Pentathlon

source: Pentathlon

I found this movie a big disappointment. This is sad because it has good actors, good production values and a fine plot. But after awhile it just becomes another dull thriller that runs out of ideas. Dolph is the German gold medalist in the pentathlon who flees to America to get away from his mad Nazi coach (David Soul). Some years later, his coach comes after him and the action starts. David Soul is very good as the coach, and plays the part menacingly and convincingly. Dolph is very good in his role too, and gives one of his best performances ever. There are some good action scenes, but apart from that the whole thing begins to go downhill. This was a pity considering it was released after the excellent Army Of One, which I think is Dolph's best movie by far. Pentathlon is still a good flick, just not as good as I expected. It's still a great movie to watch to kill time. Overall I would recommend you get Army Of One instead though, it's much better.

The funniest thing about this movie is that the story may seem implausible actually happened in REAL life. Read the book "Tod dem Verraeter" (2000) by Heribert Schwan. It tells the TRUE story of olympic athlete, Lutz Eigendorf, who escapes East Germany and is tracked down allegedly by Stasi and murdered. This movie seems like a bad joke by comparison. The movie requires a LOT from Dolph Lundgren in terms of acting and poor Dolph is just TERRIBLE here. It's a truly cringe worthy experience . Lundgren tries extremely hard to make the part credible but he fails and gives one of worst performances in his career. David Soul who plays the villain is also INCREDIBLY ANNOYING. Overall , the acting in the whole movie is awful. "Pentathlon" is full of stupidities, full of logic and historical holes (Nazis don't have anything in common with Stasi ! ) , full of clichés and stereotypes (a completely unrealistic portrait of what life was like in East Germany ). Lack of action, a poor story and horrible dialogs. It doesn't work as a drama , even less as action movie. I admire Lundgren's ambition , but this movie simply sucks. The training sequences and the bantering with Roger E. Mosley as Creese was somewhat fun. However it can't save this movie. Better watch "Rocky". Director/writer Bruce Malmuth has made an good action movie before – "Nighthawks" with Sylvester Stallone and Rutger Hauer. Better watch that movie instead of this crap. I give it 1/10.

People may crack on Dolph but many don't have his education, physical prowess, or his comic timing. Too often action stars are labeled for poor acting skills. This is one of my favorite movies with two great performances. Dolph giving his all and being very believable as a has been athlete who seems to have lost his way. David Soul giving a Bond Villain worthy air to a crazed sociopath. It is a shame that neither get more high profile roles that showcases their excellence. That being said it is totally a movie of its time and does not age too well. Still a 90's classic that does not get mentioned as much as it should! I would recommend this to action, sport, and drama fans.

The stage curtains open ... Oh, for the love of everything decent, that was awful. That is one of the worst movies I've ever seen or wasted my time on. It is a jumbled mess from the very beginning to the lackluster ending. Watching the previews made it seem like it was going to be a good movie based on an original idea. Unfortunately, the idea was better than the movie was. The story begins with a young german boy in training, Eric Brogar, being humiliated by his coach in front of all the other boys and their parents because he fell down right before the finish line in a race. The coach, Heinrich Mueller (David Soul), calls him a failure ... kicking the boy while he's down. Years later, Eric is grown and a part of the German Olympic Team with Mueller as the team coach and this time, he wins all the events and receives the gold medal. But, he decides to defect and leave Germany, and despite being shot in the leg, he escapes and makes it to the United States. Soon after, his father is killed, the Berlin Wall comes down, he loses his girlfriend, and he becomes bitter with his new life. And then he finds friendship with a burger joint owner. After he gets back on track and cleans his life up, his old coach shows up again. I've already said it, but this movie is such a mess. There is absolutely no rhyme or reason behind Mueller's actions, no real plot line to follow, the acting in the movie is atrocious, the action scenes almost seemed to be done in slow motion, and there are no characters worth cheering for ... not even Eric. It seemed that the actors didn't even really know what identity they were supposed to have from scene to scene. And the music ... wow, the soundtrack to this film did not fit. Nothing in this movie gels or makes any sense ... at all. This is a terrible movie. I highly recommend that you pass this one by if you haven't seen it yet. It is (so far) the absolute worst Dolph Lundgren movie I've ever seen. I can't stress that enough. Done, over with, moving on. Thank god.

