Steve Austin plays Tommy Wick, an ex-combat veteran, who's a nightclub bouncer & enforcer for Seattle mob boss Big Doug (Eric Keenleside) who's stuck in this type of life with his wife Darla (Kirstien Kerr) because of the limited employment & financial stability with his military background. Big Doug gives Tommy & his partner Julio (Mike Dopud) an assignment to deliver a package to a man who he's had a past with called "The German" (Dolph Lundgren), a violent crime lord himself, with the payoff being that Tommy clear the debt owed to Doug by his jailed brother Eddie (Lochlyn Munro) but runs into problems along with way with a group of mercenaries, lead by Devon (Darren Shahlavi) along with Monique (Monique Ganderton) & Ralph (Peter Bryant), come after him after being hired by Anthony (Michael Daingerfield) to get the package while also sending his men after his rival crime boss "The German."This was probably the most unique movie story wise that Austin has done to date as despite the fact that both men were linked together throughout the whole movie, it was telling two individual stories of Wick & "The German" dealing with the hits put out on each guy by the same boss as they didn't cross paths with each other throughout most of the movie. The action was what you expect as you had some fist fighting but mostly based on gun play while Austin did his usual "dry humor" with one liners from time to time that did make you laugh.
In the end, this was one of Austin's better movies so I recommend for fans of him or Lundgren at this stage in his career.
On the surface, the Package is a quick and dirty exercise aimed at jumping on the already overpopulated B-movie action cash-in band wagon. However, in a refreshing change, the Package is the same film at its core. This is a film where what you see is what you get. No moralising. No running out of budget. No excuses. Just Stone Cold carnage and a respectable body count.
The plot is very simple: Stone Cold is a debt collector. Stone Cold fights people. Stone Cold is sent to deliver a package. Stone Cold gets tangled up with some really bad people. People get killed, some of them by Stone Cold. As you probably read on the package, Dolph is in this film too. Dolph has a plot that runs largely parallel to Stone Cold's: Dolph gets antagonised by some guys. Dolph kills the antagonists. Dolph talks a bunch of stuff about the importance of good nutrition to a few corpses.
Both Stone Cold and Dolph are in fine form, dispensing wrath and punishment to all comers. Stone Cold breaks some guys nose with a bowling ball in the first five minutes, which was awesome. I've always liked bowling.
What I really liked about this film is that innocent people didn't get a pass like in most namby-pamby Hollywood action. If you were an innocent bystander in this film, chances are you got shot in the face. Hell yeah, give the producers of this film $50 million and let's see what they can really do!
So why a four star review the reveal towards the end of the film is pretty lame and almost derails the whole thing. However, this is a minor setback in what is an otherwise fairly awesome action flick.It is a GREAT product and of course I love Stone Cold Steve Austin so, Hands down it was a great movie.
Read Best Reviews of The Package (2012) Here
One should never go into a movie starring Steve Austin (aka Stone Cold Steve Austin) expecting Shakespeare. If you do you'll be disappointed. If instead you're looking for some high intensity action where fisticuffs and martial arts reign supreme you'll be appeased. This isn't to say Austin is a terrible actor but dialogue is not his claim to fame.THE PACKAGE has Austin portraying a collector/bouncer for a big time criminal making good money while keeping the bad guy off his brother who's in prison. It seems his brother stole money from this same guy who makes Austin a deal: deliver a personal package and the debt is cleared. It seems easy enough so Austin takes on the job.
But as we movie fans know nothing is ever quite as easy as it looks. While driving through the backwoods of Washington state, Austin and his partner are ambushed and his partner killed. These are mercenaries hired by Tony, another bad guy, trying to intercept the package. Gunplay and hand to hand combat follow with Austin barely escaping and leaving behind to dead henchmen, one of whom was engaged to another evil operative. And yes, she holds a grudge.
Tony is trying to find not just the package but its intended recipient, The German (Dolph Lundgren). While waiting for the delivery of the package The German is taking on Tony's men trying to find out who is behind this hijack. From the scenes involving his handling of the men sent to kill him it's easily deciphered that The German is not a very nice guy, a bit more of a sociopath than anything else.
Between time on the road and fighting bad guys you know that Austin will eventually get the package to The German. But just what is in the package that makes it so valuable? The reveal is actually a nice surprise and one you wouldn't expect in a direct to DVD feature. Will there be a showdown between the two superstars of direct to DVD? Of course there is!
The movie is well made and offers some nice scenery along the way. Lundgren plays a truly great villain here and the rest of the cast is up to par as well. The story may be simple but again, it's not high art we're talking here. It's kick butt and take name time, head smashing and fist popping, an adrenaline rush of non-stop action with a few slow moments tossed in for recovery. If you're an Austin or Lundgren fan you'll know what to expect. Nothing complicated, just action. Fans will love this one.
Want The Package (2012) Discount?
"The Package" was one of a handful of movies I readily anticipated the release of. While it ended up not being at all what I expected or hoped for, I found it to be a pretty enjoyable and fairly unique DTV action-drama. Director Jesse Johnson (The Fifth Commandment) isn't Isaac Florentine, but after he's finally developed his own solid style with movies like this, he doesn't need to be: if he keeps up this standard, he'll definitely remain a name to watch, especially if keeps associating with this caliber of action heroes.The story: a mafia enforcer (Steve Austin, Damage) agrees to deliver a mysterious pocketbook to a rival mob boss (Dolph Lundgren, Rocky IV) in exchange for a family member's freedom, but is ambushed en-route by outside forces looking to take possession of the package.
The DVD cover hints that the movie may feature Austin and Lundgren's characters teaming up, but this isn't the case. As a matter of fact, they don't even share a scene until the film's last twenty minutes. The story mostly follows Austin as he's pursued by the goons of Paul Daingerfield (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective) most notably martial artists Darren Shahlavi (Ip Man 2) and Jerry Trimble (The Master) while Lundgren stays in the background and builds the suspense about what's in the package. This particular martial cast is what attracted me to the movie in the first place, with high hopes for plenty of hand-to-hand fight scenes. The actual adrenaline product is mixed: there's some presentable gunplay and a car crash, and while the six fistfights tend to act as the centerpieces, I'd be lying if I said they're everything I had hoped for. Steve Austin's brawls are fun to watch and are shot generally better than a lot of fights these days, but his style cramps that of Shahlavi and Trimble a bit. The showdown with the former remains worth watching for some practical choreography, but I was let down by Jerry's first real fight scene in over a decade.
Were there nothing else to the movie, I'd end up giving it three stars, but it has other strengths to fall back on, the most notable of which is the script by Dererk Kolstad. For the most part, it's a straight-forward action yarn, but it's spiced up by a memorable character for Lundgren, some decent suspense en-route to the climax, and a twist I didn't see coming. And while Lundgren's persona may stand out, the amassed acting content of the flick is decisively above-average for this type of movie: off the top of my head, I can think of at least four really strong dramatic scenes, including some for which longtime character performer Eric Keenleyside (The Interpreter) adds his refined talent to. Additionally, there's a few simply cool little scenes and character moments stuck in here and there that you just wouldn't expect, (SPOILER) like when Austin's character cuts an interrogation speech by Paul Daingerfield short by killing him with a single headbutt while tied to a chair. Damn, Steve!
I won't predict that this will be one of the best DTV action titles of the year, but it definitely won't be among the worst. Fans of Steve Austin as an action hero definitely have a worthy addition to add to their library, and action fans in general should be appeased by this well put together adventure. Strict martial arts fans can definitely find better, but that's not to say they won't get into the story and characters, too.
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