Command Performance

Plot synopsis:
In August 1991, there was an attempted coup against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev by ex-communist military hard-liners. The coup failed, and all members of it were arrested; from the ashes of the old Soviet Union, the modern Russian Federation was born.
Russian President Alexei Petrov (Hristo Shopov) has asked for pop sensation Venus (Melissa Smith) to perform a concert in Moscow, because his daughters Anna (Ida Lundgren) and Yana (Robin Dobson) are fans of Venus.
The concert turns bloody when armed men led by Oleg Kazov (Dave Legeno) take the concert hostage. It seems that Oleg has a personal vendetta against Petrov.
Former biker gang member Joe (Dolph Lundgren), the drummer of CMF, the opening rock band, starts fighting back. As it turns out, back in the USA, when Joe was still in the biker gang, some Colombians who wanted to collect a debt went to the apartment that Joe and his brother lived in.
The Colombians fatally shot Joe's brother. Joe hunted the group of Colombians down and killed them, and ever since then, Joe has tried to stay away from guns, because guns remind him of what the group of Colombians did.
Now, basically most of the civilians and staff, including Venus's brother Enzo (Atanas Srebrev), who was her manager, are killed by Oleg's men, all except Joe, Venus, reporter Ali Connor (Shelly Varod), American Ambassador Jim Bradley (Clement von Franckenstein), FSB agent Mikhail Kapista (Zachary Baharov), President Petrov, and his two daughters.
As it turns out, Oleg's father was Marshal Dmitri Kazov, a WWII hero in Stalingrad, and former Soviet Minister of Defence. Dmitri was a leader of the failed coup against Gorbachev in 1991. Oleg was part of the coup as well.
After Dmitri killed Oleg's mother and then himself, that was when Oleg, a captain in the Russian army, immigrated to the USA, where he got arrested for some petty crimes. Oleg returned to Russia three weeks ago.
The prosecutor of Marshal Dmitri Kazov, Oleg, and other coup members in 1991 was a young Alexei Petrov, before he became the president of Russia. Now Oleg wants revenge on Petrov, because he believes that the special forces raid on the Kazov house that led Dmitri to kill Oleg's mother and then himself was Petrov's fault. Petrov, who ordered the raid, had followed the troops into the Kazov house.
Now, Joe and Mikhail make their way through the arena, trying to bring down Oleg and his men.

Tags: revenge, murder, violence, flashback

Review:
Wow Dolph's best movie ever (as the star).
I assume anything dolph does is going to be a cheesy 80's action flick, even though the 80's are history.
But then, an 80's classic action style movie exactly what I want when I sit down to watch one of his films.
And yes, it is impressive that he still somehow produces the same kind of movies, although now they are filmed in eastern europe not the states.A movie like this is supposed to have implausible action, plot holes and weak dialogue.
The selling point is guns, girls, battles and big explosions.Amazingly this movie has everything we're looking for, and very little of the things we expect to put up with.
Minor plot holes, mostly physically plausible action, and surprisingly some pretty good dialogue, including some actually funny stuff.I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and applaud it as Dolph's best work in a long, long time.
Finally a good Lundgren movie.
I really enjoyed watching movies like Dark Angel, Red Scorpion and even He-Man ^^, but there are a lot of his movies which suck bad, mainly the new ones.
You don't have a Hollywood blockbuster but you have a decent action movie, with some good jokes and lots of action.
Dolph's Commanding Performance!
Like Mechanik, it's better than a lot of the theatrically released rubbish of it's year.
I've seen too many horrendous action flicks at the cinemas this year, that rely purely on big budgets, but have nothing else, no effort, no integrity.
There's a concerted effort here to do something good, that's not only fun, tense, but has a bit of drama thrown in as well.
CP is an action fans film.
Dolph stars as Joe, former bad ass biker, with a shady past, who's since turned drummer.
The film opens on a rock concert in which Joe is playing in the band backing up star turn Venus (Melissa Smith), who's pretty much a Britney clone.
The Russian president and American ambassador are in attendance, meaning that naturally, terrorists will come and start shooting, and hold Presi, hostage.
Dolph is gonna open a big old can of whoop-ass, and make the terrorists drink it down.
