| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Cuba Gooding Jr. | ... | ||
| Dolph Lundgren | ... |
Aleksey Andreev
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| Claudia Bassols | ... |
Janice Knowles
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| Andrew Bicknell | ... |
Mikhail Suverov
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Catalin Babliuc | ... |
Liev
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| Louis Mandylor | ... |
Demyan Ivanov
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| Leo Gregory | ... |
Bobby Suverov
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Lia Sinchevici | ... |
Mila
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| George Remes | ... |
Gregori
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Alin Panc | ... |
Vlad Tavanian
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| Billy Murray | ... |
Leo Crosby
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Florin Roata | ... |
Junior
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Alexandra Murarus | ... |
Nadia
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| Aaron McPherson | ... |
Peter
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Andrei Ciopec | ... |
Waiter
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In search of money and freedom from the American justice system, criminals from the United States moved to Eastern Europe, where the laws were replaced by the crime after the collapse of the Communist system. Many of them chose Prague as their hideout, where crime lords were willing to pay a suitable sum of money to assassins in order to eliminate their rivals. One such assassin, Ray Carver (Cuba Gooding Jr.), works for two rival gangs as their main killer. When Ray attempts to murder a Chechen drug lord, he is being pursued by the mobsters. Meanwhile, Suverov mafia hires Alexey 'The Wolf' Andreev (Dolph Lundgren), an assassin from Russia who is rumored to be not existent. This is when the real gang war starts. Written by Master Film
Whether we like it or not we DO often judge movies by the title and/or cover art promo-poster at first. I expected a true 'B' movie here, but what I got was considerably beyond it. It is an intelligent, albeit formulaic plot line, but it also has very intelligent dialog, shot extremely well, and directed substantially better than MANY "Blockbusters" we end up paying far too much for.
Here you have the many clichés and standards of an average budget action flick, but what this movie does is engross you from beginning to end. I would NOT consider this a 'B' movie by any means. It stands aside as a well thought out and inspired piece of film making on the merits of writing, casting, crew, production values and certainly Directing!
Cuba is truly outstanding here. Best performance in years(I believe). Dolf is...well, still Dolf at his best average, but good casting and acting all around. I recommend this because it surprised me as to certain nuances of actual quality of direction and cinematography AND script writing that is rarely shown in movies of this genre.
Note: Many people and critics complain of not being able to 'follow it'. That is likely because a LOT of the story and scenes here are INTELLIGENTLY executed and THAT takes a disciplined attention span to pay full attention to what is going on.
On a side note; and part of what makes the 'Love' interest in this movie so good, is that, like 'Remains of the Day', you can truly feel the wistful melancholy of the 'Inapproachable' aspect of 'Togetherness' that, as much as we want it to be, it has another more romantic aspect regarding the questions that it leaves behind.