MR-9: Do Or Die

There is something magical about the film genre known as action. No matter if we are talking about action films with terrorists, ninja films, war movies, CIA agent films there are so many categories to choose between. As long as you had cool characters, lots of guns and funny dialogue you know it would be great entertainment. One of my earliest memories of action films in the past is being at the local VHS rental store in my hometown seeing VHS copies of The Delta Force with Chuck Norris on the rental shelves. At that time i must have been 10 years old in 1987, even though this film had it´s cinema release in 1986 i didn´t see this film until a year later. It was my faher who rented this film and i still remember how much i loved the VHS cover of The Delta Force with legendary action star Chuck Norris on the front cover. If you have not seen The Delta Force for any reason i will let you know what this film is all about. In 1985, a group of Palestenian terrorists hijack American Travelways Airlines Flight 282, a Boeing 707 flying from Cairo to New York. The terrorist group is known as New World Revolutionary Organization, who are led by two terrorists named Abdul Rafai ( Robert Forster ) and Mustafa ( David Menahem ). They force Captain Roger Campbell ( Bo Svensson ) and his crew to fly the 707 to Beirut, where they make demands to the United States government that, if they don´t do as they say, they will kill all passengers. United States have no other option but to call in Delta Force, an elite group trained to solve hostage situations and deal with all kinds of terrorists. The Delta Force is a really well made action film filled with fun action scenes, fun characters but also manage to send out some important political messages as well. If you have not seen this film check it out on streaming or on physical media. I try to look at action films every year when i see new releases since i am a big fan of this genre. One of the films i sat down to watch recently is called MR-9: Do Or Die and i noticed that this film comes from the director of The Curse Of The Clown Motel i reviewed recently. Is this an action film that´s more entertaining than i expected or is MR-9: Do Or Die just as predictable as Helena Bergström´s 2009 Swedish drama film Så Olika who no one seems to remember?

An elite Bangladeshi spy teams up with CIA operative to bring down an international criminal organization headed by a ruthless buisnessman.

If you miss the action days of The Cannon Group in the 80´s that legendary film producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus used to bring to the big screen, you could say that MR-9: Do Or Die bring back some of that feeling. This is a film that clearly knows it is far from being modern and just tries to bring back old school action just like we remember from the VHS stores in the 80´s. So if you are looking for a strong emotional story or fantastic acting, you will not find any of that with MR-9: Do Or Die. I think if you go into this film with the right mind set knowing this is a film that is made for fans of old school action films it will be easier to enjoy this film. So let´s get into the positive first and i will let you know some of my personal opinions that i feel could have made this film better. I feel that some of the martial arts action scenes are fun where the actors actually fight instead of using CGI fight scenes as they did in the latest Road House remake. Fans of martial arts want to see actors actually trying to fight, not only does it look better but it is also more entertaining to watch. There is a lot of shooting in this film and i really appreciate that. In some modern action films they seem to hold back on old school shooting scenes and in this film they really let the guns take over some of the dialogue scenes. I think that is a good thing since we don´t need a lot of dialogue if we are talking about action scenes, we just want to see lots of violence even if nothing makes any sense. Ok, so let´s talk especially one of the issues i have with this film. Even though i know acting is not always good in action films you can really feel some of the actors in this film have never read a lot of dialogue before. I am not talking about actors like Frank Grillo or Michael Jai White, but other unknown actors who try to deliver dialogue and it makes some of the characters look very weak. I am not saying you have to act good in a film like this, but look at Frank Grillo who doesn´t give a strong performance but is charming at least. If you find the right tone for your character you can still say bad dialogue and still be entertaining to the audience. Other than that i can´t really say much else negative since i know this film is filled with flaws but i can actually accept that. MR-9: Do Or Die is director Asif Akbar´s attempt to bring back the 80´s and will most likely be appreciated by fans of The Cannon Group or action films in general and that´s good enough for me.  If you just want a film where people kick ass and shoot down people, MR-9: Do Or Die should be exactly what you are looking for. 

Rating: DDD