Too much of everything

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Absolutely Brilliant!

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

The Peacekeeper starts as air-force pilot Major Frank Cross (Dolph Lundgren) is given a stark choice, either face a court marshal for disobeying a direct order or become a military aide for the President (Roy Scheider). Not much of a choice really. Frank's new job is to carry & protect the President's 'black bag', a black suitcase containing a computer & the codes that can launch America's nuclear missiles. Sounds an easy enough job right? Well, on his first day Frank gets into all sorts of trouble when terrorist's strike, kill all his security men mates & steal the black bag. Frank manages to survive the attack & becomes America's only hope when the terrorist's launch a nuclear missile that is targeted on Washington...Made under the alternative titles of Hellbent & Red Zone this Canadian American co-production was directed by Frédéric Forestier & sees Sweedish action star Dolph Lundgren in what turns out to be quite a fun little action thriller that isn't any sort of masterpiece but entertains for the right reasons & passes 100 odd minutes harmlessly enough. I suppose the easiest way to describe The Peacekeeper that most people will be able to relate to is that it's a Die Hard (1988)/Under Siege (1992)/Sudden Death (1995) style action thriller where Lundgren has to fight a bunch of terrorist's or bad guy's or whoever in an isolated cut off location as they hold something or someone to ransom in order to make lots of money. However I will say right now that The Peacekeeper is nowhere near as good as Die Hard, Under Siege or Sudden Death but it is quite fun a cheesy sort of way, it moves along at a decent pace & there's a fair amount of action in it too. There are a couple of moralistic concepts like would the men in power who send soldiers to their death in war be prepared to lay down their own lives, the validity & ethics of stockpiling nuclear weapons for defence purposes but it's hardly that deep or life changing stuff & it plays second fiddle to the action thankfully. All in all not a bad effort at really which somewhat (pleasantly) surprised me.The action scenes are quite good actually, there's a particularly ambitious car chase that eventually ends up with cars jumping from roof to roof. It's a sequence that wouldn't look out of place in a big budget Hollywood action flick. There are a few decent shoot-outs & fights too although the car chase is the stand out sequence. The film has a slightly cheap look about it, the sets look cheap & the cast is missing a strong central villain. The violence is fairly tame, there's not much blood, there's nothing that graphic going on & I would have preferred it if Lundgren killed the main villain rather than him just commit suicide for no apparent reason. Interestingly the helicopter scene in this was edited almost in it's entirety into the absolutely horrible Dennis Hopper/Tom Sizemore/Steven Seagal action thriller Ticker (2001).According to the IMDb this had a budget of about $10,000,000 which is actually a bit bigger than I thought considering that it does have a slightly cheap look to it although the action scenes are quite good. Despite being set in Los Angeles & the US this was shot entirely in Montréal, Québec in Canada. The acting is alright considering the material, Dolph Lundgren (who was apparently paid a hefty $2,500,000 for this) has definitely lost his harsh accent & you can actually understand him in this, the late Roy Scheider plays the President in a fairly small role while Emmy award winning talk-show host Montel Williams plays the black comedy relief sidekick.The Peacekeeper isn't the best action thriller ever made but there's enough fun to be had here to make it worth a watch, not as good as the more well known terrorist action thrillers but not too bad all the same.

Can somebody who liked the movie please explain: - Okay so the military drops at least 2 smart bombs when they open one of the silo holes.... but at the end of the movie Dolph and Montel crawl out to greet the press and no visible damage??? - The bad guy is seconds from having his goal of blowing up Washington but for some unknown reason he uncuffs himself from the code suitcase and falls to his death.... thus allowing Dolph time to run to the lab and stop the bomb from exploding... gave me a headache trying to make sense of that - Dolph and one of the bad guys are fighting under one of the missiles when it launches and sprays them with superheated fiery compressed flaming exhaust ..... but Dolph picks himself up and fights on - the bad guy demands the poor President (that guy from Jaws)shoot himself on national TV in the graveyard.... but the gun on the headstone is full of blanks... so why not have a secret service guy bump off the President if it would save the country??? - I guess a nuclear bomb exploding in South Dakota was no big deal... just a warning... nothing real important - the rooftop car chase was interesting - at least have Dolph take his shirt off and show us his body

One does have guilty pleasures in life and one of mine is watching Dolph Lundgren films (actually and Stephen Seagal films but I'm having counselling on that one). I'm not sure why I like Dolph. He can sort of act and he does action scenes OK. Most of his films are low budget. Yet I can't resist them. 'The Peacekeeper' is about a missile base being hijacked and it is up to Dolph to save the day which of course he does, spouting one liners and shooting and punching. Not subtle, there's just something about the man. Left field charisma, or something.There are two good actors in the film, Roy Scheider and Michael Sarrazin who almost seem in a different movie. Quality shines through. Their conversations by radio are the best bits in the film. Sarrazin as a one eyed ex-soldier is scary but also tragic. Not a great film but it fills the time. Dolph has made better films though (and worse).

This is a great Lundgren film, with a very cool cast and awesome performances all around. It's very exciting and all the characters were awesome, and the finale was excellent, plus Dolph Lundgren is simply amazing in this!. Lundgren and Montel Williams had great chemistry together, and the character development was pretty good, plus Michael Sarrazin is very menacing as the main villain!. It's very well made, and it boasts some extremely awesome car chase sequences, plus the ending is pretty cool!. It's a great Die Hard clone, and the film is exciting throughout, plus i was very impressed by the action sequences!. Dolph seemed to be having fun with his character, and Dolph as always had some really cool one liners, plus Roy Scheider is fantastic as the President!. I usually enjoy any Dolph film, and this one is no different plus, it was just a lot of fun to watch!. This is a great Lundgren film, with a very cool cast and awesome performances all around, i highly recommend this one!. The Direction is very good. Frédéric Forestier does a very good job here, with great camera work, cool angles, great shots during the action scenes, and keeping the film at a very fast pace!. There is a little bit of blood and violence. We get lots of very bloody gunshot wounds,gory wounds and some blood splatter. The Acting is fantastic!. Dolph Lundgren is AMAZING as always, and is amazing here, he is extremely likable, hilarious had great chemistry with Montel Williams, seemed to be having a lot of fun with his character, and was just tons of fun to watch!. (Dolph Rules!).Montel Williams is surprisingly great here, he was pretty funny had great chemistry with Lundgren, and really did a great job i was impressed!. Michael Sarrazin is excellent as the main villain and was very menacing he was cool. Roy Scheider is amazing as always, and was fantastic in his screen time as the President he rocked! (Scheider rules).Monika Schnarre is gorgeous and did good in her scenes Rest of the cast to fine. Overall i highly recommend this one!. ***1/2 out of 5