You know you’re in “B” movie land when there are blurbs on the back of the DVD such as FULL-THROTTLE ACTION! And HIGH-STAKES THRILLS!, and yet there are no quotation marks or asterisks to be seen. Uh-oh. Such is the trepidation I felt as I stared balefully at the back of the DVD as I got ready for the viewing. My trepidation was not unwarranted.
Den of Lions is a crime picture about an FBI agent who infiltrates the Russian mafia (stop me if you’ve heard this one) and, gasp!, falls in love with the Russian capo’s daughter. Egads! The passion! The thrills! The action! The opening sequence establishes the films mediocrity right away. FBI agent Mike Varga (Dorff - with a perpetual five o’clock shadow) finds himself in a rather pitiful car chase sequence ending in a jack-knifing truck and a nice explosion. Back at headquarters, we are surprised to learn that our hero has saved a girl but broken a few rules (those rascally rule-breaking heroes!, when will they ever learn?).
Despite this blatant disregard for the rules, Varga is handed another assignment: to head to Budapest, Hungary with a group of agents to infiltrate the notorious Solntsevskaya Russian Mafia. With the help of a little movie magic, Varga finds himself immediately entrusted by godfather Darius Paskevk (Bob Hoskins) where he finds that it may not always be black and white and that the grey area includes Paskevk’s daughter…zzzz, snort, huh?, was I giving a synopsis for a film?
Needless to say, where you find Russian terrorists, you find vodka and nuclear devices of some sort. And of course there is the requisite oh-no-their-searching-him-will-they-find-the-wire? sequence complete with the expected result. There is also a particularly head-scratching subplot that involves a woman sold into prostitution. Not to make light of her situation, but our hero thinks that risking his cover to rescue this poor woman takes precedence over keeping nuclear devices out of terrorists hands….huh? Let us hope that our real agents don’t have quite the bleeding heart.
Dense, bleak, humorless, banal. There are too many derogatory adjectives and not enough energy. If its sounds like I’m being too hard on the film, well, there are a few bright spots.
Bob Hoskins is always worth watching and is doing his best Long Good Friday routine here. And to the film’s credit, I suppose, there is some attempt at a twist late in the film, which while still predictable, at least proves that somebody was trying to entertain.
Den of Lions is now available at Amazon . As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD's database for more information.
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