The right spot between budget and story. Our DTV action-creators don't have a lot of money to explode cars or digitally transform the landscape. Is it possible to create an exciting, interesting movie with decent acting and good fight scenes? Castle Falls tries admirably. With Dolph Lundgren in the director's chair and Scott leading the ka-pow, they made a decent flick here.
Scott's a washed up MMA fighter working as a day laborer and Dolph is a security guard looking to make a score to pay his daughter's medical bills. They find themselves in a soon-to-be-demolished hospital trying to keep some hidden money away from some other baddies, who are (laughably) a paramilitary group. Dolph makes some fun editing choices with a few skips back in time as the story progresses and the cinematography is decent, showcasing Alabama, looking post-industrial. A politician appears a few times, promising redevelopment of the Castle hospital sight. We've all heard that story.
Scott looks down on his luck, and maybe he can truly sympathize with a fighter-character who never broke through. You may remember Dolph and Scott rubbing elbows in the brutal Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (2012). They only fight briefly here before fending off the goons. The clock ticking towards demolition as they try to get out of building before it comes down. The baddies though... they look dumb and make improbably dumb decisions. It weakens the film. Still, we feel for Dolph and his cancer-ridden daughter as well as Scott, who seems too genuninely surprised to find money than smart enough to run away with the cash. Too bad, since now Dolph and baddies are there! Guess they'll have to fight.
So, you can't have a great Scott flick without a physically imposing opponent. Dolph delivers a decent flick but he's not that force, and neither are the bad guys. We can only hope they get the money and get out alive, as a viewer you do want to them to make it, which is sympathy than we can garner for many films. Castle Falls delivers a score of Two Roundhouses, a satisfying flick with Dolph and Scott's characters worn out by grinding for money. In real life people like Dolph and Scott abuse their bodies for our amusement, maybe it's a grind of a similar sort.
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