He was born an original sinner, he was born from original sin…

Dolph Lundgren, the stalwart staple of B-Grade action films, returns to your small screen in Missionary Man, a low-budget film in which he not only plays the lead, but also (prepare to gasp) serves as writer and director (you may gasp now).

A large, aging Swedish-looking guy on a customized motorcycle named Ryder (Dolph… duh) drifts into a small, corrupted western town with a bible in one hand and an open can of Whoop Ass in the other. After ordering a shot of tequila and teaching some local yokels that it isn’t nice to beat up other people, he ventures off to the funeral of a fallen Native American friend shortly before the big, bad villain feller, John Reno (a name that obviously came to life when someone said Jean Reno’s name wrong) shows up.

Well, it turns out the heavy air of tension in town is due to Mr. Reno (Matthew Tompkins): it seems our villain runs a used car dealership (the epitome of evil) where he sells Mini Coopers for as low as $2,200 (damn, hook a brother up, yo!) and has the town under his despotic grip. When his attempts to persuade the Tribal Council into building a casino fail (an Indian Reservation without a casino? What’s the world coming to?), Reno starts more trouble with the few good folk left in the community and Ryder declares war.

Sound familiar? It should: this story has been done so many times that it’s become quite possibly the most oft-copied storyline in existence. In case you’re wondering if Dolph has brought anything new to story for this Modern-Western aside from some bad dialogue, I suggest you think about who we’re dealing with here: it’s Dolph Lundgren, kids… my answer is a big, hearty scoff! The music score is kind of nice, though… in a space out while folding the laundry kind of way.

The film loses what little steam it starts out with towards the end when Reno’s boss (John Enos III) heads into town to clean things up and realizes that Ryder is (perhaps literally) a ghost from his past. Their relationship with one another is never explained… leading one to wonder if this is a follow-up to another film. Actually, there are a lot of things that aren’t explained in this film, but as some philosopher somewhere surely must have once said: diving deep into shallow waters will only give you a headache.

Presentation
Missionary Man is brought to you in its original theatrical 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The movie was shot on Super 16mm and transferred to film for its theatrical and subsequent video release, which explains a lot of the grain (although the grainy look adds to the film and was probably intended to look that way). Most of the colors were probably muted in post-production to give it that whole western-y feel.

Sound-wise, you can choose from an English, Spanish, Portuguese or Thai 5.1 mix or a French Surround track. All of the audio options sounded good from what I could tell as I flipped through them, but I think the Thai sounded the best of all. There are also subtitles available in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, Chinese and Thai.

Extras
Two Deleted Scenes grace the DVD as Special Features: an Alternate Opening Sequence (4:26) which has very little sound and a segment that takes place After the Shootout (0:42). Neither scene really adds anything and it’s easy to see why they were cut out (they could have even not included them on the disc).

There are also a lot of trailers: the Sony-enforced Coming To Blu-Ray promo, Zombie Strippers, Dragon Wars, Resident Evil: Extinction (another lousy film in the franchise that shamelessly and admittedly rips off several good zombie and Post-Apocalyptic films!), Boogeyman 2, Gabriel, Black Water, Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales, Guy Ritchie’s Revolver, The Russian Specialist (another Dolph Lundgren masterpiece originally titled The Mechanik), Bobby Z (would someone please tell me who keeps giving Paul Walker another chance?), the direct-to-video Wesley Snipes flick The Contractor (Wesley has officially hit the bottom, folks), Damages - The Complete First Season (from the makers of Rescue Me and The Shield comes another television series I will never watch), the two-brothers-on-opposite-sides-of-the-law yarn We Own The Night (wasn‘t that a Pat Benatar song?), a combo trailer for the DVD releases of Revenge: Director’s Cut and Donnie Brasco: Extended Cut, Taxi Driver: Limited Edition Collector’s Edition, the ever pointless Hot Action Movies montage, the oh-so-awful Love Lies Bleeding, and Anthony Hopkins’ Slipstream.

The Bottom Line
Look on the bright side: at least is doesn’t star Jean Claude Van Damme!