Dark Angel stars the most American looking I think I’ve ever seen Dolph Lundgren? (Well Canadian I should add). With his perfectly coiffed dyed dark brown hair he somewhat, to me, looked like Nathan Fillion from Firefly. He wore a similar brown jacket too. Dolph didn’t seem to have much of his Swedish or, in the case of his famous Drago, a Russian accent either.
Dolph plays Houston narcotics cop Detective Jack Caine. He’s a maverick, no nonsense, man mountain who’s ready to bust a hole in a smug drug dealing gang of yuppies called The White Boys. Flashy gangsters driving around in luxury sports cars and wearing top of the range suits. The gang has boosted a massive shipment of stolen heroin from a federal storage warehouse. With a pile of dead bodies behind them these hoodlums need to be brought down. Jack is on the case but things are about to take on a very strange turn of events………..
Tagline – Jack Caine thought he’d busted every breed of crook on Earth…HE HAS.
With a string of drug dealer bodies all cut and sliced and a mysterious weapon of an otherworldly nature. Well it couldn’t be more earthly to be honest, obviously the budget was way too stretched blowing everything up for anything too fancy to be used. So a nice shiny music CD is the alien weapon of choice. Well it does fly with tremendous deadly precision. Oh did I say alien? We do get spoilt, two for the price of one. One, Talec (Matthias Hues), has shocking white long hair and a killer catchphrase “I Come In Peace” when the other, Azeck (Jay Bilas), has a dweeby monk fringe!
Tagline – He came in search of a drug so rare it could only be found in one place… Man.
With the feds getting involved Jack Caine gets lumbered with annoying pint sized FBI agent Special Agent Arwood ‘Larry’ Smith (Brian Benben). Somehow these two law enforcers have to investigate what the hell is going on as more and more bodies start stacking up. A collection of innocent bodies with strange markings and identical deaths. WTF was going on? Maybe Jacks friend, the wired and tweaking caffeine addicted Bruce the Scientist (Mark Lowenthal) can help shine some light on the mystery? So the mismatched duo of Jack and Larry run off into the night to bring this foe down. But first Larry needs to borrow a coat. “Cheers Jack it fits perfectly!” “It should… it was mine when I was 12!”
Things I’ve Learnt..
- Directed by Craig R Baxley who before getting in the directing chair was a prolific stuntman and stunt coordinator. Check this list of films he’s been either a stunt double or stunt driver. Charley Varrick, Mr Majestyk, The Parallax View, The Poseidon Adventure, Rollerball, Logan’s Run, Predator and The Warriors to name just a tiny few!
- Talking of the stunts one of the things I noticed right from the beginning were the amazing explosions with the actors right in the firing line. Here’s Dolph Lundgren saying a few words on the subject. “Everywhere I turn there’s another Baxley’s stunt guy“
- Here’s another great little anecdote about Dolph connecting a perfect roundhouse kick with some poor guys face when they both miss their markers. Slam!
- Dark Angel is also known as I Come In Peace.
- The electronic synth soundtrack is brought to us courtesy of that Miami Vice keyboard man Jan Hammer.
- Blu-ray with interviews was released by Shout Factory here.
- Dark Angel at the time of writing can be found on YT to stream.
My brother Dan recommended this one to me. I’d never heard of it. Gotta say I really enjoyed it. Dolph was ass kicking funny, the special effects explosions are top drawer. There’s a buddy movie in here alongside science fiction and macho action fodder. Hey it’s also another Christmas film to add to the collection. It’s a good fun action packed movie which crosses over nicely from the 80s to 90s. Helped along with those Jan Hammer synthesizers. Worth a look if you haven’t seen it before. If you have, do you remember it?…. Mikey Wolf
