The Package is a routine action thriller made for the direct to DVD or VOD market. Steve Austin plays a collector for a local mobster who does what he does to pay a debt racked up by his brother.The mobster gives Austin a chance to wipe his slate clean if he delivered a package to the German (Dolph Lundgren.)As soon as Austin goes out to carry his task, other thugs attack him and pursue him repeatedly. It seems they want a big payday for themselves and steal The Package.Meanwhile various people have a vendetta against The German as well who fends them off but he looks far from healthy.Austin brings a quiet dignity to his role, which he has done in several other films. A decent man reduced to live a life he clearly dislikes. Lundgren buoyed by the cinema outings of The Expendables franchise gets to act flamboyant which he also did in One in the Chamber.Its a low budget action film, a lot of action, some nifty fight scenes but the story is rather predictable, even bland. More dynamic directing would have helped.

I am a huge action movie fan: Rambo, Action Jackson, Universal Soldier, Bloodsport -- you get the picture. This is a stupid, lazy, unentertaining movie. I spent most of the movie rolling my eyes and fast forwarding through the relentless, boring, uninspired, unrealistic, stunt double fight scenes. It is just so many clichés piled on top of each other.Let's check all of the cliché boxes, shall we?Pretty, way out-of-his-league long suffering girlfriend that would not stay with this guy for 10 second in real life - check!Literally thousands of bullets shot and none hit the action star anywhere - check!Almost point blank (I'm talking 6 feet away) heavy machine gun fire missing the action star - check!Bad guy and action star "run out of bullets at same time and fist fight" - check!Bad guy and action star get more bullets then "run out of bullets at same time and fist fight" FOUR more times (no exaggeration) - check!Fight in building with nonsensical sparks and smoke coming from unmanned, closed factory - check!No police for 20 minutes even after four people killed and thousands of rounds fired - check!High-powered 3,000 feet per second .308, .223 and 7.62 X 54 bullets from machine gun (in real life able to penetrate a military Kevlar® vest) easily blocked by standard 1/2" drywall, a regular wooden chair (like in grade school) and a flimsy hospital operating table - check!Instead of just shooting the good guy and being done with the movie, the bad guy wants to "torture and tell the good guy the sinister plans before killing him." Good guy kills bad guy and gets away with the girl - check!After telling him his sinister plans, Instead of just shooting the good guy, bad guy wants to have "fist fight with good guy proving to the bad guy that he's still got it". Good guy kills bad guy and gets away - check!Good guy proves his is forgiving and righteous man when he walks away and lets bad guy off hook in end of movie. After all bad guy has done, good guy simply can't kill him because of good guys true heart of justice. BUT WAIT! When good guy turns his back, "bad guy double crosses him and tries to kill good guy!" Good guy notices in very last second and kills bad guy. End of movie. Believe it or not this scene did NOT happen in this movie - GOTCHA!. This is the ONLY cliché the director left out!Awful, awful, awful movie. Spending an afternoon plucking your short hairs or counting your body moles would be time far better spent.

'THE PACKAGE': Two and a Half Stars (Out of Five)Steve Austin and Dolph Lundgren star in this B action film directed by stuntman turned director Jesse V. Johnson. The film tells the story of a courier, working for a local mob boss, delivering a valuable package to another crime lord. It was written by Derek Kolstad (who also co-wrote another action film last year starring Lundgren, with Cuba Gooding Jr., called 'ONE IN THE CHAMBER'). The movie is your basic routine low-budget action film, nothing more and nothing less.Austin plays Tommy Wick, a courier working for a crime lord, named Big Doug (Eric Keenleyside), who takes on an assignment to deliver a package to another mob boss nicknamed 'The German' (Lundgren). He takes the job in order to clear all debt his imprisoned brother, Eddie (Lochlyn Munro), owes Big Doug. The task seems easy enough until he's attacked by a rival gang and his partner is killed. He then must fight for his life, the rest of the way to his destination, in order to make sure the package is delivered securely (without it falling in to the wrong hands). The movie has some decent action and fight scenes and the production values aren't too bad for this type of film. It seems like Johnson could make a decent action film director if he only had better scripts to work with. The story ends with a nice twist but for the most part it's routine and filled with pretty bad dialogue. The movie is also filled with pretty atrocious acting but Austin and Lundgren deliver the goods that fans of theirs depend on them for. There's also a few good supporting turns by Darren Shahlavi and William B. Davis (of 'THE X-FILES' fame) as bad guys. If you're a fan of any of these actors, or these type of films, you'll probably enjoy this movie.Watch our review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF2KmRw-Kng

I read some of the other reviews, and I concluded they must be by the fembot, art history major, wanna be a critic crowd. This is a straight up action film, with much of the action meaty hand to hand fighting. And it does a good job of portraying the fact that most such combat is pretty brutal.There are girls, they are beautiful, one is deadly, the other is lovely. The roles they play are secondary.Dolph has aged a lot, and unless it is the makeup, I think not to well. But he continues to carry the style he has shown in several recent action movies, as a menacing, brooding threat. From the outset we are aware he is a threat, but the relationship of this threat to the main protagonist is not clear.For me, Steve Austen was a pleasant surprise. I recall another of his movies, and he was not good at all. This was much better, and the director played to all his strengths in respect of both his verbal and action abilities.There were several little plot twists, and a few surprises along the way, which added to the enjoyment.There are a number of recognizable supporting characters, which is also a pleasant surprise.So my conclusion is that if you are hunting around for an action movie one night with some time to kill, this movie is for consideration. No, its not Gladiator, or Star Wars, or the Avengers, or Saving Private Ryan, but thank god, its not Brokeback Mountain or some other drivel either. Its a decent regular budget action movie. Take it for what it is and you will be fine.