One in the Chamber (2012)

Director William Kaufman's "One in the Chamber" is a nimble, respectable, bullet-riddled, little shoot'em up, with Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. and "Expendables" star Dolph Lundgren as two hired trouble-shooters gunning for each other in the middle of a Russian mob war in post-Socialist Prague. About an hour into the action, Cuba and Dolph mix it up in a reasonably exciting fight, with Cuba delivering spinning kills a la Jean Claude Van Damme. The opposing sides of the Czech mob war are headed up by genre regular Louis Mandylor and Andrew Bicknell. Mikhail Suverov (Andrew Bicknell) and brother Bobby (Leo Gregory) hire Ray Carver (Cuba Gooding Jr.) to rub out Vlad Tavanian (Alin Panc) and Demyan Ivanov (Louis Mandylor), but Ray misses Demyan. This is one of the early scenes in "One in the Chamber" and Cuba is ice cool as an assassin with a .50 caliber sniper rifle who nails what he shoots at until Demyan seizes an innocent bystander of a girl as a shield. Demyan hires a troubleshooter called the Wolf, Aleksey Andreev (Dolph Lundgren), to eliminate the Suverovs. Ray is haunted by a job where he killed a man perusing the Bible and then refused to kill a small girl. He runs across this girl and she recognizes her family Bible. Things get complicated when Mikhail abducts Janice Knowles (Claudia Bassols) and Ray goes after them. Kaufman stages the firefights well enough and the Romanian scenery is diverting. The narrative is strictly formulaic, but "One in the Chamber" is tolerably entertaining nonsense. Dolph steals the show with his larger-than-life hit-man in a Hawaii shirt and a fedora. For the record, Ray has the chance to kill Aleksey, but he refuses to, and Aleksey visits him at fade-out to ask why. Ray explains that he wasn't paid to kill him. The two vow to join forces in the future. Louis Mandylor makes a good psychotic villain.

I don't know if Dolph Lundgren isn't attractive star for fans of B-class action movies anymore, so he has to work with Steve Austin or Cuba Gooding Jr. to sell his movies . I doubt that is a good idea since neither Austin or Gooding Jr. are "hot" stars , even in the B movies range. I can bet that most fans of this type of movies would watch it for Lundgren only.Anyway , Lundgren is the best thing here . He's fun as the eccentric Russian assassin . He brings a lot of humor and quite decent acting. When he's on the screen the movie lives , because you don't know what he will do. I wish the whole movie was about his character.Unfortunately, Lundgren has to share screen time with Gooding Jr . He's completely boring as another assassin who looks for meaning of live and is hunted by his past. Seriously it was done before and with much better results ("Leon The Professional") . Gooding is not one bit charismatic and it's a ridiculous idea to promote him as action star . His strength has always been comedy and he doesn't have chance to show this here.The story about two rival mob families trying to kill each other is lame and the writer wasn't able to put any new ideas . The acting with exception of Lundgren is bad . The fight scenes are decent , while shootouts are rather chaotic.For fans of Lundgren and bored action movie fans only . I give it 1/10.

Don't confuse this movie as Lundgren starring vehicle. Cuba is the star of the movie and rumors have it, that Dolph did decline to play the main role and opted for this other character, because he thought the main character was dull (he apparently said it to a German film magazine). Need I say more? But even the guy he plays has more flaws than you be used to. He tries to be funny with that character, but doesn't succeed that often. Lundgren is one thing (he seems like a very funny person and we do know he knows how to use his brain, his doctor title being more than prove enough), but how did Cuba Gooding Jr. slid into this muddle? He must wonder himself. And I'm pretty sure he'd wish someone was there, to help him help himself (or whatever he said in that Tom Cruise movie Jerry Maguire).

Over the last few years, it seems that Cuba Gooding Jr. has been downgraded to the straight to video action market. He has had numerous films hit the shelves out of nowhere, but they are all a far cry from his Oscar winning A-list days. Dolph Lundgren has been doing them for years with only a couple forays into the big screen lately with the Expendables series. Their latest One in the Chamber throws these two guys together in an assassin cat and mouse game, but can they deliver something worth checking out or just another forgettable actioner.One in the Chamber follows an assassin playing both sides of the Russian mob. When he fails to complete a hit, another assassin is called in to finish the job and him. This is a pretty simple film with very little plot, but to be honest not much is needed to make it work. The little bit of story they try to force on you outside of the assassins story fills unnecessary and out of place. Lundgren pretty much plays the same character from the Expendables films and does so with the fun stiff charm he somehow brings along with it. He seems to be having a good time stealing the show every time he steps on screen. The same can't be said for Gooding who does a fine job with his character, but just seems to really not be having any fun doing it. This has been a trend with his last few films that leads you to wonder if he is just delivering so much anger to bring out the characters or is really just not feeling it anymore. Either way, the character works decently for this film as he really needs very little emotion or feelings other than the need and ability to kill and there is no shortage of that here. There are a lot of old school shoot outs in this film that continues to up the body count very similar to the action films from the 90's. There is even and fight between Gooding and Lundgren that seems a bit far-fetched, but manages to work on some level.This isn't a great movie by any means, but it is one that renters are sure to get exactly what they think from it, action. If you like either of these guys or just mindless action films, then check this film out its worth a rent.http://www.examiner.com/movie-in-dallas/bobby-blakey