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Diablo Review
Image Credit: Lionsgate
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Scott Adkins– Kris Chaney
Marko Zaror– El Corvo
Lucho Velasco– Vicente
Alanna De La Rossa– Elisa
(check out the rest of the cast here)
Directed by Ernesto Diaz Espinoza
Screenplay by Mat Sansom, based on a story by Mat Sansom, Scott Adkins, Marko Zaror, and Ernesto Diaz Espinoza
Distributed by Lionsgate and Grindstone Entertainment Group
Rated R for bloody violence, language, and brief drug use
Runtime– 100 minutes
Diablo will be available on all major digital and cable On Demand platforms and in select movie theaters starting June 13th, 2025
Diablo, directed by the great Ernesto Diaz Espinosa and set to hit all major digital and cable On Demand platforms and select movie theaters starting June 13th, 2025, is an absolutely amazing new badass action flick featuring two of the best real deal action stars working in movies today. Chock full of terrific performances and brutal hand-to-hand martial arts brawls, Diablo is an action flick that fans of Scott Adkins and Marko Zaror will want to experience as soon as they can. It’s a definite must-see action extravaganza and easily one of the best action flicks, one of the best movies, of 2025.
Diablo stars Scott Adkins as Kris Cheney, an ex-con who pays to be smuggled into Colombia in order to fulfil a promise he made to someone special before he went to prison. As soon as Cheney enters Colombia, though, he is immediately attacked by the people he paid to smuggle him into the country. Despite the immediate danger, Cheney takes out his attackers fairly quickly and steals the smugglers’ truck and heads on down the road. Where the heck is Cheney going? What sort of promise is he planning to make good on?
The scene then shifts to a fancy house where a local crime boss named Vicente (Lucho Velasco) is hoping that his teen daughter Elisa (Alanna De La Rossa) will go with him to some sort of big hooha meeting. Elisa doesn’t want to go, but she eventually agrees to attend because she loves her father. We then see Elisa in a car being taken somewhere by two of her father’s men. The car is accosted by what appears to be a homeless man hoping to get paid for washing the windshield of the car, but the homeless man is actually Cheney. A huge scuffle ensues, Cheney takes out the two men and then takes Elisa and puts her in the trunk of a car.
Why the heck did Cheney do that? Why did he put a teen girl in the trunk of a car? Cheney smuggled himself into Colombia to kidnap a teen girl?
Yes. Sort of. It’s kind of complicated.
So then some stuff happens, Vicente finds out about his daughter’s abduction and beats her drivers to death with a baseball bat, and Vicente demands that Elisa be brought back to him. One of Vicente’s top henchmen (I want to say this is Nick, as played by Jason Gurvitz, but I could be wrong. I hope I’m not, but I could be) then makes a call to the diabolical El Corvo (Marko Zaror), a hitman that we saw in an earlier scene kill two women and eat chocolate cake in the creepiest way possible. Nick tasks El Corvo with finding Elisa, a job that El Corvo quickly accepts.
So then some more stuff happens, Cheney takes Elisa out to the woods to talk to her and tell her what his deal is. Elisa, as you would expect, is terrified of Cheney and fights him off as best she can. Elisa has no idea who this guy is or what he wants to do with her. Why the hell would he take her out to the woods? Cheney explains that he knew Elisa’s mother before she died, and that he promised Elisa’s mother that he would take her out of Colombia. Elisa doesn’t believe Cheney’s story at all, but she eventually agrees to go along with him, at least out of the woods. Maybe she will be able to get away from him somehow?
It doesn’t take long for Elisa to try to escape. After giving Elisa a gun as a sort of peace offering (she will maybe feel safer holding onto the gun as they drive away), Elisa discharges a round near Cheney’s head, which sends Cheney into a frenzy (which is understandable. Who the heck wants a gun fired around them like that?). Elisa runs away and tries to get help from four young men that happen to be nearby. Cheney eliminates the young men, recaptures Elisa, and then lets the cat out of the bag as to why keeping a promise to Elisa’s mother was so important to him. Cheney is Elisa’s father. Her real father.
Her real father? How could that be? If that’s true, who the hell is Vicente?
So then some more stuff happens, Cheney and Elisa start to seemingly connect on some level while eating at a local restaurant, and Cheney might be able to get Elisa out of Colombia before Vicente sends his goons after them. Before that can happen, though, Cheney is once again attacked by a group of men, causing massive mayhem in the process. In the ensuing chaos, Elisa is taken by a guy that looks like a pimp while Cheney dispatches the various attackers.
It’s at this point that we find out that Elisa has been taken by a low level criminal that either knows Vicente or somehow works for Vicente in some capacity, and that this other crime boss intends to hand Elisa over. The crime boss actually allows Elisa to call Vicente and tell him that she’s alive and okay. Elisa is bothered by what Cheney told her about her mother, though. Is Cheney actually her real father? What really happened to her mother? Just what the heck is going on?
And that’s when El Corvo appears and starts killing everyone in his general vicinity. After killing what could be twenty-five people (maybe more), Cheney arrives and fights El Corvo. Their martial arts battle, the first of several in the movie, is nasty and brutal, with Cheney doing everything he can to stay away from El Corvo’s wicked metal hand. The fight ends when Elisa gets into a car and hits El Corvo. Cheney and Elisa then agree to stay together and work together to get away from El Corvo. Even if Cheney is lying about being her real father, Elisa figures that she stands a better chance of survival with Cheney’s help since El Corvo is scary and mean and might be unstoppable (what the heck is the deal with the metal hand? Is he a robot?).
The rest of the movie is a big chase, with Cheney and Elisa trying to stay one step ahead of the relentlessly pursuing El Corvo. And while that is happening, Vicente is trying to make sense of how the hell El Corvo got involved in this situation. Vicente didn’t hire El Corvo to do anything, so who the hell did?
The way Diablo resolves its story is nothing short of fantastic. Director Ernesto Diaz Espinoza keeps up a ruthless pace once the plot gets going, with stars Adkins and Zaror showing the audience they are at the top of the cinematic fight game. Espinoza also allows Adkins and Del La Rossa to have their little father-daughter moments amongst the carnage, which helps solidify their relationship. And Zaror is allowed to have his little moments to creep the audience the fuck out as El Corvo is one of the most terrifying action movie villains of the 21st century. If Espinoza or any other director wanted to make a horror movie featuring El Corvo it would totally work as El Corvo is just that scary. Just amazing stuff.
The movie’s fight choreography, designed by Zaror, is fast paced and often quite brutal. Both Adkins and Zaror, again, get to show the audience their considerable martial arts skills, and every fight sequence looks like it hurts. That’s exactly what you want with a movie like Diablo. The movie also has a few gun battles, which are considerably fewer than the martial arts brawls but are just as nasty. The brothel sequence, where Zaror’s El Corvo kills upwards of twenty-five henchpeople, is a sequence action movie fans will be talking about for years (I can also say confidently that the sequence will live on on YouTube to be studied and enjoyed. It really is that iconic).
I also want to commend the Diablo soundtrack, put together by the composer known as Rocco. The soundtrack is perfect, enhancing the movie’s action, excitement, and brutality. The theme that plays over the end titles also resembles/pays homage to the end title theme to the classic Chuck Norris action slasher flick from 1982, Silent Rage. If that music isn’t a direct homage to the theme created by Peter Bernstein and Mark Goldenberg, it’s one of the greatest coincidences in movie history. I think it is an homage of some sort, though, especially when you consider how the movie ends. I won’t spoil it for you, but if you know how Silent Rage ends, you’ll understand what I’m talking about.
Scott Adkins is at the top of his game as Kris Cheney, a man trying to keep a promise against massive odds. You’re not exactly sure how to take Cheney when you first meet him, as you have no idea what the heck his deal is. You know he’s the movie’s hero, especially after seeing Zaror’s El Corvo in a diner eating chocolate cake and freaking out a waitress for no reason beyond being a creep, but what kind of hero is Cheney? It’s weird that he’s in a foreign country (foreign for him, as Cheney is an American) and he plans on kidnapping a teen girl, but, as I said earlier, it’s more complicated than that. It turns out that, even with his rough edges from life in general and his time in prison, Cheney is a good guy and Elisa can trust him. Adkins does a phenomenal job with his “American accent,” something he’s clearly been working on (it almost seems natural for him to speak with an American accent, which isn’t always the case for the born British actor and martial artist). Adkins also shows, in his father-daughter interactions with Alanna De La Rossa, that he can act when he has to, and he’s pretty good at it. And Adkins’ considerable martial arts skills are on full display, and he’s clearly one of the best working today. Just a sensational performance.
Marko Zaror is nothing short of phenomenal as El Corvo. Everything that Zaror does as the hitman character will make your skin crawl. From the bald head to the serial killer glasses to the metal hand that reveals a blade when he detaches it from his wrist, El Corvo is a real deal nightmare come to life. And when El Corvo starts kicking the crap out of people with his deadly martial arts skills, you start to wonder if El Corvo is a cyborg from the future, a terminator that would scare other terminators. There isn’t one moment where you, as the audience, aren’t creeped the fuck out by El Corvo and scared to death of him. I don’t think I’m wrong in saying that El Corvo is a career performance for Zaror, and I wouldn’t be surprised if El Corvo ends up being one of the roles that Zaror ends up being known for in his career, maybe even the one. You will remember El Corvo and be scared of him for the rest of your life. You will also be thankful that El Corvo is just a movie character and that movies aren’t real life. Just an absolutely extraordinary performance.
Alanna De La Rossa does a great job as Elisa, the carefree teen girl that has her fun and comfortable life upended when a strange American kidnaps her and then tells her that he’s her real father. Elisa is smart and resourceful and manages to keep her cool, relatively speaking, despite the crazy situation she finds herself in. You feel bad for her because it’s quite possible that her whole life up until the moment Cheney “reveals the truth” to her has been a lie, and that has to be difficult to deal with. De La Rossa works well with Adkins and keeps up with the action moments that she has to participate in. De La Rossa is also funny in a spunky sort of way, which is always entertaining.
