Isaac Florentine is still considered one of the old-school best of the DTV action directors. He’s credited with helping to popularize the format with his Undisputed and Ninja movies, while also kickstarting the prolific and popular career of Scott Adkins, among other accomplishments. But as his budgets and access to stars have increased, the ambitions of his films seems to have behaved oppositely. His latest, Hellfire, is symptomatic. It’s a perfectly adequate movie that feels comfortable in its routine — and entirely uninterested in being much more.
Stephen Lang plays “Nameless Man.” We’re clearly meant to understand that he’s some sort of ex-military (in fact, it’s unclear when exactly Hellfire takes place, though it’s certainly in the pre-smartphone past). Nameless Man is drifting through a small town, and when he stops for the evening at a local diner, he strikes up a friendship with the down-on-his-luck owner and his daughter, eventually offering to do some odd jobs for meal and board. His presence, however, also attracts the ire of some local tough guys who advise him to get out of town, for no other reason than that he’s there at all. The invitation to split also comes from Sheriff Wiley (Dolph Lundgren), who runs the town and whatever graft everyone’s into along with crime boss Jeremiah (Harvey Keitel, making the most of his two or three days on set). It’s not hard to picture how this will all turn out.
Hellfire mostly behaves as a vehicle for Lang and some hearty stoic machismo, while also dusted with fight scenes. Lang is maybe better than anyone at wizened gravitas, and as he usually plays villains (excellently), it’s nice to see his more tender aspects as a performer (fans of his role in Public Enemies will enjoy this). And, of course, he acquits himself well in the copious fisticuffs, which Florentine stages with a characteristic cleanliness. There’s not a lot of flash to any of the action, just very welcome competence, although the director’s earlier, more successful, work featured a lot more speed and well-timed cutting.
Which is to say, everything here is perfectly cromulent, but the simplicity of narrative has the effective of flattening out the entire affair. It’s clear that Florentine is after something closer to a spaghetti western or a throwback samurai story, and story-wise this framework makes for a good parallel, but the film is so deliberately understylized that there’s not much else to hold onto except for a very practical level of accomplishment. Hellfire works just fine in its respect for the genre and classical sensibilities, but one longs to see an old talent like Florentine get back to the more filling meat and potatoes that elevated his films in the first place.
DIRECTOR: Isaac Florentine; CAST: Stephen Lang, Harvey Keitel, Dolph Lundgren, Scottie Thompson; DISTRIBUTOR: Saban Films; STREAMING: February 17; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 35 min.
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