The Peacekeeper starts as air-force pilot Major Frank Cross (Dolph Lundgren) is given a stark choice, either face a court marshal for disobeying a direct order or become a military aide for the President (Roy Scheider). Not much of a choice really. Frank's new job is to carry & protect the President's 'black bag', a black suitcase containing a computer & the codes that can launch America's nuclear missiles. Sounds an easy enough job right? Well, on his first day Frank gets into all sorts of trouble when terrorist's strike, kill all his security men mates & steal the black bag. Frank manages to survive the attack & becomes America's only hope when the terrorist's launch a nuclear missile that is targeted on Washington...
Made under the alternative titles of Hellbent & Red Zone this Canadian American co-production was directed by Frédéric Forestier & sees Sweedish action star Dolph Lundgren in what turns out to be quite a fun little action thriller that isn't any sort of masterpiece but entertains for the right reasons & passes 100 odd minutes harmlessly enough. I suppose the easiest way to describe The Peacekeeper that most people will be able to relate to is that it's a Die Hard (1988)/Under Siege (1992)/Sudden Death (1995) style action thriller where Lundgren has to fight a bunch of terrorist's or bad guy's or whoever in an isolated cut off location as they hold something or someone to ransom in order to make lots of money. However I will say right now that The Peacekeeper is nowhere near as good as Die Hard, Under Siege or Sudden Death but it is quite fun a cheesy sort of way, it moves along at a decent pace & there's a fair amount of action in it too. There are a couple of moralistic concepts like would the men in power who send soldiers to their death in war be prepared to lay down their own lives, the validity & ethics of stockpiling nuclear weapons for defence purposes but it's hardly that deep or life changing stuff & it plays second fiddle to the action thankfully. All in all not a bad effort at really which somewhat (pleasantly) surprised me.
The action scenes are quite good actually, there's a particularly ambitious car chase that eventually ends up with cars jumping from roof to roof. It's a sequence that wouldn't look out of place in a big budget Hollywood action flick. There are a few decent shoot-outs & fights too although the car chase is the stand out sequence. The film has a slightly cheap look about it, the sets look cheap & the cast is missing a strong central villain. The violence is fairly tame, there's not much blood, there's nothing that graphic going on & I would have preferred it if Lundgren killed the main villain rather than him just commit suicide for no apparent reason. Interestingly the helicopter scene in this was edited almost in it's entirety into the absolutely horrible Dennis Hopper/Tom Sizemore/Steven Seagal action thriller Ticker (2001).
According to the IMDb this had a budget of about $10,000,000 which is actually a bit bigger than I thought considering that it does have a slightly cheap look to it although the action scenes are quite good. Despite being set in Los Angeles & the US this was shot entirely in Montréal, Québec in Canada. The acting is alright considering the material, Dolph Lundgren (who was apparently paid a hefty $2,500,000 for this) has definitely lost his harsh accent & you can actually understand him in this, the late Roy Scheider plays the President in a fairly small role while Emmy award winning talk-show host Montel Williams plays the black comedy relief sidekick.
The Peacekeeper isn't the best action thriller ever made but there's enough fun to be had here to make it worth a watch, not as good as the more well known terrorist action thrillers but not too bad all the same.
Made under the alternative titles of Hellbent & Red Zone this Canadian American co-production was directed by Frédéric Forestier & sees Sweedish action star Dolph Lundgren in what turns out to be quite a fun little action thriller that isn't any sort of masterpiece but entertains for the right reasons & passes 100 odd minutes harmlessly enough. I suppose the easiest way to describe The Peacekeeper that most people will be able to relate to is that it's a Die Hard (1988)/Under Siege (1992)/Sudden Death (1995) style action thriller where Lundgren has to fight a bunch of terrorist's or bad guy's or whoever in an isolated cut off location as they hold something or someone to ransom in order to make lots of money. However I will say right now that The Peacekeeper is nowhere near as good as Die Hard, Under Siege or Sudden Death but it is quite fun a cheesy sort of way, it moves along at a decent pace & there's a fair amount of action in it too. There are a couple of moralistic concepts like would the men in power who send soldiers to their death in war be prepared to lay down their own lives, the validity & ethics of stockpiling nuclear weapons for defence purposes but it's hardly that deep or life changing stuff & it plays second fiddle to the action thankfully. All in all not a bad effort at really which somewhat (pleasantly) surprised me.
The action scenes are quite good actually, there's a particularly ambitious car chase that eventually ends up with cars jumping from roof to roof. It's a sequence that wouldn't look out of place in a big budget Hollywood action flick. There are a few decent shoot-outs & fights too although the car chase is the stand out sequence. The film has a slightly cheap look about it, the sets look cheap & the cast is missing a strong central villain. The violence is fairly tame, there's not much blood, there's nothing that graphic going on & I would have preferred it if Lundgren killed the main villain rather than him just commit suicide for no apparent reason. Interestingly the helicopter scene in this was edited almost in it's entirety into the absolutely horrible Dennis Hopper/Tom Sizemore/Steven Seagal action thriller Ticker (2001).
According to the IMDb this had a budget of about $10,000,000 which is actually a bit bigger than I thought considering that it does have a slightly cheap look to it although the action scenes are quite good. Despite being set in Los Angeles & the US this was shot entirely in Montréal, Québec in Canada. The acting is alright considering the material, Dolph Lundgren (who was apparently paid a hefty $2,500,000 for this) has definitely lost his harsh accent & you can actually understand him in this, the late Roy Scheider plays the President in a fairly small role while Emmy award winning talk-show host Montel Williams plays the black comedy relief sidekick.
The Peacekeeper isn't the best action thriller ever made but there's enough fun to be had here to make it worth a watch, not as good as the more well known terrorist action thrillers but not too bad all the same.