Cung
Le stars as a soldier with PTSD who accidentally kills three men roughing up a
hooker (Briana Evigan). Her pimp (Dolph Lundgren)
lashes out by burning Le’s family alive.
Enraged, Le sets his sights on bringing Dolph’s operation down.
The first fifteen minutes look like they were chopped up in a blender and
edited with a hot glue gun. It’s hard to
make heads or tails what's going on half the time. I don't know if directors Giorgio Serafini and
James Coyne were trying to put us in Le’s PTSD mindset or what, but it's damned
irritating.
Things
improve when Dolph arrives on the scene. He's great as the scary, soft spoken, and
manipulative pimp. While the movie is
decidedly less than stellar, Dolph still manages to do some genuinely
interesting character work. He’s especially despicable
when telling Evigan the harsh truth about their relationship. Although his fight scenes leave something to
be desired, he does get a decent shirtless training sequence.
A
Certain Justice is generally more meanspirited and unpleasant than most of its
ilk. That doesn’t necessarily make it
better. Even though the beginning
is poorly executed, the camerawork, editing, and action gets better as it goes
along. I can’t say it’s “good”, but it’s
about on par with your average DTV actioner.
It
does lose points for the dumb ending. I
mean Dolph has Cung tied up and on his knees with a gun to his head. All he had to do was pull the trigger. Naturally, his stupid flunky wants a piece of
him, so Dolph unties him so they can fight.
Predictably, Cung schools him, which leads to the big Le vs. Lundgren
finale.
AKA: Puncture Wounds. AKA:
Lethal Punisher. AKA: Lethal Punisher: Kill or be Killed.
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