Washington DC is going to go up in a mushroom cloud…

Now, before I say anything else, I would just like to point out how much better the Peacekeeper was than what I thought it would be.

I was expecting a downright farce of a movie, a horribly boring waste of time that would have me constantly thinking “When will this end?”. But instead, I got a decent little action movie that passed 98 minutes brilliantly.

The acting is all pretty standard for a low budget action picture, with no outstandingly terrible showings, although I was surprised to see talk-show host Williams in a Dolph Lundgren action flick, his acting was good enough.

The music is also pretty standard, but nothing really worth complaining about.

Now, one thing that has to be mentioned while talking about the movie’s good points is the action scenes. While the stuff with the missiles isn’t all that hot CGI wise, the Dolph action is all pretty good, with a definite highlight being the rooftop car-chase, which I actually found incredibly well done, and was a shocked to find such a nice piece of action in such a low budget actioner.
I also liked the whole motive for Murphy’s actions, which , while hardly epic, is much better than you usually get in movies of this type.

The bad?well, there isn’t anything to change how you view the world of film. It isn’t even one of Lundgren’s best movies, but if you went into a cheap Dolph Lundgren action picture expecting such things then you really deserve to be disappointed.

The Peacekeeper is a fun way to waste 98 minutes, and Dolph Lundgren fans will love it. Fans of action movies in general should also check it out, if only for the car chase.

One major complaint I would like to mention, that really isn’t about the movie, is the UK DVD release. This is the most appalling DVD I have ever seen. There is no scene selection, no menu, nothing. It is essentially a VCD.


Year: 1997
Titles: The Peacekeeper
Hellbent
Red Zone

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day