The Best Man

                 In the 80’s and 90’s the action movie monarchy was ruled by Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, in which they ruled with a heavy gun-toting hand. Although weren’t the only show in town and one of the others who got a bite at the apple was Dolph Lundgren, who was most famous for not breaking Rocky. When I heard about The Best Man, a film in which Lundgren is in, his name is the reason the movie peaked my interest, but unfortunately not even he can save this movie.

While in Mexico, Brook (Nicky Whelan) goes and gets herself kidnapped. Her rich father then hires a team to rescue her, which is led by Cal (Luke Wilson), and also includes Anders (Dolph Lundgren, Bradley (Brendan Fehr), and Axel (Scott Martin), and one more guy who I won’t name since he dies pretty quickly. It is  during the escape that Axel is hit and is thought to be dead, causing Cal to get his remaining team members and Brook to safety. Fast forward to a year later where Cal and Brook are now going to get married, and Cal reconnects with Bradley to ask him to be his best man. Brook’s father rents out a resort for the festivities where Anders also joins as well, but this wedding is about to turn from a dream to a nightmare. Axel did not die and he is not happy with Cal and the rest of his former team, so he and some guys he has brought have come to the resort. Axel wants revenge and money and starts to try and capture Brook or her sister Hailey (Scout Taylor -Compton,) but they both have a knight in shining armor protecting them. Now it is up to the former elite team to stop one of their own before it’s too late.

Written by C. Alec Rossel, Daniel Zirilli, and Shane Dax Taylor, the later also directing , The Best Man is an action movie whose action sequences are quite forgettable. Having that already working against it, when you add a script that takes way too long to get to the meat of the story, instead just wastes time introducing characters you care nothing about. The worst of them are the villains, who feel  like they were cut and pasted on the screen as they are so underdeveloped and quite frankly bland. When you are not bored from the bad guys, you might be bothered by the inability of the filmmakers to put together all the pieces for an entertaining action movie.

                  This Best Man fails at its job, which if it was leaner and tighter might have made for a better movie. Not everything is doom and gloom though as Lundgren does a nice job as Anders, as he projects a reflective heaviness to his character’s past. Like most weddings, you can’t wait for this to end and with its super anti-climactic ending, you are going to think the end couldn’t come soon enough.