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Dark Asset Review
Image Credit: Across The Board Entertainment
Loading...Dark Asset Review
Byron Mann– John
Robert Patrick– Dr. Cain
Helena Mattson– Jane
Shani Rigsbee– Agent Wilds
Sabina Gadecki– Vivian
Erica Munoz– Marena
Marc Winnick– Alex
Paul Savage– Senator Benson
Darlenis Duran– Bindi
(check out the rest of the cast here)
Directed by Michael Winnick
Screenplay by Michael Winnick, based on a story by Michael Winnick and Terri Farley-Teruel
Distributed by Saban Films
Rated R for violence
Runtime– 90 minutes
Dark Asset is available On Demand and in select movie theaters starting September 22nd, 2023
Dark Asset, directed by Michael Winnick and available On Demand and in select movie theaters starting September 22nd, 2023, is a twisty and terrific sci-fi action mystery movie that goes in truly unexpected directions. When the movie begins you think you’re getting a “standard” sci-fi action movie (and I would have been totally okay with that), but then it starts doing things you don’t expect it to. And those unexpected things are amazing. Dark Asset is nothing short of awesome, and it’s something that you should absolutely make an effort to see.
Dark Asset stars Byron Mann as John, an ex-Special Forces operator who is recruited by Dr. Cain (Robert Patrick) to participate in a test of a new technology that will essentially make the user the ultimate weapon. After implanting a sort of super microchip into the subject’s brain, the new technology is supposed to enhance the subject’s fighting abilities. As Dr. Cain explains, the technology isn’t meant to be used to control someone but, through what amounts to suggestion, can point them in the right direction when under duress/on a mission. When the movie begins we see John showing off his abilities for Wilds (Shani Rigsbee), a CIA agent sent to evaluate Dr. Cain’s new technology. Agent Wilds doesn’t like what she sees and tells Dr. Cain to shut down the project, which includes eliminating John. Dr. Cain doesn’t want to do this, but he eventually agrees to do as Agent Wilds requests. Before anything can happen, though, John decides to attack multiple workers and guards in the facility. After beating up and killing God knows how many guards and whatnot, John manages to escape Dr. Cain’s lab and immediately goes on the run.
What the heck happened? Agent Wilds tries to find out, but Dr. Cain doesn’t have much in the way of answers as to why John escaped. Is it proof that the brain implant is defective in some way? Dr. Cain insists that there’s nothing wrong with the technology; the technology is essentially perfect. John, though, the test subject, wasn’t perfect, and John is the real problem. Dr. Cain then confers with his top scientists Vivian (Sabina Gadecki) and Alex (Marc Winnick) and tries to come up with a plan to find John and eliminate him.
We then meet Jane (Helena Mattsson), a businesswoman who is in town for some sort of business meeting. While waiting for a woman that she’s supposed to meet in the hotel bar, Jane is visited by John, who presents himself as a sort of suave mystery man who wants to pick her up. Jane tells John that she’s flattered but not interested in him, but he insists on her giving him a chance to sort plead his case. Jane eventually relents after John offers to give her his sports car (a Lamborghini of some sort). So then John starts telling Jane all about who he is, about the super technology that’s implanted in his brain, and that he’s in danger of being killed. And as John tells this story we see, via flashback, what Dr. Cain’s new technology is really all about, how many people it’s destroyed since he started researching it, and how Dr. Cain needs to be stopped.
So Jane listens to John and admits to him that she doesn’t believe a word that he’s saying but she continues to listen anyway. Jane doesn’t have anything else to do, and, hey, she might get a new sports car out of it (she’s seen the keys John claims are to a Lamborghini but she hasn’t seen the actual car). However, as John continues on, Jane finds out that John isn’t lying, this new technology is very real, and she, too, is in danger.
