Bullet Points: Command Performance

You can never look Dolph Lundgren in the eye and say he didn’t try becoming the biggest action star in the world. He has done pretty much nothing but action movies for the past 40 years and is willing to occupy almost any role during those films to make the project good. Some of his best roles have been as villains but there is no doubt that he has what it takes to be the big time hero. Command Performance is another one of those Dolph movies where he starts out as just a regular guy. He’s not a soldier or a cop, here, just your average, every day rock n roll drummer with an innate ability to kick some ass.

Synopsis: When the Russian Premier is taken hostage at a rock concert in Moscow, it’s up to a drummer, an ex-biker, to save him.

• Soviet fall flashback: The film opens with a flashback to when the USSR was collapsing and a Soviet General and his family became the target of the whoever it was that took over after that. The General ended up dead and his son walked in and saw it all. I guess that will probably be of some use later…

• Rock ‘n’ Roll: Fast forward to 2009ish and Dolph Lundgren’s sweet band C.M.F. (Cheap Mother Fucker) is playing in front of the Russian Premier. It’ll be a Command Performance! You know that time in a movie where they mention the name of the film and everyone groans? Yeah, this has that. Dolph, though, plays the drums for C.M.F. and they are poised to open for one of the hottest pop singers in the world.

• Big Dolph looking to smash: Melissa Molinaro plays pop singer Venus, a crazy hot Britney copy who can count the Russian Premiere’s kids as her biggest fans. She’s also got a thing for the rugged, and somewhat elderly drummer for C.M.F. He might have the shittiest tribal tattoos to not be on a Godsmack CD, but Dolph still has something in the tank. The good thing is that he knows it and seems to be more than willing to drop the hammer.

• Mass death at the show: Shit finally hits the fan as terrorists led by Oleg Kazog (Dave Legeno) rush the building, killing tons of people, and taking lots of others hostage. Their main target, of course, is the head honcho and his kids. Dolph is off smoking in the men’s room during the whole ordeal and ends up fighting his way out of the shitter and realizing what is going on when he runs face to face with some more killers.

• Kills: This movie is full-on Die Hard at a rock concert but I wish it had embraced the silliness just a little bit more. Dolph does kill a guy by stabbing him through the chin and out his eye socket but that’s as crazy as the kills get. He fights his way around the building with the help of one of the Russian equivalent of the Secret Service until they finally get close enough to save Venus and the girls. If you ask me, he’s still got that booty on his mind.

• Commando-style: We learn that Oleg is indeed the young man who witnessed his General father dying at the beginning of the film. Big Surprise. Neither Oleg nor any of his henchmen made much of an impression on me and it wasn’t until the finally throwdown that I really enjoyed the action. Part of that is because it looks very similar to Arnold’s Commando, which has to be one of the most iconic kills ever. The other reason is that I just can’t get enough Die Hard rip-offs and this one stars Dolph Lundgren!!

The Verdict: Command Performance is a perfectly adequate Die Hard ripoff from the early 2000’s. Dolph Lundgren’s character is a little too thin, in my opinion. He was in a biker gang in California so he can fight is one of the dumber back stories I can think of. Maybe I missed it but I don’t even remember the reason he didn’t care for guns. That was, of course, dropped since he uses a few of them by the end of the film. He also doesn’t have much reason for his actions. Did he lose a child to guns and now he’s trying to help save the President’s kids? That seems like a much better backstory to me. Either way, he gets to shove a knife into the top of a guy’s head and most of the film is just him walking around in a leather vest. Another question, how do you not have a scene of him beating a man to death with a pair of batons or something? Command Performance is a decent Dolph movie and will be a good watch for any true fan of the Swedish superstar.