WANTED MAN (2024) **

Dolph Lundgren plays a disgraced cop who gets caught on camera beating up a Mexican suspect.  As sort of a half-assed PR stunt, he is sent to Mexico to pick up two hookers.  And by “pick up two hookers”, I mean “Extradite them as they are potential eyewitnesses to a drug deal gone wrong that resulted in several deaths, including some undercover cops”, and not like, “pick them up, pick them up”.  That wouldn’t be much of a PR stunt, if you ask me. 

Anyway, while transporting the witnesses they are ambushed and one of the women is shot and killed.  Together, Dolph and the other survivor go into hiding and try not to get killed by the crooked cops who are on their trail. 

Dolph gets to play his age a little bit in this one.  He walks with a noticeable limp and characters comment that he needs ankle surgery, but I have a suspicion he really did need ankle surgery, and they just wrote his injury into the script.  There’s even a subplot where he gets shot and spends much of the second act in bed healing up and watching telenovelas. 

When you’re someone as prolific as Dolph is, you have to make sure there are slight variations on the usual fare to keep your films from feeling interchangeable.  In this one, he plays a racist, although to be fair his character is more of the “drunk uncle” variety than a “card carrying member of the KKK”.  Five years from now when I’m trying to remember the recent Dolph films I’ve seen, I’ll remember this one by saying, “Oh, right that was the racist Dolph one.”  (Alternatively, I may think of it as the one where he spends a third of the movie in bed.)  I’m not saying Wanted Man is entirely forgettable, but I’m not sure just how long it will be seared into my brain.  Granted, I appreciate the attempt to mirror real world events, such as racism in the police force and all, but it feels more like an attempt by the screenwriters to give his character a unique backstory rather than be a genuine look at race and society. 

Dolph also directed the film.  He does a competent job for the most part.  It’s thoroughly middle of the road by Dolph standards, but die-hard fans like me probably won’t care.  Middle of the road is where us fans tend to be most of the time. 

Kelsey Grammer and Michael Pare also turn up playing Dolph’s drinking buddies.

This summer I was a guest on Matt’s Direct to Video Connoisseur Podcast and we discussed the film in depth.  You can check out our entire chat here: DTVC Podcast 168, "Wanted Man" by DTVC Podcast (spotify.com)