Wanted Man opens in theaters, On Demand and on Digital beginning January 19 from Quiver Distribution.
2024 will mark twenty years in the director’s chair for Dolph Lundgren, an actor, martial artist and well-rounded entertainer who has contributed tons of fanfare to cinema in the last several decades, joining the prominent cadre of leading professionals in action cinema since the 80s. That mission – cancer battles be damned – continues with Lundgren’s eighth directorial effort on both sides of the lens in Quiver Distribution’s latest thriller, Wanted Man, with a script by himself alongside Hank Hugues and action cinema vet Michael Worth.
For this, we get a film that dives right into the profile of a deplorable police persona embodied by a seasoned California police officer and his small circle of “good old boys” both active in, and retired from the force. This comes right after an opening scene in which a hit-and-rip by armed assailants goes awry, revealing an undercover DEA bust that gets fatally foiled in the process, followed by the escape of two witnesses. Herein comes Officer Mike Johansen (Lundgren), a man prided by his conservative group-think and a culture of toxic policing – the kind that just recently landed him in hot water in a candid camera moment of overtly racist behavior while arresting human traffickers.
Aided by his police captain with the intent of helping to reduce the resulting PR nightmare, Johansen reluctantly accepts a job to head over to Mexico and extradite the key witnesses to the violent shooting and murder of the DEA undercovers, only to be brought to a screeching halt when armed killers hit the convoy in an attempt to eliminate the witnesses. Stranded south of the border and left for dead, Johansen and surviving witness Rosa (Christina Villa) are forced to rely on each other until they can make it stateside and survive the trip with bloodthirsty cartel hitmen and suspected traitors in their midst.
Wanted Man is pretty simplistic in its delivery for Lundgren in his latest starring role. This provides a little ease for certain viewers who don’t factor in too many aspects for a straightforward action movie, which does speak a little bit to the shortfalls of Johansen’s character development. Not much is done to cast a spotlight on matters of accountability or anything transformative from the version of our protagonist in the first half of the film and throughout, and by then any and all story elements pertaining to that particular subject matter are long forgotten. The story from that point on places its focus squarely on the amicable connection between Johansson and Rosa as they work and coexist together.
Casting additions included prominent actors like Aaron MacPherson, Roger Cross, and Michael Paré, as well as the formidable thespian stylings of Kelsey Grammar who never fails to bring gravitas to the screen. The action sequences pretty much package your usual assortments of shootouts and exploding squibs, as well as some fisticuffs along the way, and viewers will get to see Lundgren and several of the select cast throwdown by the end when the time comes.
Experienced viewers are welcome to lend their own ideas on just where the plot may lead and how things will take their course. Otherwise, the cast performances, action and spectacle provide plenty in the film’s general quality; the only real visual nitpick I have is when a key character shoots back at a villain in one shot, while the next shot shows said character bleeding from a gunshot in the same area where there was no blood.
Save for any expectations of introspection and character flourishment, the rest of Wanted Man is a pretty decent potboiler shoot ’em up cop flick, and doesn’t bullshit you with rosy platitudes about policing in America or its affectations on right-wing sentiments and voting demographics. This much I can appreciate.
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