Trap House

A lot of wrestlers have turned into actors in their wrestling careers. We saw it happen with André The Giant, Hulk Hogaan, "Rowdy"  Roddy Piper, Jesse Ventura, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, John Cena, Steve Austin and many others. In a way i can understand why this is a great oppurtunity, to continue your career outside the wrestling ring. With the right script, the right character and a story that works well, it is possible to make a film focused on a famous wrestler. Wrestling icon Hulk Hogan definetely proved his acting ability in the 1982 film Rocky III against Sylvester Stallone as legendary character Rocky Balboa. Unfortunately, the films that followed in Hulk Hogan´s career did not really give him any superstar recognition. It was basically in the wrestling ring he could continue his career. I will say though i did enjoy him in the TV movie Shadow Warrior ( also known as Attack On Devil´s Island ) from 1997, together with legendary actor Carl Weathers, martial arts action legend Billy Blanks and actress Shannon Tween. I remember recording this film on VHS while Swedish TV channel TV3 showed this film. Basically i would say that the TV film Shadow Warrior is a very typical macho American action film. Big muscles, big guns and hot chicks all combined. Hulk Hogan plays SEAL team leader Mike McBride with his SEAL partner Roy Brown ( Carl Weathers ) travel to the Bahamas, to lead an assault to an island fort named Devil´s Island. If you just want a very simple action film that reminded you of the action movies of the 80´s, then Shadow Warrior should be what you are looking for. I can´t remember if i ever saw the sequel released in 1998, i just remember the first film honestly. Anyway, wrestler Dave Bautista have made a lot of films over the years of different qualities. His most famous role by now is without as the character Drax the Destroyer in the Guardians Of The Galaxy franchise. I did enjoy him in the 2013 film Riddick with Vin Diesel as well, and of course in Blade Runner 2049 where he proved he does know how to act. I have to mention i appreciated his performance in the 2021 Netflix horror film Army Of The Dead as the character Scott Ward, he was the right kind of character leading a team of zombie killers. I recently sat down to watch one of his films released last year on Amazon Prime called Trap House, that had very mixed reviews online. Being a fan of Dave and some of his previous film, is this one of his better titles or ir Trap House a hopeless attempt to cash in on his name only?

DEA Agent Ray Seale ( Dave Bautista ) is a single father after losing his wife in cancer, raising his son Cody Seale ( Jack Champion ) as good as he can. When the father of Jesse Padilla ( Blu del Barrio ) is murdered during a DEA operation, the whole family is shattered. They can´t afford to live in their house anymore and DEA won´t help the family with any money. Cody and his friends decide to do a very risky operation to collect money to their friend Jesse and his family. They will steal money from the Mexican drug cartel in trap houses, where they stash money. Their first attempt only manage to steal around 500 U.S. dollars which is far from enough. They decide to do more heists, even though they know they are risking their own lives and others around them.

The first thing that came to my mind after watching Trap House is how 90´s this film feel. It really felt like something that would have been released on VHS back in the day, where you throw different ideas together and mix it all into a blender. Now, i don´t mind if you try to combine two genres as long as you make the film work. And this is where we find one of my issues with Trap House. Because the action scenes with Dave Bautista is actually the best part of the film, in the few scenes where he actually have something to do. It´s the other genre that this film try to combine that does not work with the action scenes. And that is this film is trying to be a High School Musical without the musical numbers, but starring a gang of annoying young people. Why are they annoying? How realistic is it to see these young people survive against a Mexican drug cartel? Not realistic at all and honestly none of these teenagers have any professional weapon training or know how the cartel works. So to let these young people do several big heists against the cartel when we all know they would be killed instantly, this is my main issue with Trap House. If it was a smaller criminal gang doing money laundry or something, that might have worked. But to go up against the Mexican cartel and fix things this easy? To be completely honest this makes this film looks silly. If they would have focused on telling the story with Bautista´s character Ray Seale and his work at the DEA, this would have been a more fun action film. The teenagers could have just showed up in certain scenes, and leave the hard work to the real professionals. Some of the action scenes looks ok, and i do thing the cinematography by Matt Flannery ( who worked as a cinematographer o both The Raid films ) looks good. But that´s about it that i can say that´s positive. If they only would have given Dave Bautista the main character role and just went for an old school action story, Trap House could have been enjoyable. What we are left with is a 90´s inspired action film with family film influences thrown in there. Director Michael Dowse ( who directed the brilliant film It´s All Gone Pete Tomg ) deliver a film that have a few fun moments, but fails to entertain me thanks to the annoying teenagers. It´s not a disaster, but you might as well watch Shadow Warrior with Hulk Hogan and you might be more entertained. Trap House is one of those streaming films that will most likely be forgotten, once you have watched it.

Rating: DD