Both Close Range (2015) and Savage Dog (2017) star Scott Adkins, a British actor with a talent for boxing and martial arts. Scott Adkins demonstrates his masterful boxing and martial arts moves with strong punches and fluid kicks. Using any weapon available, including his own body, he takes down countless bad guys in both films. Excellent choreography for the close-up fight scenes makes the action appear real. While both films contain violence, Savage Dog is the bloodier and more graphic of the two films.
The setting for Savage Dog is Indochina in 1959, just after the French leave and before the Americans arrive. To escape justice, many individuals are hiding out here and include former Nazis, war criminals, and other expatriates. Martin Tillman, a former Irish boxer and wanted by the British for his association with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombings, is in prison for assaulting an officer. Together with his thugs and other men, Commandant Hans Steiner, former Nazi SS Colonel, occupies the command post and villa where Tillman is detained.
For money and sport, Steiner holds fights and decides to parole Tillman to offer him a job fighting. At first, Tillman refuses and goes to work in a nearby bar under Valentine, an American expatriate. Valentine is the narrator of Tillman’s story. Then, Tillman accepts Steiner’s offer and begins winning all his fights. When Steiner sees no one is betting against Tillman, he commands Tillman to lose. Valentine loses a lot of money on the bet and is very upset.
When Steiner’s men come to the bar, they shoot Steiner, his adopted daughter Isabelle, and Martin. While Steiner is dead, Martin and Isabelle are not mortally wounded and escape. Martin vows revenge and the remainder of the film involves Martin returning to the compound and killing Steiner and everyone else, except Steiner’s thug Jan Pierre Rastignac. Known as “the executioner” for his horrific use of a very large knife blade, Rastignac escapes and Martin pursues him. In the final fight scene, Martin and Rastignac fight to the death.
In Close Range, former soldier Colton Macready (Scott Adkins) rescues his niece Hailey from a Mexican cartel in Sonora Mexico, and then has to defend his sisters Angie and Hailey from the cartel after returning to Angie’s Arizona ranch. Angie’s husband, Walt Reynolds, was running drugs for the Mexican cartel in Nogales, but betrayed them; Hailey was kidnapped in retaliation for Walt’s mistake.
When Garcia realizes Colton has killed his nephew, rescued Hailey, and killed some of his other men, he takes ten of his thugs and drives to the Macready ranch to go after Colton and get revenge on Walt Reynolds. Using all of his fighting skills, wit, and unyielding determination, Colt defeats the cartel and the local sheriff—who is in league with the cartel. Full of action, both films deliver plenty of fight scenes and show off Scott Adkins’ remarkable martial arts, boxing, and all-around fighting talent. Strong Optional. Aud: P.