I was not prepared for Dark Asset. As I said earlier, when the movie begins I thought the movie was going to be a straight up sci-fi action movie, a sort of chase movie where we see Dr. Cain’s minions going after Mann’s John as he tries to stay one step ahead of them. And while I would have likely loved that movie (I really think we need more of that kind of movie), the movie Dark Asset ended up being is something very different. Yes, Dark Asset has plenty of action moments in it (Mann is a real deal martial artist), but it also has an equal amount of mystery and misdirection in it. Because, really, can Jane and the audience trust anything John says? We know that no one can trust Dr. Cain, but does that necessarily mean we can trust John? What if John is just as bad as Dr. Cain? Why the heck did John decide to just start talking to Jane in the hotel bar when he isn’t really there to just pick her up? Sure, there’s plenty of sexual tension and chemistry and whatnot between them, but that isn’t what’s really going on. Something else is happening. But what is happening? And how does Jane figure into it? Just who the heck is Jane? I think you will be surprised by what’s really going on. I know I was.
The action director Michael Winnick and stunt coordinator Nick Hermz put on screen is nothing short of phenomenal. The fight scenes (the movie has two listed fight choreographers, Daniel Locicero and Ayhan Tongadur) are fast paced and brutal, and the gun battles are fairly exciting. Some of the digital effects used to enhance the gun battles could be better rendered but they don’t kill any of the fight or action sequences. You’re more likely to pay attention to and marvel at the martial arts prowess of star Byron Mann. Mann is very much the real deal.
As for Mann’s overall performance, he’s terrific as John. Mann’s has John as a down on his luck former Special Forces operator with a severe alcohol problem to a man determined to do whatever it takes to survive to a suave a sophisticated man of the world. There are moments where he’s talking with Helena Mattsson’s Jane in the hotel bar that you’d swear to God Mann is playing James Bond. As you will see in Dark Asset, it’s obvious that Mann should have a much higher profile in the action movie world, at least in the United States, and should be an even bigger deal than he is. The world needs more Byron Mann as a badass ex-Special Forces operator or whatever. He’s just too cool to not be a bigger deal.
Helena Mattsson does a great job as Jane, the woman John tries to pick up in the hotel bar and who is more integral to the plot than she realizes. It’s fun watching her figure out what the heck is really going on (and the audience is along for the ride with her because we’re figuring it out at the same time as she is). Mattsson is insanely charismatic and funny throughout, not to mention just drop dead gorgeous, but she also makes Jane smart and more than capable of handling herself. And it helps, too, that Mattsson is apparently a real deal martial artist of some sort (it’s always best when a real deal martial artist gets to fight someone who is also a real deal martial artist).
Robert Patrick does his usual fine job as Dr. Cain. At first you think Patrick might be in only a few scenes, maybe at the beginning and the end and that will be it. But Patrick’s Dr. Cain appears throughout the movie, and the man is just absolutely despicable. Dr. Cain tries to make you believe that his new technology is all about helping operators in the field and to advance mankind in some way, but it’s obvious that it’s all just a big money making scheme. Dr. Cain wants power, too, but gobs and gobs of money are his first priority. And like all criminal scumbags, Dr. Cain will do whatever it takes to get what he wants. Whatever it takes. I love how Patrick goes from mundane/serious guy to world’s worst person at the drop of a hat. Great stuff.
Shani Rigsbee does a nice job as Agent Wilds of the CIA. Rigsbee gives Wilds an air of what appears to be a sort of low key malevolence. She’s from the CIA, she’s checking out some sort of secret program to make better spies/soldiers, you know that can’t be good. And yet Wilds isn’t the movie’s villain. Wilds is something else; not quite a guardian of the truth but damn close to it. She might actually be able to help people, especially John, not to mention the other people who have been implanted with Dr. Cain’s new technology (and there are a few). Rigsbee also provides a song on the movie’s soundtrack that plays prominently over the closing credits. The song, which I believe is called “Upside,” is pretty good (and pretty catchy).
