Icarus starts as former KGB agent Edward Genn (Dolph Lundgren) jets off to Hong Kong to carry out a job, now a hit-man for hire who has to do what he is told or suffer the consequences Genn kills people for a living & is very good at it. During the hit Genn fails to kill his original target, a fellow Russian gangster & when he gets back home to Vancouver his employers start asking questions. Genn becomes suspicious but can't do a lot about it, Genn is given another hit but on his way to the airport to fly to Miami he discovers he has been set-up & is ambushed. Genn survives the hit on him & realises that his ex-wife & young daughter's lives are at risk as some very powerful people want him dead. Genn ask's for help from the only person he trust's but he is betrayed & is captured by the CIA who give him an ultimatum, kill his former friend & Russian mobster Vadim (Bo Svenson) or be killed himself...
Renamed The Killing Machine for it's UK & US release this Canadian production both stars & was directed by Dolph Lundgren & after his theatrical comeback in the big budget The Expendables (2010) it's back to reality & the day job for Lundgren & the low budget direct to video action film which is ends up being one machine that needs a real good tune up. What can I say? Icarus, or The Killing Machine if you want to call it that, is pretty rubbish & I think this might be getting half decent reviews because this type of film is just so bad usually that it's difficult for a film to be any worse. A lot of these low budget action thrillers blur into each other after a while, the script offers nothing new with the Russian mob, shady Government deals, life or death situations, betrayal, themes centered on friendship & loyalty & Icarus offers nothing new or original as far as I could see. At 90 odd minutes the pace is fairly sedate, there's a lot of bland & forgettable build-up as the script tries to paint Icarus as some deep & complex character which is just plain ridiculous. Narrative & story is all well & good if there's a good pay-off & worth the time you invest in watching it but Icarus isn't worth the time or effort as the action scenes are very dull & lack any sort of imagination.
Icarus has a really unappealing direct to video look, it just screams cheapness at you. The whole story is very predictable, the lack of any identifiable villain for the majority of the film doesn't help & character motives & decisions seem all over the place at times. The biggest disappointment is surely the action scenes which are poor, there are a couple of fights but otherwise it's just guy's shooting at each other & it gets really boring. No car chases, no explosions, no variety in the action at all. Then there's the filming style, director Lundgren uses shaky hand-held camcorder, really quick editing, slow motion, frame skipping & blurring all to annoying effect. I actually saw this on the SyFy Channel here in the UK, what on Earth is a dull action thriller like Icarus doing on the SyFy Channel? Where's the Science fiction exactly? There's a fair bit of blood here, when someone gets shot they actually bleed & there's a couple of scenes where people get shot through the head to leave a nice big blood splatter on the wall behind them & there's a couple of sex scenes featuring Lundgren with much younger & hotter women so be prepared for that.
With a supposed budget of about $5,000,000 you can see why there's not much action here, that really isn't a lot of money to make an action film these days. Mainly filmed in British Columbia in Canada this got an extremely limited theatrical release in a few countries. The acting is alright, I can't say anyone was great though.
Icarus or The Killing Machine or whatever you want to call it is a really bad action thriller that tosses in all the usual clichés & does nothing interesting or entertaining with them. Even the action scenes suck. At least I didn't pay to see it otherwise I would have been annoyed.
Renamed The Killing Machine for it's UK & US release this Canadian production both stars & was directed by Dolph Lundgren & after his theatrical comeback in the big budget The Expendables (2010) it's back to reality & the day job for Lundgren & the low budget direct to video action film which is ends up being one machine that needs a real good tune up. What can I say? Icarus, or The Killing Machine if you want to call it that, is pretty rubbish & I think this might be getting half decent reviews because this type of film is just so bad usually that it's difficult for a film to be any worse. A lot of these low budget action thrillers blur into each other after a while, the script offers nothing new with the Russian mob, shady Government deals, life or death situations, betrayal, themes centered on friendship & loyalty & Icarus offers nothing new or original as far as I could see. At 90 odd minutes the pace is fairly sedate, there's a lot of bland & forgettable build-up as the script tries to paint Icarus as some deep & complex character which is just plain ridiculous. Narrative & story is all well & good if there's a good pay-off & worth the time you invest in watching it but Icarus isn't worth the time or effort as the action scenes are very dull & lack any sort of imagination.
Icarus has a really unappealing direct to video look, it just screams cheapness at you. The whole story is very predictable, the lack of any identifiable villain for the majority of the film doesn't help & character motives & decisions seem all over the place at times. The biggest disappointment is surely the action scenes which are poor, there are a couple of fights but otherwise it's just guy's shooting at each other & it gets really boring. No car chases, no explosions, no variety in the action at all. Then there's the filming style, director Lundgren uses shaky hand-held camcorder, really quick editing, slow motion, frame skipping & blurring all to annoying effect. I actually saw this on the SyFy Channel here in the UK, what on Earth is a dull action thriller like Icarus doing on the SyFy Channel? Where's the Science fiction exactly? There's a fair bit of blood here, when someone gets shot they actually bleed & there's a couple of scenes where people get shot through the head to leave a nice big blood splatter on the wall behind them & there's a couple of sex scenes featuring Lundgren with much younger & hotter women so be prepared for that.
With a supposed budget of about $5,000,000 you can see why there's not much action here, that really isn't a lot of money to make an action film these days. Mainly filmed in British Columbia in Canada this got an extremely limited theatrical release in a few countries. The acting is alright, I can't say anyone was great though.
Icarus or The Killing Machine or whatever you want to call it is a really bad action thriller that tosses in all the usual clichés & does nothing interesting or entertaining with them. Even the action scenes suck. At least I didn't pay to see it otherwise I would have been annoyed.