Much like the Defender, D's first directing gig, once the terrorists show up, the pace never really lets up.
And the film has scatterings of action until the finale.
Joe himself is a different character to what Dolph normally plays.
He's not driven by revenge, and he's not always been on the right side of the law.The action itself is good.
It's tightly edited, giving it a good pace, and when someone gets shot or killed in close combat, there's a good delivery of blood to show that they ain't gonna be getting back up.
When Dolph takes someone on in a fight, he goes in fast and hard, using any weapons he can at hands.
Dolph's gone for pretty grounded action.
After all, this is a Die Hard formula, and it lacks the one big set piece, or a good money shot stunt.
The film looks great.
Once the action kicks in, the pace of cutting picks up as well.
As for Dolph, his direction gets better every film.
Most importantly, he's got a good sense of cutting action.
Dolph gives a good performance as Joe. He's laid back, cool, and a bit of a kid at heart.
But he's got a bad streak in him, and he has to bring his dark side out when it comes to kicking some A-holes.
I worry sometimes about Dolph directing himself, because he's not got the outside perspective on his performance.
As Dolph's FSB tag along Mikhail, Zahary Baharov is good.
As is typical of action flicks, she's got a pretty wafer thin female role.
There's little chemistry between Dolph and Smith, if only because the coupling looks pretty funny on screen, more than anything else.
Lundgren the 2nd, Dolph's daughter Ida, also stars, and for her screen debut, at 12 years old, does pretty well.
Die Hard formula flicks live or die by the bad guy.
I worried that Legano could bring down the film single handed, but he's actually pretty good.
It delivers what you want in an action film.
Still, CP is the best DTV actioner of the year by far, and one of the better action films in general.
I really loved Dolph Lundgren's action flick from the late 80s & early 90s and i must admit that i stopped watching his last years's works because of the direction they took and their quality.
I started missing him nowadays and i was happy when came across this title,wanted to watch a movie with him no matter if it's mediocre.
The plot is simple,there aren't big twists - we have the classic 'die hard scenario' at a concert organized in Moscow by the Russian president who wants to satisfy his daughters's wish to see their idols sing live;as the party gets warmed,the theater gets stormed by terrorists starting to kill people and take hostages - and instead of John Mclane we get Joe,'the drummer',member of a rock-band who is forced by the situation...to 'have some fun'.
It captures you from the first minutes because it has heart,a strange satirical style(sometimes it does give the feeling that it's a tribute to this genre) and a lead character with who Lungdren knows exactly what he wants(he writes,stars and directs it) making him multi-dimensional.
In some places it's bloody as hell and violent,even gory - while remaining brutally real it manages to be funny on edges too and i think that's while it's working so good - we want Joe,'The Drummer' to take his time and 'clear the mess' with style and he doesn't disappoint.
When the Russian Premier is taken hostage at a rock concert in Moscow, it's up to a drummer, an ex-biker, to save him.This movie has everything a good action movie should have...
Minor plot holes, mostly physically plausible action, and some pretty good dialog, including some actually funny stuff.Dolph is not the greatest actor, but he did a pretty well Job.The surroundings are tight, claustrophobic, making the action quick, rough, frantic.
When Dolph takes someone on in a fight, he goes in fast and hard, using any weapons he can at hands.Once the action kicks in, the pace of cutting picks up as well.
It's well shot, and very well edited.A must see for fans of good action-cinema!.
an absolute must seeone of if not the best dulph lundgren movies i have seen To put this in context, I am 25 years old and I have to say that this is the one of the best films I have seen without a doubt and I don't expect it will be beaten as far as I am concerned For as much action as there is in this movie, it's the acting that makes it a great piece of work.
This is very nice Dolph Lundgren's movie that I really enjoined.
The biggest problem with DC was they they wanted to squize too much fancy action for the budget they had.
I know you are probably thinking; what in the hell is this guy doing giving a Dolph Lundgren movie a "10" well simple really.
I got a big-budget thriller; ala Die Hard flick.
I was surprised he was a rock star to be in the movie.
What a pleasant surprise and Dolph my hats off to you; you acted your ass off a came up with a masterpiece of a movie!.
Lundgren won't win any originality awards for the script he wrote for "Command Performance".