Pentathlon is not an enjoyable experience, and despite the fact that I dig Dolph as an action hero, I was bored silly during this movie. It's clearly inspired by Rocky, only Rocky didn't have a lack of action, a poor story and horrible dialog to sit through. One of the worst things about this movie is David Soul's performance as the villain. He is WAY too over the top and laughably campy, he ruined much of the experience for me and he didn't mesh well with Dolph at all. As I said I'm a Dolph fan, he's far from a great actor but his charisma and presence is awesome to say the least, so when I found this for 2 dollars at a VHS blowout sale I decided to pick it up. Dolph's rigorous training scenes are impressive and the bantering with Roger E. Mosley as Creese was somewhat fun, but the action is clearly lacking. I'm a film buff, but I enjoy B-movies and low-budget movies as well, I'm very open-minded, but Pentathlon has nothing out of the ordinary and to be honest it was a waste of 2 bucks. Performances. Dolph Lundgren tries really hard, but his accent works against him and some of his dialog is absolutely awful. He has charisma to spare but that can only take him so far. David Soul is laughable as the villain. On more than one occasion I wanted him off my screen for tarnishing the quality, he obviously knows he is in a below average movie and disgustingly tries to camp it up. He's better than this, much better, watch Magnum Force to see what I mean. Roger E. Mosley is fun as Creese, but did test my patience with his act sometimes. Renée Coleman is pretty wooden as the love interest. Bottom line. Definitely one of Dolph's lesser works and not even enjoyable for B-movie value. It's boring and will annoy you to no end. Avoid it. 2 1/2 /10

As someone who's seen almost 30 of Dolph's movies I have to say this is one of the standouts from his filmography. Most of the movies he makes are quite entertaining and simple, mostly existing for Dolph to kill a bunch of guys and save the day. This one is quite different as it's probably the most ridiculous movie he's ever made. It's even more ridiculous than Bridge of Dragons which exists in some weird alternate fantasy universe where all the countries in the world have merged. In Pentathlon Dolph is an Olympic athlete who competes for East Germany and after certain circumstances force his hand, he flees to America. However, despite him trying to get away from everything and start a new life his communist coach has other ideas in mind and tracks Dolph with the intent of killing him! If that doesn't sound amazing then you should skip this movie. But if it does sound great you should give it a watch as the movie gets even better later on, especially in the last act which is absolutely incredible in its absurdity.

Being a big Dolph Lundgren fan, I was surprised to see a completely different side of him in this one, portraying him as being a pathetic, injured burnout who flips burgers for a living, while walking down dark alleys with no company beside his portable TV and his beer. When he is menaced by a group of hoodlums, they laugh at him when his trick knee gives out and he can't chase them. This struck me as being very odd, because it was Dolph acting like a regular guy, rather than the sarcastic killing machines he's typecast as. Sadly, as enjoyable as all of the footage of him being a loser (and his inspiring comeback into grade-A Pentathalon runner material), it sort of abruptly switches gears, turning into one of his usual action movies with a nonsense subplot involving neo-Nazis. It's a shame that the whole thing couldn't have been like the first two acts, or this would be by far his best performance, in a close tie with GR13 from Universal Soldier.

Another shot of Dolphine straight to the system. Pentathalalogram is a movie about swimming, surprisingly, and there are no bullets. However, there are: swimming pools, water, treading water, the butterfly and the backstroke and bathing suits and diving boards but nobody dives. Dolph here plays Dolph who plays a swimmer who gets chased by his former coach because he is just so awesome and swimmy that his coach falls in love with him in a nice way and stuff. Unfortunately, Dolph does not explode any aliens in this one or decapitate any children but hey, you gotta take the wheat with the chaff and this is pretty chaffy. Pentagram/Rhombus

How damned stupid could people be, to constitute Germans like in this movie. The Nazis and all Neonazis (not just in Germany) have nothing in common with the Stasi and the DDR. Its kind of an opposite! Do not watch this movie, it just crap and it tells you just crap. Maby Dolph Lundgren is the best thing in this movie and that means a lot! The story is so thin, you can watch trough it after the five minutes. The whole movie is pure waste of time. It's not even funny, like b-movies. Excepting the Nazi terrorists that come up with a rocket to shoot the German ambassador. By the way, David Drummond has the role of the German guy Hundt. Correctly it's spelled Hund and means dog.