Ambushed
Ambushed
R | 12 November 2013 (USA)
Ambushed Trailers

In the frenetic underbelly of Los Angeles, Agent Maxwell closes in on an international cocaine smuggling operation run by criminal mastermind Vincent Camastra. When Agent Beverly Royce goes undercover with the drug dealers and finds herself deeper then she can handle - the case becomes personal for Maxwell who has to combat ruthless killers and dirty cops in an all-out action filled finale to bring the criminals to justice.

Reviews
suite92

Frank starts out with a strip joint in Los Angeles. Frank and Eddie branch out in the drug business. As they attempt to expand in the business, they steal drugs from Vincent Camastra, which was a bad idea.DEA agent Maxwell gets into the scene and takes over from the locals, including the surly Detective Jack Reiley. Jack has a cocaine habit, and he rousts minor dealers for money and cocaine.There's a separate, completely bungled thread about Eddie and his straight, non-criminal girlfriend Ashley. She believes his often ridiculous excuses about long absences, strange acquaintances, and odd injuries. Maxwell's on-the-job relationship with Beverly was not skillfully written either. That only served to show Maxwell had an extra motivator for the violent ending: Beverly goes undercover, and her life is at risk.Vincent convinces Frank and Eddie that he is upset, and demands some money in two days. Eddie tells Frank that he wants to back up to just doing his strip club after they do a job for Vincent. Jack researches Frank, then attempts to hold him up for money in his strip club. It's Frank's club, and he and his bouncers beat the nonsense out of him, take his gun, and shoot him through the hand.There is plenty of setup for lots of violence to bring resolution.Will Maxwell and his team get Vincent? Will Frank and Eddie square things up with Vincent? Will Jack get his revenge on Frank? Will Jack's boss at LAPD cut short his career, or will Internal Affairs get him first? ------Scores------Cinematography: 9/10 Nicely shot; only a little bit of shaky camera work.Sound: 9/10 Good.Acting: 2/10 Pretty bad, all around, no real exceptions. A better script would have helped a lot here.Screenplay: 4/10 Has a beginning, middle, and end. The plot threads progressed to more or less logical conclusions. However, a lot of the dialog is almost campy, and motivations were weak.

... View More
callanvass

I like Dolph Lundgren. He'll never be considered a great actor, but I consider him to be a fun action hero when he has good material to work with. He makes a lot of STD junk these days, but unlike Segal, he at least tries. This one isn't quite as bad as the IMDb rating may indicate. It isn't anything more than mediocre, but considering that I was dreading it, it managed to exceed my expectations a bit with a solid effort. Ambushed's problem isn't a lack of effort, but major pacing issues and the lack of budget to do anything special with the plot. There were a few times in this film that I was actually on the edge of my seat, due to some suspenseful scenes, then it would take me out by becoming way too talky. The inconsistency really does kill it. It also delivers mixed messages. Our lead, Frank (Daniel Bonjour) tries to get the viewer to believe that drug dealing is a great way to make money and get excitement in your life. In the end, the message is "Crime doesn't pay" , which is indeed the correct message, but I felt it was rather arrogant on writer, Augustin's part. Speaking of Daniel Bonjour, his character Frank is a pretentious idiot. He was a smug know it all that I wanted to smack senseless. The fact that he lives to tell about his tale made me even angrier. Dolph Lundgren is NOT the lead. He has a small supporting role. He is relaxed and charismatic in his part, even if he felt a tad wasted in his role. Randy Couture is OK. His dirty cop role had the potential to be riveting, but I felt he handled it with too much angst and over the top anger. Gianni Capaldi is especially irritating as Eddie. His character is out of control, but not in an entertaining way. He got on my nerves too many times. Vinnie Jones seems to play the same part a lot these days. There is nothing here that you haven't witnessed from him before. He says "F*******er" in almost every scene he's in. I used to like Vinnie, but his loud and brash style has worn out its welcome. There is some action, though it is rather underwhelming. There was some shaky camera work that got a bit irritating. The finale is the best thing about the film. It is very intense with plenty of suspense and violence, but it was too little too late for me. Final Thoughts: I'm glad Dolph is beginning to branch out a bit. This movie does have some good things about it, especially that adroit finale, but there are far too many doldrums in between to really make it worth your while. 4/10