As you probably guessed by just reading the plot description of the movie, this movie is a rip-off of "Die Hard".
But there are also elements of the "Die Hard" rip-offs "Under Siege" and "Sudden Death" - making this movie a rip-off of rip-offs!
Also, the climatic action scene rips off the climax of "Commando".So this story of this movie isn't very original.
Although this was a low budget movie, it looks very glossy and expensive at times.
Lundgren's direction of the movie is good as well.
He gives a lot of the movie a cinema-verite look, making it feel like we are seeing something that is "live" instead of staged and rehearsed.
As for the action, Lundgren delivers the goods in these scenes as well.
A lot of blood gets squirted, there are some exciting moments, and there are a couple of deaths done in ways I've never seen in a movie before.There are a few minor quibbles I have with the movie.
Lundgren's character is somewhat thin, speaking very little and not revealing too much of his past.
The accents of some of the foreign actors are thick at times and make their dialogue sometimes hard to make out.
I don't wanna waste much of your time, so I'll just be quick.This movie is full of glitches, bad camera work, bad effects, stupid dialogs, bad jokes, D-grade acting etc etc...
Better movie for example, unless of course, you're one of those people, who like bad movies for sheer laugh.Anyway..
Preferably as low as the film crew had to have, if they thought they created anything better than complete rubbish..I watched 41 minutes of this movie and I still cant believe I made it that far...Shouldn't get more than 3-4/10 when more people vote...
In a new movie which is written, directed and stars Dolph Lundgren, he plays the part of 'Joe' a very loud rock drummer.
The story is that of a modern Russian President and his two daughters visit a rock concert given for charity.
It's somewhat reminiscent of 'Die Hard' Russian style.
The movie is filled with lots of dramatic action, good physical exciting scenes and lots of explosive mayhem.
For Lundgren, he still packs a wallop and is good throughout the film, although one wonders if the audience can see the great man is showing his age.
Still it's a good movie for his fans as they watch the real-life Drummer take on the bad guys.
I tought by seeing the trailer I was going to see something on level of Steven Seagal "Urban Justice" or "Ruslan" but because of terrible photography and editing it looks like "Kill Switch".I have to give credits to the script who isn't bad there is some well tought action scene and good jokes.
It good in the Blair witch project or Cloverfield because the camera man play a character, but it's not the case in this movie.Also this is supposed a music movie or a movie with music and the sound editing is terrible so sometime the sound is very loud and sometime very low.
Like someone is turning up the volume up and down at random moments It's a real pity because you have a decent script that is ruined by bad photography, and bad editing..
Directed and co-written by Dolph Lundgren, the straight-to-DVD "Command Performance" which also starred Lundgren is a basic, run-of-the-mill siege / hostage outing similar in vein to "Die Hard".
No surprises and quite clichéd in nearly every development (characters, story and script), but remained dependable when it came to the action stakes and a laconic Lundgren is in good form.
During a stadium concert held for the Russian president, a group of mercenaries sneak in and take the president and his daughter's hostage while the army watches on.
Yep Lundgren plays an aging rock-star who just happened to be smoking some weed in the bathroom when the all excitement was going on.
Lundgren goes up against these Russian mercenaries in redemption of sorts, handing out violence with violence but he doesn't use a gun.
After watching the trailer for this movie I was expecting cheesy and silly B-class fun movie just like "Showdown in little Tokyo" .
Considering quite high rating from IMDb users (for a Dolph Lundgren movie of course) and the use of "Die hard" formula (one hero , one place , many terrorists ) my expectations were quite high.
Unfortunately "Command performance" is just another low budget , mindless straight-to-DVD movie from Dolph Lundgren.Lundgren is both writer and director of "CP" .
Other movies – "The Mechanik" , "The Defender " , "Missionary Man" , "Diamond dogs" and "Icarus" were all bad movies taking themselves way too seriously.
"Command performance" was supposed to be like an 80's action movie – unpretentious fun action movie .
"Cp" uses almost every dialogue and plot twist that already has been used in movies of this type before (with much better result).Lundgren also wastes a chance to create a memorable action hero .
Instead of making Johnny a smart-ass lovely macho he makes his hero look like a retarded caveman.
