| Pentathlon (1994) Cast:Dolph Lundgren,David Soul,Renee Coleman Dolph Lundgren stars as an olympic athlete who defects to the U.S after winning his gold medal, years later his insane coach (Soul of "Don't give up on us baby" fame) takes extreme measures to ruins Lundgren's big comeback in Lundgren's failed attempt at trying to do drama. Pentathlon is a crushing bore, simply because Lundgren doesn't take the right approach to the material. For instance this could've worked had there been suspense filtered in the subplot of Lundgren getting his big comeback, unfortunately nothing is pumped into this plot thread and therefore we know that Lundgren will win the gold. Also on the action front Pentathlon is bad because the actionscenes never come around and leave us to bask in the fantastic awfulness of the script's predictable tedium. Acting wise, Lundgren is truly painful to watch as he tries to interact with his romance in this movie. David Soul is sort of fun in the main villain role, considering he's responsible for one of the sappiest songs of the 70's ("Don't give up on us baby") but his hammy performance doesn't add enough entertainment to make this worth pursuing, even for fans of campy action flicks. Also the ending is routine and although there is one good sword fight between Lundgren and some anonymous actor, the point is Pentathlon will disappoint even Lundgren's most forgiving fans. D.Bruce Malmuth * |