... View More
Alexander Ross

Wasn't expecting a true masterpiece, but having taken a serious look at the cast, premise, and looks of this one, thought was gonna maybe get by the lucky film noir/thriller/murder mystery/ action genre, and, possibly get to delight myself with some sort of little gem, maybe even a cult film! Man, was i wrong? First off, the disappointment to realize that all the great genre actors i was looking forward to see in action were in just for few minutes, and, in mostly contrived roles: Dolph Lundgren looked rather stiff here, and obviously, looking like, as if he was not even completely well aware of the dreary script, and, Vinnie Jones was real bored, you could tell he was just there for the check, then, even other people like William McNamara, or Domiziano Arcangeli were badly used, and of mere, if any service, sadly. Randy Couture is more in the movie, but, maybe the role wasn't completely developed, or the footage wasn't even enough to cover anything else other than some slick, yet very shaky images of trivial violence, with wild panoramic's on actors falling dead cold in absurd, and unexplained circumstances, and, in any case he just appeared mostly disoriented, and without a real motive other than playing a sexy villain. The movie has a very poor story, made of that pulp fiction, that is not stylish or cool, but, just heavily insisted without significance, becoming a sum up of glossy, yet very gratuitous shots, framed over banal vulgarity, and some true exploitative nudity like in some of those Italian "policemen vs. gangsters" C grade flicks from the 1970's, but, without Fernando De Leo, instead, almost feeling, as if it had been filmed a decade later, with that annoying video clip's gloss, so stereotypical of late 1980's, early 1990's US most conventional action's shockers. There are 2-vaguely- main characters, however, the actors playing those parts are unfortunately quite bland, and, not all that interesting to watch for one thing, even though, one should say that they seemed to work hard to make sense of such a cheap mess, at least! All together this is basically just a very ambitious movie, completely gone awry, and, wasted, forgettable, badly directed, and paced: just some bad B movie, a bust! It is primarily truly missing indeed all of those (possible,perhaps?) opportunities, by under utilizing somewhat of a cult cast, while, instead going straight to the old cable standards, and just bringing down rotten, and all broken up, what could have (maybe) been initially a way more intriguing type of hard boiled idea, if it had been of course rightly developed, and, staged with a really more pertinent focus, since what you read about the story is again unfortunately way more promising than the ultimately very disappointing, almost total nonsense, "delivered" plot by this contrived final product! I know if i had gone to the theaters, i would have asked for my money back. Literally!

... View More
vampiri

Since I am Swedish I try to keep myself updated when it comes to my fellow Swedes' new Movies, especially Dolph Lundgren, and thus I watched this one as soon as I could.Admittedly, Dolph may have his best years behind him. Still, he has worked with most of the creme de la creme within the action genre, i.e. Brandon Lee, Stallone, Van Damme. To his defence, perhaps he is not handed the best of scripts these Days. I would gladly Watch Men of War, Rocky IV, Universal Soldier, Johnny Mnemonic, Red Scorpion again.Plot: A scarface duo try to move up the ladder. One is uncertain if he really wants to and is involved with a sweet girl and really wants to do something else. Unfortunately for them they are preyed upon by a rogue cop and hunted by the DEA.Sadly, this Movie lacks true depth. I could tell that the writer tried really hard to create depth and credibility for his characters. Instead he fails miserably and all the characters get stuck halfway. Dolphs character has an unexplored relationship with Another DEA agent, one of the bad guys (who really is the Movies hero) cannot deliver a believable characterization of a guy in torment about what to do in Life. The Dirty cop succeeds somewhat better, but the best characters, which do not have any depth to speak of, are the drug kingpin and the hero's partner.Due to this fact that the script tries too much to be a Little bit deeper than most B-Movies and lacks, as well, a really likable hero I can only hand out......4 out of 10. Dolph does not deliver, but is excused by having a minor role and the bad script. However, there are some good Points in the Movie: Randy Couture is good as the Dirty cop and the final shootout scene is pretty good as well as the photography.

... View More