Watch out for Hristo Shopov ("Passion of the Christ") as the president.Lundgren's directing skill are just as poor as his acting skills .
On the good side the pacing is rather good , so I wasn't dying from boredom like on DL earlier directed movies.The movie is low budget , so expect poor CGI (explosions and blood) .
A straight-to-DVD low budget movie doesn't have to look bad – watch "Men of war" ( It was even released theatrically in some countries !).There are some nice one-liners and jokes.
I liked the songs that appear in the movie .
Lundgren proves he's quite good drummer .
It doesn't change the fact that this is just a bad movie.
Although it is not the first (and probably not the last) political hostage movie, it has been capably created and carried out: characters are versatile, events and motives logical, deaths not predictable etc.
- this time in Moscow, Russia.Tensions are always there, but - compared to many of his earlier movies - Lundgren tries to avoid meaningless violence, he enters into fighting and killing only as a response and for the sake of saving people.Well, sometimes does aging make a martial arts expert real good, provides additional value as an actor.
The script and especially the dialogues are so bad that is just makes you laugh out loud.
It has all sorts of clichés in fact this whole film is one big cliché except that the hero is like really old and looks like he had his best days.
But of course since the star of the film, (that old guy I told you about) is also the director.
So suddenly he is the hottest guy and every girl wants him really bad.It seems like a big parody on the action film genre while actually this is supposed to be really serious.
With lines like "What is the tactical situation?" "We have a tactical difficult situation" its really hard to take this film serious.
Its fun to watch since its just that bad.
But when your not humorous about that kind of film, don't watch this crap..
"Dying's easy, rock and roll is hard." Command Performance is a nice, entertaining Dolph Vehicle, perfect for people that are already fans of his going in.At a special charity concert in Russia, many people are in attendance: a stadium of cheering fans, the Russian President, his two daughters, and even the American President.
But also evil terrorists, led by Kasov (Legano) that hold the officials hostage, as well as the Britney Spears-like opening act Venus (Smith) and shoot up the place.
But there's one thing those evildoers didn't count on - the mysterious Joe (Dolph) - just Joe - the drummer for hard rock band CMF.
After teaming up with Mikhail, an FSB (Russian Counter-Intelligence) agent, it's time to do what Dolph does best: take down the bad guys!
Is there anything Dolph Lundgren can't do?
He stars in, co-wrote (with Steve Latshaw of all people, the man responsible for writing Scorpio One, and Extreme Limits, 2000), and directed the film - and did all his own drumming!
The movie is definitely an 80's throwback, and that seems to be the area where Dolph is most comfortable.
school of "antagonists take over a place and one man must stop them", there's plenty to enjoy in Command Performance.
Groaners of one –liners ("Watch The Hair, Dude!"), a good pace, and Dolph dispatching the terrorists in novel, creative and music-related (!) ways.
Just like a drummer.Lundgren's young daughter Ida is on hand as one of the kidnapped Presidential daughters, and she does a good job.
Can we expect a Lundgren acting dynasty someday?
We're just grateful they're (or should we say he's) still making movies like this.
We can't complain.In all, Command Performance probably won't win over any new recruits to the macho world of Dolph Lundgren or action cinema, but for his fans, it's a real treat.For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com.
Dolph Lundgren is the star, writer, and director of COMMAND PERFORMANCE about the drummer of a rock band who must assist a green security agent in stopping Communist terrorists who have executed civilians attending a pop starlet's concert, as well as, kidnapping the Russian President, his two daughters, and some hostages, demanding a ransom to be made for several accounts.
Lundgren is drummer Joe, his band the opening act for Venus, their concert disrupted by Kazov and his gunmen who annihilate Petrov's many number of security personnel.
While there's plenty of bloody violence, Lundgren incorporates the tired jerky cam method during action scenes that has sure worn out its welcome.
Also disappointing are instances when Lundgren destroys Kazov's goons in murky areas of the building where its hard to make out what's going on.
Look, I want my violence visible, not out of frame or blurry, cameras or bad lighting ruining the experience.
I got to hand it to Lundgren, he looks good, has aged well despite being 53 years old and juicing when he was a young man pummeling Rocky Balboa.
You know, I still believe Lundgren has the chops to remain a direct-to-DVD/cable action star.