I love all things Scott Adkins and love that he has been taking on a wider variety of roles as of late. His latest film Dead Reckoning features a great cast including India Eisley, K.J. Apa, James Remar, Ellie Cornell, and Sydney Park with Romeo Must Die, Cradle to the Grave and Exit Wounds director Andrzej Bartkowiak at the helm. Could his latest flick bring the expected action or will it fail to be a force to reckon with?

 

Dead Reckoning follows Tillie Gardner's summer romance with local cab driver Niko before starting college who is helping her cope with the tragic death of her parents in a private plane crash a few weeks earlier. Too bad she doesn't know yet he is the brother of the terrorist who actually sabotaged the plane, and who is also involved with a plot to bomb the annual Fourth of July beach celebration on Nantucket Island. Can she gather herself and her wits together and discover his dark secret in time and prevent a terrible massacre?

 

First you have to know and probably already do from the trailer, but this is not a martial arts flick and barely an action one. The feature is like two completely different films were shoved into the same story. On one side you have this teen romance film that plays up the summer romance story that works fine with what they are trying to do. On the other side they have a terrorist plot thing happening that is fused into this other story in a strange way. These two things attempt to make a catalyst to work together, but never really works.

 

There is some action fused in, but when you have someone like Adkins in the mix it makes it harder to buy into the fight they put him in. I know he can’t just be the unstoppable force all the time and not always the martial arts master in the story, but had they not forced in a fight scene it would have worked better than having one here that is just bland. The overall tone felt more like a Lifetime movie featuring some action of sorts than anything else and overall just didn’t work for me.

 

Decide for yourself and check out Dead Reckoning available now on Digital and On Demand from Shout Studios.