Steve's quest for Action Hero stardom is off on the right track,.with this decent DTV effort.

callanvass

Damage is surprisingly an entertaining no holds barred, old school Action film. What I admired a lot about Damage is it's tenacity. It's always straight up in your face with great fight scenes, that are unrelentingly brutal. I am a die hard "Stone Cold Steve Austin" fan. He is without a doubt the greatest WWE superstar of all time and now he's taken on the acting world. Like The Condemned|which I love| he has a certain presence that you can't take your eye off of. He's certainly not a great actor,but his potential to be one of Hollywood's biggest action stars is certainly there,he's loaded with charisma and could land similar success like other action stars who were soft spoken|Seagal,Van Damme,etc|. One of the main key's that made this one of the better direct to video Actioner's i've seen,is the relationships with the characters. Especially the trio of John,Reno,and Frankie. We are able to care about them all,even if Reno's a bit of a weasel,and I just think that helped a lot.

I also approved of Steve's enthusiasm to this project. Any less of an effort would've resulted in your standard straight to DVD flick,but Steve put his all into the film,making sure to give us riveting fight sequences and a decent overall storyline,but mainly I give that credit to Frank Hannah. I have seen many straight to video Actioner's and i'll be pretty blunt,most of them flat out suck,so I was really pleased by the effort of this film. Damage is certainly not original by any means,it rips off Big Brawl,Lionheart,among others..but it managed to entertain me for a 100 minutes or so and that's really all I can ask for.

The Performances. Steve Austin is a physically gifted performer. He is a marvel in the action sequences,with major charisma to boot. He certainly won't win any Oscars with his acting,but he won't stink up the screen either and for limited experience,I thought he did some pretty decent work. I must say though what was the point of having Steve try to be emotional?. Everyone knows Steve is a redneck with a good heart,but he's hard as nails,and well he came across as looking silly more then anything else. Nevertheless I thought Steve was fabulous and I look forward, to his future projects,he's got big time potential. Lynda Boyd got on my nerves more then once with her cold character. That was one of the script's biggest mistakes,she's supposed to make us care about with the situation with her daughter,but she came across as a selfish lady who is putting too much pressure on John. Her chemistry with Steve also felt forced. Walton Goggins is a weasel but a likable one at that. He's able to make us care for him,we feel sorry for the situations he gets into,even if he partially deserves it. Laura Vandervoort is cute as a button,and manages to be quite likable,I enjoyed her performance.

Bottom Line. Damage is one of the better DTV Actioner's that seem to come out like crazy now a days. It certainly won't make you go wow,it's not anything original,but it's certainly pretty entertaining. I wholeheartedly recommend Damage for a good night of entertainment.

7/10

score 7/10

callanvass 21 December 2009

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2177997/