Silent Trigger - It’s like Die Hard (if Die Hard was really bad!)

Okay, where do I begin… I have been known to enjoy a good ‘so-bad-it’s-good’ movie from time to time and I am a fan of the ‘classic’ action movies of the eighties (and therefore all those muscle-bound hunks who starred in them).  Therefore, based on my nostalgia for Dolph Lundgren’s stints in such ‘classics’ (well, I thought so!) in ‘He-Man, Dark Angel and Universal Soldier,’ I thought I’d give ‘Silent Trigger’ a go.

Now, normally this is the time I say something like ‘You should know what you’re getting with a film called ‘Silent Trigger.’ I know it’s a B-movie.  I know it’s ‘straight to DVD.’ I know there’s no real (current!) stars in it.  I’m just expecting a bit of mindless action and vague entertainment for an hour and a half.  I guess I got the latter.

‘Silent Trigger’ was certainly ‘entertaining,’ but possibly in the wrong kind of way.  Whether it was due to the blatantly computer-generated attempts at major action set pieces, or just the ludicrousness of the script – it did hold my attention, sadly just to see how bad it gets.  The plot (and I use that term loosely) begins with Dolph Lundgren failing to assassinate his target (did I mention he was an assassin?  Well, he is) due to the inexperience of his partner, played by Gina Bellman and her forever-changing accent.  The ‘agency’ (they don’t really mention which) that they work for aren’t happy and… and already it gets confusing.  Skip forward a few years and the pair are reunited to carry out one more job from a vantage point that looks like the Nakatomi Plaza from ‘Die Hard,’ only not quite finished yet.  However, it’s not as straight forward as it sounds (and killing should be reasonably straight forward for a pair of professional assassins as it’s kind of in their job description) as they come to blows with pair of security guards tasked with… er… defending (?) the under construction building.

And that’s sort of it really.  It’s two professional assassins versus two professional night security men.  You may think that’s a pretty one-sided battle, but you’d be wrong.  I’m not sure whether the security staff are really good, or if the assassins are just bad.  Either way there’s a lot of ‘cat and mouse’ which takes place, leaving me a little unsure as who I’m supposed to be rooting for – the killers, or the nut jobs guarding the place.

So, there’s basically only four people in the cast and therefore what little action there is is sparse and hardly high-octane.  So, in order to pad out the film’s runtime there’s more flashbacks which don’t really make an awful lot of sense and all could have been left out of the story if truth be told.

I like a good B-movie.  Sadly, this just isn’t really one of them.  There’s not really enough here to warrant recommending it.  Yes, if you’re a REAL die-hard fan of Dolph himself I guess you’ll like it more than normal, but even he can do better (I take it you’ve seen the Expendables?).  Just leave this one in the bargain basement of DVDs at your local petrol station where it belongs.  Sorry, Dolph!

3/10 Jabba the Hutt wipes himself down with this film