The Defender (2004)

Sick Product of a Sick System

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

The global war on terror rages on. When a government official goes missing, Lance, a man with an impressive record of service to his country, finds himself protecting the man who embodies everything he has dedicated his life to fight against. The Defender might be the casual Dolph Lundgren film for the most but it's really not that bad, the direction is alright, Dolph is great as always and there's alot of action threw out the film and even tho it's not one of his best film's like Rocky IV, The Expendables Trilogy e.t.c this was still a good and well made action film. (8/10)

I usually like Dolph Lundgren movies (Universal Soldier, Rocky II, The Punisher, Masters of The Universe). Unfortunately, this has to be one of his worst. It has a great premise: the head of the NSA goes to Romania for a secret meeting with a mysterious party, who turns out to be the head of a terrorist organization. Lundgren plays the Secret Service agent who is leading the team that protects her.Most of the major points of the story take place in the first 20 minutes and the the final 10 minutes of the movie. Most of the rest of the movie can be summed up like this: 10-15 minutes of shooting, 5 minutes of talking, 10-15 minutes of shooting, cut scene of the president, 10-15 minutes of shooting, cut scene of a group of men standing in the middle of a circle of SUVs in the middle of the night talking, 10-15 minutes of shooting.There is a great plot twist near the end. And it's pretty obvious who the terrorist and president are supposed to be.Overall, I would not recommend this film unless you are really bored and there is nothing else on TV.

Dolph Lundgren stars as Lance Rockford, a secret service agent who protects a politician from a terrorist group called "The Patriots" who see the President's view on terror as underwhelming to say the least. So Dolph is thrown into a fight where nothing is ever as it seems. I generally review these type of movies when I see them on TV because I generally don't see straight to video movies. For instance I reviewed Bridge Of Dragons because I saw it on HBO some night awhile ago and I happened to have my notes. I actually rented The Defender because I saw that it had Jerry Springer in it and the thought of him as the President of the United States had me curious to say the least. I was expecting a movie of magnitude ineptitude and was indeed surprised to see that Lundgren was a competent director and that the action sequences were fairly well staged and suspenseful. The story was (As expected) stupid and full of plot holes but I for one found this to be far better than I expected it to be.* *1/2 out of 4-(Pretty good)

Spoiler: A short scene not (too) relevant to the plot is described in this comment.I found it on TV while having dinner and kept watching it because it seemed interesting. I immediately started noticing obvious jokes/situations, such as the one where they are preparing for the attack and you can see Lance through a sniper's bullseye, he follows him as if he was aiming for a few seconds wanting you to believe it's one of the bad guys, until Lance salutes him. Now, that looked like a desperate attempt to be smart, didn't it? There are plenty of situations such as this one in the film, but still, the acting wasn't bad and the story kept you going, hence 5/10.