And Sabina Gadecki and Marc Winnick both do good jobs as Dr. Cain’s fellow scientists Vivian and Alex. You don’t expect either to be all that important to what Dr. Cain is doing. You think they’re probably just “people in the room” with Dr. Cain and the test subjects and that they can be replaced without much effort. But Vivian does more than just participate in John’s testing, and Alex is a sneaky little bastard. Both Gadecki and Winnick make you despise them, and I think you will approve of what happens to them. I know I approve.
I also want to commend the movie’s “glowing eye” special effects. I know that “glowing eyes” are a dime a dozen in genre movies, both horror and sci-fi, and that the “glowing eye” effects we see in Dark Asset are not groundbreaking or anything that we haven’t seen a million times before, but the effects do add a coolness to the new technology proceedings. You don’t expect it. The movie didn’t have to do it. Dark Asset did it, though, and it’s an awesome look. That kind of thing is always cool.
Dark Asset is a movie that you absolutely need to see. It’s a top notch sci-fi action movie experience. It isn’t what I expected to see. A true blue modern classic. Make Dark Asset a part of your life as soon as you can.
See Dark Asset. See it, see it, see it! Dark Asset is available On Demand and in select theaters starting September 22nd, 2023.
So what do we have here?
Dead bodies: Over 30.
Explosions: A few.
Nudity?: Not as such.
Doobage: A great opening titles sequence, talk of expanding human abilities and whatnot, a card trick, a glowing left eye, unexpected gun grabbing, an impromptu gunfight and brawl, some serious martial arts hooey, man kicked through a glass window, tablet breaking with an apple, Uzi hooey, multiple “one man versus multiple guards” fights, night stick hooey, computer code hooey, escaping, London, a special flash drive, sports car driving, a hotel bar attempted pick up, talking about a microchip, multiple flashback stories, throat slitting, a woman is shot dead in an empty swimming pool, Native American hooey, tape bondage, chair bondage, more throat slitting, perpetual amusement, backstory, serious eye gouging, arm breaking, neck breaking, off screen knife to the chest, a foot chase through a vineyard, knife to the back, shoe breaking, attempted sex, knife to the side of the neck, more neck breaking, a shaking hand, bathroom hooey, Taser hooey, deactivation hooey, a bar attack, a shocking one-on-one brawl, bullet to the head, and a final twist.
Kim Richards? None.
Gratuitous: Robert Patrick, Robert Patrick wearing a white lab coat, a Newton’s cradle, an apple, Byron Mann, serious martial arts, computer code hooey, London, talk of an expense account, talk of George Bernard Shaw, a nude woman statue, throat slitting, “Being sober has a habit of making you think more clearly,” a broken shoe, the U.S. Department of Security, a QR code that activates an assassin, a shocking one-on-one brawl, and a final twist.
Best lines: “Let us begin,” “Why a Newton’s cradle? It focusses the mind,” “It’s a wolf,” “Turn off the chip! I’m trying!,” “Kill him now!,” “You didn’t draw your weapon. It’s why I’m still alive. Unlike him,” “The chip didn’t malfunction, the subject malfunctioned,” “He’s trying to get a message out,” “I thought meeting in dark, scary alleys in foreign countries was my thing,” “What good is an expense account if I don’t use it?,” “If I give you my Lamborghini can I tell you a story until she gets here? You have a Lamborghini?,” “Welcome to the program,” “And then there was light,” “Oooh, score one for the ladies,” “There is no good luck, only good planning,” “Can I buy you a drink? I apparently no longer drink,” “You lost a shoe,” “You lost a shoe. I’m about to lose a whole lot more. Yes you are,” “Oh, really? So now I’m an assassin, too?,” “Does this mean you’re not taking me back to your place?,” “He can give me a Lamborghini but he can’t pay the bill,” “You came back. Maybe I have a shot with you yet. Not a chance,” “Did you really think you were about to get lucky with me?,” “Good night, John. Good luck, Jane,” and “Let us begin again.”
