The Siege

Ordering coffee these days happen very quickly no matter if you order take out or at your local Starbucks coffee shop. And so many flavors to choose between that you simply stand there wondering what should i choose? Customer service have changed a lot though, at least as i remember how it used to be back in the 80´s. If you went into a café in the 80´s with a guy having a mullet hair at the cash register, you knew there was a chance that two things could happen. If you complained too much the cash register guy would pull out a shotgun and say:- If you think this coffee taste burned, wait until you taste my shotgun. Or he would throw his library card in your face and say:- Don´t you read the Handbook Of Mathmetical Tables And Formulas ? I would perfectly understand why, because back in the 80´s that was the sexiest book you could find in the library. There was no other book that would shape formulas like a woman as in the Handbook Of Mathmetical Tables And Formulas. It was like author Richard Burington knew he was way ahead of his time, considering that this book was actually published in the 1940´s. Since i was too young looking in adult magazines in the early 80´s, this was the book where i would imagine what a woman looked like. Speaking of shotguns that i mentioned earlier, i sometimes miss the simple life of the 80´s. If someone asked you for direction to another street, you knew you could do a round kick to that person and no one would wonder why. That was just a simple way to answer someone, instead of actually explaining everything. And if someone said you danced badly at the disco floor, all you did was throw a Samurai sword in their head and the dance could still continue as planned. One of the things i especially appreciated during the 80´s was how many great action films that came out. No matter if we are talking military action films or martial arts films, i loved watching all kind of combinations. In 2021 i was actually surprised when a B action movie called Last Man Down was released, that was actually filmed both in Sweden and in England. Why did this film susprise me? It was basically a low budget copy of Schwarzenegger classic film Commando with bodybuilder Daniel Stisen in the lead role as the charater John Wood. It is a bad film in many ways but still entertaining. When i heard that Daniel Stisen would return in an action film called The Siege, of course i was curious. Would this be another fun throwback to the 80´s, or is The Siege just as bad as the Birdemic franchise have proved itself to be?

Walker ( Daniel Stisen ) is an assassin, one of the best in the business. When one of his witnesses doesn´t turn out to be dead, his cover could potentially be blown. Walker is sent to Reassignment Center 42, to be fitted out with a new identity. What they did not expect is that a team of heavily armed mercenaries break in to the facility. Walker and the people inside the facility have no other option than fight for their lives to survive.

If you are a big fan of the 1998 film Holy Man with Eddie Murphy and Jeff Goldblum i have some fantastic news for you. The Siege is the most natural film you would want to watch after you have experienced Holy Man, because the same spiritual feeling comes along with The Siege. There are some differences of course, such as we get bigger muscles in The Siege, men kicking ass and shooting people down. The Siege feels like a healing process that you want to experience, to clear your mind from anything negative. Because this film feels like a lot of love and joy, where it is very clear that this feels like a love letter of 80´s action films. You could probably say that The Siege feels like a mixture of Dolph Lundgren´s classic Red Scorpion and combines something similar to the Netflix film Interceptor. Now, let´s make one thing perfectly clear. You do not come to a film like The Siege to look for fantastic acting, because it doesn´t exisit here. This film is made specifically for action lovers from the 80´s and 90´s where you don´t need a complicated story and thankfully they have not tried to make this film look intelligent. All you need is lots of guns, fighting scenes and some fun dialogue. Action actor Daniel Stisen continue to do what he does best, just being a bad ass and kill a lot of people. His dialogue scenes are not very good but it is the action scenes where he works best. Actress Lauren Okadigbo ( who have done stunt choreography in many films such as Zack Snyder´s Justice League, Wonder Woman and Black Widow ) plays the character Elda. I personally feel that Elda is one of the coolest character in this film, with her cool attitude and not afraid to kick ass. I have to mention actress Samantha Schnitzler´s character Keates, this is the kind of woman men wish they would marry. The action scenes may be cheesy but that´s the whole point, you just want to have a good time. Is there anything negative to say about The Siege? Since there isn´t a interesting plot here you don´t really care about the story. There are some characters that you don´t know why they are there, because they only seem to be added into the story without making any bigger impact. Director Brad Watson ( director of the 2016 independent horror film Hallows Eve ) give us a very simple action film that will probably only appreciated by fans of this genre. Sure, the acting is terrible and not much makes any sense. But if you can accept that and just want some classic 80´s violence you should give The Siege a chance. I have a feeling if actor Daniel Stisen continue on this path making low budget action films, he could be the next big Norwegian B action movie star.

Rating: DDD