I guess that with both Cuba Gooding Jr. and Dolph Lundgren being prolific direct-to-DVD stars, it was inevitable that someday they would make such a movie together. Almost all of Gooding's movies for the past few years have been awful, but Lundgren is a lot more dependable - it was primarily his presence that made me rent this movie. While it's low budget, the movie is executed in a pretty slick manner that never makes the movie look cheap. There are some serviceable action sequences, and the movie also has the occasional sense of humor that I found welcome. Apart from those things, though, it's hard to build any enthusiasm for this movie. Gooding is miscast, to say the least - it's hard to accept him being a professional hit-man who casually kills and can pull off martial arts moves. Lundgren gives a relaxed and likable performance, but for some reason it's pretty clear that in his fight scenes he is being doubled for 90% of the fight footage, despite the fact that Lundgren has a black belt in martial arts in real life. (Needless to say, it's obvious that Gooding is being doubled as well.) The biggest flaw of the movie is that it is pretty slow for the most part, with a lot of boring chat. The slack pacing of the movie makes it hard to build a huge amount of resentment to the film, but you'll be falling asleep long before the end.
Review of One in the Chamber
