Directed by: Marc S. Grenier
Starring: Dolph Lundgren and Maxim Roy
Dolph plays ex-FBI agent Jason Price, a man who runs some kind of witness protection program. When a ruthless assassin called “The Cleaner” is bumping off supposedly protected people, Price must slowly unravel a complex series of lies, deceits, betrayals and double-crossings.
What happened with this film is - it’s mid-period Dolph and got lost in the video store shuffle. It’s in some kind of nether world between his classic 80’s and even 90’s outings and his current renaissance. It’s hard to imagine someone in ‘01, while perusing their local video store, not just giving the cover a cursory glance and then moving on. But we can see why Dolph took the role. It’s different. He probably yearns to play reasonably non-meathead-y roles like this. In Hidden Agenda, he’s smart, he’s good with computers, and in his cover as a suave restauranteur, we see his classy side. We applaud this change of pace, but that’s not enough to make the movie GOOD, unfortunately.
Despite the film’s strengths, when the film begins, the audience is treated to a jumble of names and situations, as if the filmmakers assume we already know what’s going on. So after some more muddled plot developments and frustrating computer gobbledygook, the movie is halfway over and we’re not hooked in and involved with the plot. Even Dolph seems bored a lot of the time. Add to that some confusing and characterless “intrigue” and the end product is what best can be described as an arrested development in the Dolph canon. Yes, there are some nice changes of pace, but at what cost?
Plus there are some annoying editing tricks and techno music during the scant fight scenes. The problem is, this film doesn’t EARN the tricks. It seems like a cover-up for a lack of something. And therein lies the crux of the matter: The filmmakers should have cut a lot of the fat and talkiness and stripped down the film to a race-against-time battle between Price and The Cleaner. Assuming it was done correctly, this would have given the film the turbocharge it needed to be successful. Sadly, instead, with the technology on display (Icarus and Daedalus?) it’s like watching a dramatization of an episode of “90’s Tech” on the History Channel.
We see what the filmmakers were trying to do...had this film come out in the theater it would have starred Matt Damon (doubtlessly wearing glasses) and been a slick Hollywood thriller like Paycheck (2003) or Hackers (1995). So imagine that formula applied to a Canada-shot DTV product with Dolph Lundgren and there you have it.
In the case of Hidden Agenda, different does not necessarily mean better for Dolph fans.
Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty
