‘The Retaliators’ Review
Stars: Michael Lombardi, Marc Menchaca, Joseph Gatt, Jacoby Shaddix, Katie Kelly, Abbey Hafer, Ivan Moody, Zoltan Bathory, Chris Kael, Andy James, Jason Hook, Amanda Lyberg, Rachael Hilbert | Written by Darren Geare, Jeff Allen Geare | Directed by Michael Lombardi, Samuel Gonzalez Jr., Bridget Smith
An upstanding pastor uncovers a dark and twisted underworld as he searches for answers surrounding his daughter’s brutal murder. A high-octane original soundtrack and cameos from some of the biggest names in rock music set the tone as this horror-thriller reveals a game of revenge played using a new set of rules.
All of the promotion I have seen for The Retaliators has been centred on some of the cast being members of rock and metal bands. Many of whom feature on the soundtrack too. I guess promoting it like this will get a certain amount of eyes on the movie from fans of these bands but there will be otherwise who might think the quality of the movie might not be up to much when there are many non-actors in the cast.
I looked down the list of these names – band members from Papa Roach (Jacoby Shaddix), Ice Nine Kills (Spencer Charnas), Motley Crue (Tommy Lee) and all of Five Finger Death Punch, Escape the Fate and many others – and saw it mostly as a list of bands I kind of knew, didn’t like or hadn’t heard of at all. I am glad to say though, that none of these names actually have a major role in the movie.
The director makes the right choice to place the lead roles with more experienced actors. Michael Lombardi (best known for his role in the show Rescue Me and here he also co-directs) plays the lead role as a vicar who has his faith tested on more than one occasion. For a guy to seem effortlessly charismatic, as a leader of the church often is and also become a tough guy when faced with some pretty awful things, takes a strong performance. Maybe my favourite thing from the performance is, for the last twenty minutes or so, there are definite Bruce Campbell as Ash vibes.
Speaking of Evil Dead, The Retaliators, while not non-stop violence, really brings the blood and gore in its most aggressive moments. Maybe there’s a little too much CGI here but there are practical effects too and when it really gets going it’s a serious amount of fun for people who love their gore. The action and fight scenes are extremely well choreographed and shot. It helps that some of these big scenes feature Joseph Gatt (Game of Thrones, Z Nation), who is physically huge and partly due to his size, is one scary guy. He and Lombardi show great chemistry when beating each other up! Finally, in another of the lead roles, Marc Menchaca (Homeland, Ozark) plays a cop, a character who ends up being a lot darker than it first seems. Again, he effortlessly switches from the nice family guy to the ‘guy who could kill you in one shot’. The names I have mentioned above from the bands are mainly kept as silent or small roles and cameos. Although Shaddix does play a fairly important role as a serial killer, his performance ranges from decent enough to a bit too over-the-top and ridiculous.
When it’s at its best The Retaliators is a rip-roaring, action-packed and gory splatterfest. But that is only for about thirty minutes of its runtime. For the rest it’s a kind of mystery crime thriller where you already know the killer. While this isn’t a bad thing, and I did not see where it was heading at all, I personally would have liked the action from the first minute to the last.
*** 3/5
The Retaliators will be in UK cinemas and worldwide from 14th September. Tickets are available at https://www.retaliatorsmovie.com and you can check out our review of the film from its Frightfest debut back in 2021 right here.
