Tactical Force (2011)

   Tactical Force is an action movie directed by Adamo P Cultraro and stars Steve (Stone Cold) Austin as Tate, a SWAT team leader who finds himself and crew ambushed during a training exercise in what seems to be an abandoned warehouse. Trapped inside with only superficial amunition against two rival gangs, Italian and Russian mafia, Tate’s SWAT face an uphill struggle for survival.

This films opens as a group of masked thugs (looking decidedly like the Jokers’ from Dark Knight) hold a shopping mall to ransom. The team, a tearaway group with anti-authoritarian ideals, quickly dispel the anarchy with a dose of their own. Needless to say, the Police Chief is not impressed with either their tactics or humour and orders Tate to re-educate his crew at a warehouse used as a training facility. Un beknown to them as they arrive, is that inside awaits several multinational trigger happy gangsters. There is of course an item of interest for both parties, a briefcase seemingly worth a substantial amount of money. The status quo is tipped further into the hands of the mafias as they comandeer the armoured truck containing Tate’s arsenal, marooning the team upstairs, without arms and only a heavy steel door between them. Tate’s brains and brawn are not to be underestimated, as he quickly picks off a henchman with his bare hands to aquire a pistol. From this small platform the team tries to take control of the situation, but not without a few hiccups along the way.

Cultraro does well to hold the film together with a very funny script and plenty of gritty gore, not gratuitous – just real. Both Michael Shanks (Stargate) and  Adrian Holmes (American TV Show regular) turn in believable and gutsy performances as as the leaders of the Russians and Italians respectively. The rest of the cast however seem to fade behind these two, even Austins Tate cannot live up to the upstagement regardless of being the man to root for.

35mm grain footage, ‘Star Wars’ style transitional effects between scenes and a mix of Hip-Hop and Electro soundtracks all seem justified in trying to make this movie stand out as the new Lock Stock/Snatch, unfortunately their is just something missing, something not right. It sounds fantastic on paper, and probably looked even better on the story boards but the ending result is a lackluster shooter.

The redeeming qualities are that the script is hilarious in parts and tense in others. Cultraro doesn’t shy away form gore and has the taste to not have it smeared all over your face.

Watch this if you liked ‘Green Zone’ or you just like Steve Austin, he typical type cast on form and inlike a few aspects of the film, does not dissapoint.