Essentially a retelling of Clint Eastwood’s Pale Rider, which is a second-rate rehash of George Stevens’ Shane, Dolph Lundgren’s Missionary Man simply doesn’t have enough original elements to separate it from the rest of the direct-to-DVD fare. Some scenes work, especially those in which the hulking main character Ryder (who remains nameless in the film) wipes the floors with villains, but overall a lack of unique action scenes and noteworthy storytelling prevent Missionary Man from being even slightly memorable.

A mysterious man-with-no-name (Dolph Lundgren), who drinks tequila and reads from a tattered bible, rumbles into town on his old-fashioned motorcycle to attend the funeral of J.J., a friend who recently died by drowning. J.J.’s family won’t accept his death as an accident, and blame the local oppressor Reno, a vicious man who rules the town by fear and plots to build a casino on the neighboring reservation to fuel his drug smuggling business. The tall, blonde-haired mystery man quickly causes problems for Reno when he begins to assault hired hands and interfere with Reno’s underhanded practices. Soon he finds himself the target of Jarfe (John Enos III) and his murderous motorcycle gang, a motley mob of miscreants out to end the disruption of their partner’s plotting – but a powerful wrath of vengeance fuels the steely-eyed stranger and no sin shall go unpunished.

“No sin shall go unpunished” is also the tagline for the film, but oddly enough there are plenty of sins that go unrecompensed – and they all belong to Ryder. An anti-hero vigilante who goes above and beyond murdering for vengeance, Ryder exhibits no emotions as he blows people away with his sawed-off shotgun. What makes his actions even more controversial is the fact that he reads from a bible and imparts the idea that what he does is somehow in league with God. Knocking back shots of tequila nonstop also makes for an interesting contrast in a character that is supposedly “doing the right thing.”

We root for Ryder just the same anyway since, in these generic action films, thinking is not required, and stunts, action and ass-kicking are the highlights of the story. Sadly, Lundgren chooses not to do all that many stunts or even participate in all that many fight sequences. Quick and fancy camera edits make the brawls appear more dramatic than they really are, but when the climax involves simply shooting baddies with a gun, it seems a misuse of Lundgren’s well-known martial arts talents.

Channeling The Terminator, Dolph speaks few words and constantly sports shades, and mimicking Clint Eastwood’s famous man-with-no-name, (especially the similar role from Pale Rider) he sweeps into town with vengeance on his mind, even though it isn’t alluded to from the outset. With terribly cliché events, notably mediocre dialogue that sounds recycled from other cheesy action flicks, and slow-motion shots all in the wrong spots (such as before and after a fight scene, instead of in the midst of action), Missionary Man doesn’t ever break away from the idea that it is reusing the exact same aspects that were appealing about other films. The problem is when a film copies a remake that was already vastly inferior to the original (see Shane) it has no hopes of bringing anything new to the table. And indeed, while the best bits are when Ryder throws out snappy one-liners to random rogues before he brutally executes them, there really is nothing new to be found in Missionary Man.

- Mike Massie

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