Director: William Kaufman
Writer: Benjamin Shahrabani, Derek Kolstad (Screenplay)
Starring: Cuba Gooding Jr, Dolph Lundgren, Claudia Bassols, Andrew Bicknell, Catalin Babliuc, Louis Mandylor
Plot: A seasoned assassin plays both sides in a Russian gang war and becomes the target of an unknown enemy.
There may be spoilers the rest of the review
Verdict: Dull Actioner
Story: One in the Chamber starts as we follow Ray Carver (Gooding Jr) an assassin for hire working in Eastern Europe for the Russia mobs as two families wage war. When Ray doesn’t get the job done, he finds himself getting hired by the other side while the original job gets given to Aleksey Andreev The Wolf (Lundgren).
As the battle continues between the Russian gangs we wait to see just which one of the assassins will get the job done quickest but soon the battle will get too close to home for one when the work is in his home town of Prague.
Thoughts on One in the Chamber
Characters/Performance – Ray Carver is a hitman for hire by the Russian mob, he is good at his job but seems easily distracted and not the best at his job. Aleksey Andreev is the second assassin in this story, he comes off like a tourist and quick with his lines. Janice is a woman that Ray watches over who also has been running from her past.
Performance wise, well here you have an Oscar Winner in Cuba that gets out performed by Lundgren who is always a brilliant choice for the action man, he might not be the greatest choice but he knows what he can do. Claudia is fine without getting much time to show her skills. The rest of the cast is fine but very averagely performed.
Story – The story is by the books with nothing original going on here. We have painful stereotypes that have no development and scenes which you would expect to unfold as we follow gangs of normal gangsters who will be created only to be killed.
Action/Crime– The action is what you would expect, big and gun filled but nothing interesting going on here. The crime world is nothing new either.
Settings – The settings play into the making the film fit the budget better, once again not being memorable.
Special Effects – These all come off easy to achieve and not important to the main story.
Final Thoughts – This is easily one of those direct to DVD forgettable movies with falling stars in.
Overall: Forgettable action film.
Rating
