THE TRACKER (2019) *

Dolph Lundgren stars as a tracker whose family is brutally murdered.  Ten years go by, and he gets word regarding the whereabouts of his family’s killers from an Italian cop.  When Dolph arrives in Italy, he learns the cop has died under mysterious circumstances.  He then joins forces with a wet behind the ears detective who helps him in his quest for revenge. 

It seems to me I’ve seen a lot of these Grindstone Entertainment movies lately.  You know how these things go:  Name action stars are prominently featured in the credits and box art, but they usually wind up having limited screen time.  Although The Tracker isn’t as egregious as some of the Bruce Willis flicks when it comes to its star barely appearing, there is a lot of unnecessary stuff with the detective that gets in the way of Dolph doing his thing.  (The domestic scenes with the cop and his very pregnant wife are especially time consuming.)

Still, even as brief as Bruce’s appearances in the other Grindstone flicks are, at least the movies themselves run the gamut from so-so to not bad to pretty good.  I can’t say the same thing for The Tracker, which is probably the worst Grindstone picture I’ve seen.  The tip-off this was going to be bad happened early on when Dolph’s family is kidnapped.  He goes to the cops and asks, “Have you found them yet?”, and I’m over here thinking… DUDE YOURE THE FUCKING TRACKER SHOULDNT YOU BE… I don’t know… TRACKING THEM OR SOMETHING? 

I mean, there’s this whole flashback scene in the beginning of the film where Dolph’s dad teaches him how to track his quarry.  His father also imparts to him the difference between tracking and hunting.  He maintains there is a sacred bond between the tracker and his quarry and that the act of tracking is intrinsically tied to a man’s nature.  

So… when it finally comes time to track something, Dolph… Lets the cops handle it?  Naturally, the bad guys get away.  Then, you’re expecting Dolph to go track them suckers down because, he is, after all, The Tracker.  Does that happen?  NOPE!  Instead, he waits ten years to finally do something about it, but ONLY after receiving a tip from a cop halfway around the world in Italy?  

What the hell. 

If you can’t already guess, The Tracker definitely belongs on the lower rungs of the Dolph ladder.  In fact, of the four films he’s made with director Giorgio Serafini, this one is by far the worst (the other three being Ambushed, Blood of Redemption, and Puncture Wounds).  There’s not a lot of action either, and what action we do get is poorly filmed and edited.  To add insult to injury, the plot is slim, the pacing is slow, and the villains are weak and unmemorable. 

Dolph spends lot of time driving in the first act looking bored.  He then moves on to hanging out in cafes and walking down the street wearing a scarf in the second act.  Once the action finally kicks in (kinda), he trades the scarf in for a poncho and spends a lot of time looking through a sniper scope.  In short, this is far from the best use of his talents. 

At least the movie is watchable whenever Dolph is on screen.  Whenever it cuts back to the Italian cop and/or the bad guys, it stops on a dime. In short, The Tracker ain’t worth tracking down.