Scott Adkins is essentially the current king of direct-to-video/on-demand action entertainment. He has dozens of films in which he stars and he has quite a following in the action loving community. He’s had the occasional bit parts in big budget releases like EXPENDABLES 2 and DOCTOR STRANGE and admittedly that is what I know him from. It’s kind of an embarrassment that until now I had not seen any of his starring efforts. Well, forgive me guys. I’m trying to right that wrong. But I may have started with the wrong one because the bar is set pretty high now. If cutting a dude’s kidney out and taking a bite out of it isn’t a trademark of Adkins films I am going to be extremely disappointed.
SAVAGE DOG is set in 1959 Indochina, which is touted to be a wretched hive of scum and villainy. France has had their war in Vietnam and they left. America has yet to make that move, so the land is ripe for men of ill repute to make a profit off the war torn region. The local military is run by group of war criminals in exile. Their leader is a real scumbag named Steiner (Vladimir Kulich: THE 13TH WARRIOR) who takes joy in making the local prisoners tear each other apart.
Enter Martin Tillman. He’s been imprisoned here for years and he’s wanted by the British government for his involvement in some IRA bombings a while back. We can already tell Tillman is a bad dude. A force to be reckoned with, but not particularly a force for good or evil. He’s capable of doing some pretty shady things. He’s forced to fight for Steiner when we meet him and the fight is brutal. Savage, even. When he wins, he’s allowed to walk away but ultimately taken back into custody. His opponent isn’t so lucky.
That guy comes to meet his fate via Rastignac (Marco Zaror: REDEEMER, MACHETE KILLS) and he’s a sadistic creep who has a speech he is prepared to deliver before every fight. It’s an interesting quirk but this guy is no Inigo Montoya. He cuts the prisoner to shreds and this is where I have to point out this film’s ridiculous amount of gore. There’s so much blood from every cut and even punches draw copious amounts of blood! This one isn’t for the squeamish.
Martin meets Isabelle (Juju Chan: CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON 2) while she is on a routine visit to the camp. Turns out she is Steiner’s unwanted daughter, but she brings him flowers once a week in hopes of his acceptance. SPOILER: She doesn’t get it. Anyway, she pities Martin and believes him to be a good man. She takes it upon herself to visit him in prison often.
There’s an MI6 agent (Matthew Marsden: the sniper in RAMBO) that finally tracks Martin down to this encampment but Steiner doesn’t want the British in his affairs so he decides to set Martin free. Unsurprisingly he travels no further than the village where Isabelle in hopes of companionship. She will be with Martin under one condition: Martin must meet the approval of her guardian, the local bartender by the name of Valentine (Keith David: THE THING, THEY LIVE, PITCH BLACK) who also happens to be the narrator of the story. We of course know that he will come to love Martin like a son because he says that in the opening narration.
Valentine is a charming scoundrel and he offers Martin a job as a bouncer at the bar and things seem to be going pretty well. But eventually Steiner seeks out Martin and convinces him to voluntarily fight in tournaments at his encampment to draw in lots of money. Things go great, Martin makes them very successful but eventually it becomes more profitable to bet against him so Martin has to take a fall. He gladly does but we find out Valentine has bet everything on Martin winning this fight and, as I will come to say so often in these reviews, all hell breaks loose.
After a dispute, Valentine is killed (but continues to narrate) and Martin is shot and left for dead. Big mistake. I can’t say I was expecting the levels of revenge Martin was willing to take things to but I think it’s fairly safe to say he pushes it a little too far. I mean, Valentine was a great guy only because he was played by Keith David. When you think about it he was pretty dumb for betting everything on a random fight. I really think Valentine kind of overestimates himself when he claims his death “destroyed” Martin’s life. But, judging by Martin’s response, maybe not. Regardless, Martin is ready for complete vengeance and he blatantly massacres these guys.
Seriously, I haven’t seen this much practical blood on film in years. Heads explode on shotgun blast impact. Bodies dissolve upon grenade explosion. Blood flows like a river from every cut, scrape and bullet wound. It’s insane. Of course, Martin gets to fight all the main henchmen including Boon (Cung Le: FIGHTING) and it’s a proper fight until Martin decides guns make fights a little easier. I guess I can’t argue with that logic. There’s also the inevitable showdown with Rastignac and he repeats his pre-fight speech I mentioned earlier. It’s quite the spectacle.
Eventually this is almost more like a slasher film with Martin just stalking his prey one by one and the carnage is almost too much to bear. As I mentioned above, after the main fight he rips out a guy’s kidney and takes a bite out of it! And there is almost no set up for him being into that!!! I mean, in JOHN WICK, I’m all on board for the over-the-top vengeance after they kill his dog. Hey, I’m usually down for justice in any run-of-the-mill revenge film. But cutting a dude’s kidney out because they shot Keith David? Ok. I guess I was on board for it.
After the bloodbath winds down, the MI6 agent finally catches up with Martin. Instead of taking him in for his crimes he offers him a job because of how badly he decimated everyone. They walk off and it plays out like a really awkward version of a Marvel post-credits sequence. I hope we get a SAVAGE DOG 2: A MUCH MORE SAVAGE DOG real soon though.
SAVAGE DOG is the most fun I have had watching a movie in quite a while. I laughed loudly several times. This is what DTV action is supposed to be. Completely unbelievable and wholeheartedly entertaining. I can’t wait to catch another Adkins joint and hopefully we will get a sequel to this somewhere down the line. One can only hope.
NOTE: SAVAGE DOG is currently streaming on Netflix. View at your own risk.
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