And Lucho Velasco does a wonderful job as the crime boss Vicente. While it’s true that we’ve all seen a mob boss character like Vicente countless times in movies and TV shows over the years, Velasco has the kind of general screen presence and charisma that helps him stand out from all of the rest. Vicente can move with great ease from being a doting father and smiling businessman to ruthless killer within milliseconds, but for some reason you’re not totally put off by that reality. You don’t necessarily like Vicente, but you also can’t outright hate him. You kind of feel bad for him because his daughter has been kidnapped and he wants her back. You might want to cuss him out for being a criminal scumbag and murderer and tell him it was only a matter of time before something bad happened to his daughter, but you’ll do it after he gets Elisa back. And even when you find out what the real deal truth is, you still can’t outright hate Vicente. That’s hard to do when it comes to action movie mob boss types.
Diablo is one of the best new movies I’ve seen in 2025. It’s a full on must see for Scott Adkins fans, Marko Zaror fans, action movie nerds, and adventurous cinema watchers looking for something that will defy their expectations. Diablo is a movie that must be seen and experienced. Diablo is a modern masterpiece. I loved every second of it. Please see it as soon as you can. It is an absolute must see.
See Diablo. See it, see it, see it! Diablo will be available on all major digital and cable On Demand platforms and in select movie theaters starting June 13th, 2025.
So what do we have here?
Dead bodies: At least 35
Explosions: None.
Nudity?: None.
Doobage: An I.D. checkpoint. Human smuggling. Attempted robbery. Machete attack. A full on beat down. Truck stealing. A back full of scars. Multiple prosthetic limbs. A cemetery. Old photos. Diner hooey. A metal hand. A hidden blade. Off screen police killing. A windshield washing scheme. Another full on beat down. Kidnapping. Baseball bat to the back. A two-man baseball bat attack. The woods. A gun used as a peace offering of sorts. An accidental shooting. Gas station hooey. Yet another full on beat down. Attempted use of a payphone. Local restaurant hooey. Food eating. Life story telling. Another kidnapping. A restaurant brawl. Yellow fire extinguisher to the face. A full on brothel massacre. A vicious bullet to the back of the head. Table breaking in slow motion. Gun throwing to the face. A serious knife attack. Shotgun attack. Broken bottle smashed to the side of the neck. A vicious punch to the face. Machine gun attack. Mega throat slashing. Sudden vehicular assault. A change of clothes. Face biting. More car stealing. A special necklace. A loaded gun. Attempted metal pipe attack. Apple eating. A shootout. Zip ties hooey. A massive beating. A wicked punch to the face. A serious head butt. A bullet to the back of the head. An abandoned factory. Off screen throat slashing. A crushing/shredding machine. A brutal final fight. Dirt to the face. Attempted arm breaking. Chest slashing. Serious gut stabbing. Hacksaw to the side of the neck. Apparent suicide.
Kim Richards? Attempted
Gratuitous: A sign that reads “Welcome to Colombia. Good Things Don’t Last Long.” Scott Adkins smuggling himself into Colombia. Scott Adkins doing an “American accent.” Marko Zaror playing a creepy as hell bald guy with a metal hand. People speaking Spanish and then English to establish that while they are, in the world they live in, still speaking Spanish, they are speaking English for the benefit of the audience. A funny “protective father of his daughter” phone call interception. Extreme close up of a fork on top of a piece of chocolate cake. Marko Zaror eating a piece of chocolate cake and then spitting it out. Scott Adkins arguing with a teen girl to shoot him. Scott Adkins trying to say Elisa. A vicious slow motion jumping side kick through a pane of glass. A yellow fire extinguisher. Marko Zaror killing at least 25 people in a brothel. Scott Adkins jumping through a window in slow motion. Marko Zaror stitching up his own nasty head wound. Dipshit misogynists. Public singing. Scott Adkins taking pills. Scott Adkins talking about diamonds. Marko Zaror jamming to music on the radio. Scott Adkins hanging from a tree via a noose and standing on a big tire. A vicious and elaborate final fight. The possibility of a sequel. Closing titles Silent Rage homage theme.
Best lines: “Have you tried this cake?” “Have you given yourself a gift this week? Alex?” “He put the knife inside of my mouth.” “Hey! Stop running!” “Your mother sent me to come get you.” “Jesus Christ! Do you believe me now?” “Jesus Christ! What the hell is wrong with you?” “Hey! I’m watching you.” “Back off right now or I’ll break his fucking arm! I’ll do it!” “Who are you to tell me what to do? I’m your father!” “What’s your name, anyway? Chris. Chris?” “I play nice, you play nice.” “How did you learn to fight like that? I used to get punched in the face for a living.” “Jesus Christ, you really do have my temper.” “Don’t fuck it up this time, bitch!” “Go fuck yourself, Franken-freak!” “That was your Mom’s favorite song. Yeah.” “I have a good life. I had a good life. Without you in it.” “I don’t like apples. Have you tried this apple?” “Fuck you, psycho!” “Do you consider yourself a sharpshooter?” “You killed her, you sonofabitch!” “Diamonds! The diamonds!” “Did you keep your promise to her? It was worth it.”
