breakdownthatfilm-blogspot-com To most, Dolph Lundgren isn't the best of movie performance material. It also doesn't help when a fairly well known actor goes into hiding by making hit or miss films because of outside problems. What's odd though, is that Dolph Lundgren hasn't had any publicity issues. And if he has, it's been well covered up because there have been no reports about it. You would think that after making popular films like Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991) and Universal Soldier (1992), he would have continued to make big hit screen movies like his other muscle counterparts. Instead Lundgren went into an almost two decade absence on the big screen.So, because this movie was released in 2003, this is half way through his absence. At this point he was making Direct-to-Video films and Detention (2003) is one of these. Problem is, it didn't do anything for me. Even worse is that the title only exists because of the setting that its in. The story is about a group of criminals who break into a school to get a vanload of cocaine out of the country. And the only man that will get in their way is a gym/history teacher who's holding a detention after school. His name is Sam Decker (Dolph Lundgren).This already doesn't sound very promising. Here's what works, which isn't all too much. If you (the viewer) want to see Dolph Lundgren play a role that is in his genre but dressed like he's going to work at a cubical, this is it. It's very interesting to see Lundgren be a character without armor and big weapons. Another notable part of this movie is the supporting cast. Even though they aren't memorable characters, they do carry some charm because of how various individuals act in different situations.One actor who I found to be putting a lot of effort to make his character stand out was Alex Karzis as the main villain. A lot of the time Karzis would make strange gestures, faces or remarks that made me look at the screen and say (while chuckling) - "What was the point of that?" But hey, it kept my attention. The only other piece that worked in this movie was the music by Amin Bhatia. But even that I don't favor all too much because there was no theme, even if the music sounded average. It did lose me now and then so ehhh.Now to the bad. In all honesty, there was a very thin story. The premise is just a setup for Dolph Lundgren to go jumping through windows and shooting handguns. There is a little bit of a flash back that involves post traumatic stress but is only to be given away one more time for a brief moment to reveal a connection. What's even weirder is that even when this movie doesn't have much of a story to go by, it manages to drag itself at various intervals. Which brings me to the last point, the action was very sporadic. It really wasn't present all too much. It felt very diluted, which I think is rare for a Dolph Lundgren movie.I'm also going to guess that the direction to this movie wasn't great since it was headed by Sidney J. Furie, the director of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987). It's hard to say. I was on the fence for this one. It doesn't please me like most of Lundgren's movies but it doesn't disappoint that badly either. I hope I don't run into anymore Lundgren movies like this.It offers a few interesting concepts but its concentration is lacking. Its cast also tries to show some charm but its script and minimal action provide little to work with.

Comeuppance Reviews Sam Decker (Dolph) was "The Best" as a soldier in the Bosnia conflict. Now he's a gym/history teacher at Lincoln High School. After receiving another job offer, he announces his last day in this hellhole of stupid, annoying punk kids. But then he's put on detention duty. While babysitting a roundup of stereotypes, a group of Hungarian drug runners led by Lamb (Karzis) and Gloria (Dobo) - and of course Alek (Mif) put the school on lockdown and then start shooting at/terrorizing who happens to be left after school that day. It's now up to the heroic Mr. Decker to get the kids to safety and take down the baddies, using only what he happens to find in the way of school supplies. Will Decker sentence his enemies to detention - permanently?Now while it was somewhat cool to see Dolph as a high school teacher, this Nu-Image take on The Principal and The Substitute is run-of-the-mill at best. Its "Die Hard in a school" scenario turns the dumbness factor to 11 and is filled with amazingly inane, insipid dialogue, but somehow finds no time for any surprises, twists, or anything at all that would make this outing worthwhile, plotwise. This is certainly the closest Dolph has yet come to being in an Urban Justice-type movie. But just imagine Lethal Tender (1997) meets The Breakfast Club (1985). Now these are some REALLY Dangerous Minds. This movie is just horribly written. Besides the horrendous dialogue mentioned earlier, it's never properly or clearly explained just why these bad guys are taking over the school. We learn once we're deep into the film that they're drug runners, but that's it. Their motivation for doing what they do should have been much clearer. It's like the writers found it hard to find a reason why antagonists would take over a school, so they just slacked off and didn't really bother to explain it. Plus, other characters are unexplained/forgotten. Never mind all the audience-insulting gaps in logic and plot holes, which normally we don't point out or care about, but here it's just so irritatingly sloppy and nonsensical, it's not even fun. And at 98 minutes, Detention does indeed feel like a punishment. What makes it really sad is that director Sidney J. Furie has had a long and rich career that dates back to the 50's. He's an experienced director and really should have known better. He worked with Dolph the year after this on Direct Action (2004) and also directed The Rage (1997). What he should have realized is that this movie needed more goons for Dolph to dispatch and less super-annoying kids. Karzis was decent as the head bad guy, but this role easily could have gone to Corey Feldman. Or, even better, Kim Coates. He must have been busy working on something nearby, as this movie was shot in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and Coates tends to appear in these low-budget Canadian productions. Really, Detention is very similar to Command Performance (2009), except that here he's the cool teacher instead of the cool drummer, and they're trapped in a school instead of a stadium. And Command Performance is a lot better.Despite the presence of 1. an exploding helicopter 2. the fact that the principal has a nameplate that says "L. Neeson" but we don't see him, presumably implying that the principal of the school is Liam Neeson but we conveniently don't see him after school 3. the end credits song is typical Nu-Image Nu-metal by a Nu band named "Feebo", thus proving anything that uses the spelling "Nu" sucks, and 4. There's a credit at the end for "emotional support", which makes sense, because by about the 70 minute mark you're certainly enduring Detention, not enjoying it - so this is a movie that is kept afloat solely by the presence and likability of Dolph Lundgren. Like fellow Nu-Image production The Last Warrior (2000), this movie would be unbearable if he wasn't in the cast.Except for Dolph, this movie is so lame, it makes "Teach Tony Danza" look like a bad-ass action movie. Watching this crud is like fingernails on a blackboard.For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

crystalart I'm not sure where this genre got it's start. 'Blackboard Jungle'? It's also reminiscent of Tom Berenger's 'Substitute 1' and '2'.Dolph's lean, and in top form, as he takes on recalcitrant students and a gang that's bent on taking over the high school.The gang members have lots of strangely colored hair, assorted tattoos and body piercings, if you like that sort of thing, but when they shoot they can't seem to hit anything.I especially enjoyed watching the thug on a motorcycle in a high school hallway who could neither catch nor hit with a machine gun a cripple running away in a wheel chair.Grab the popcorn and settle back for an hour and a half of not too serious fun.

LordMcDoogle When that dude rode the Motorcycle after the kid in the wheelchair in the hallway, I almost cried I laughed so hard.This is one of those movies that made me sad to be Canadian for a minute there(until I remembered that if I were American I'd have to put up with Moore).Is the white kid in this movie the same guy who was on that Lassie show back about 5 years ago? Wow, this is getting sadder and sadder.Bow and arrows vs guns...Oh wait, let's make this deep by having war flashbacks.I advise everybody against watching this movie. At least their school float had spikes and fireballs.