Dolph Ziggler the Movie: Good, but Not Title or 3,000 Screen Ready
Finally, my wrestling-themed Tublr (Rip 'Em System) can promote my movie rantings. If only I could have debuted my Danny Glover, Rutger Hauer, Darryl Hanna, and Michael Madsen masochistic experience by comparing that Stephen Baldwin to the bloodless era of WWE. A missed metaphor?
After the failure that was "No Holds Barred", WWE has yet to make movies to truly promote their primary product. It anything, these films are just opportunities for Vince McMahon to display what would be too much for even the Attitude Era: The horror franchises that fit Kane's gimmick; Rape being the ultimate heel move; Gimmick matches based around murder.
"Countdown" promoted itself as the first film to include the product. It was supposed to be "Sudden Death" at a house show. Since that feature was one of my favorite Jean-Claude Van Dam flicks, Dolph Ziggler's first starring vehicle's premise had potential.
Ray Fitzpatrick (Ziggler) is a burned out cop with nothing to lose, and that gets results. Unfortunately for him, internal affairs frowns upon shooting your partner like Sterling Archer would shoot Cyril to avoid blowing your cover, regardless of how many Russians you irritate to preserve the American way of life. Concerned for his pension, Lt. Cronin (Glenn "Kane" Jacobs) places the super cop on paid suspension with hopes that the critics will forget about his antics.
It is not his critics that the Seattle Police Department should be worrying about. The next day, a Russian obsessed with Ray's exploits sends them a video of a child who is strapped with enough explosives to obliterate a 40-yard radius. If Ray does not deliver $2,000,112.35 to the bomber at the WWE show, he will make a phone call to vaporize the youngster and any neighbors.
Like one of every three WWE angles, the exchange does not work out. Ray is able to kill his foil before he can set off the bomb, but that leaves us with no one who knows where the kids is. With the suspension leaving our hero with no regulations, he is going to harass every criminal west of the Urals until he saves the day while IA member Julia Baker (Katharine Isabelle) will try to piece the chaos together and keep Cronin off his tail.
"Countdown" decides to be clever instead of obvious and ridiculous, and it works. This is good because the direction is not there.
The first act was put in the can very quickly and the false and actual finales are chock full of continuity flaws. Michael Finch and Richard Wenk's script is a fool proof 80's film and Dolph Ziggler is not expected to emote anything but Mel Gibson's hippest, pro semetic attitude.
The script goes to some odd places, but with every ridiculous hunch Ziggler's character has, Isabelle's role is there to make sure the cynics will suspend their disbelief. Eventually, your only complaint is that they only cast two WWE talents to act. And they still find a way to emasculate Rusev.
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Alexander Kalugin is a great Willem Dafoe knock off, but the rest of the thugs should have been "superstars". If you watch Southpaw Regional Wrestling, you know all of the Smackdown roster attempting Russian accents would make this a VOD rental/purchase instead of waiting for it to be streaming for free.
If you need a WWE fix while you are waiting for the WWE Network to give you a promo to return, first watch "AEW Dark" and "NWA Powerrr". If that is not enough, then "Countdown" is your methadone. Like any illicit drug, you can find this movie at truck stops, in the DVD bin with at least two other good WWE Studios flicks packaged with it. (I have yet to watch "The Condemned 2" so perhaps four.)
"Countdown" is silly like the current product and clever like ECW. The only thing it lacks is the nudity and graphic violence to be an ideal 80's action flick. Most importantly, this is the best of use of Dolph Ziggler since April of 2013. This feature is a product for the smarks who need to see this guy fully utilized.
I think Dolph is overrated as a wrestler, so please see this film to put Ziggler's career in an ideal direction. Or petition WWE to create a TV Championship if we must compromise. Just cheer for him cashing checks instead of hoping he wins world titles.
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