My quick rating – 4.8/10. I picked Hellfire for one reason and one reason only. The cast. You put Stephen Lang, Harvey Keitel, and Dolph Lundgren in the same small-town action flick, and I’m at least renting. And let’s be honest, Scottie Thompson isn’t exactly a stranger to my TV after all those years on NCIS.
The setup? A small, dying Southern town called Rondo is being terrorized by a politically connected drug kingpin. The locals are exhausted, worn down, and afraid. And they look it. Hope arrives in the form of a mysterious stranger known only as “the MAN.” Yes, capital letters. And yes, writer Richard Lowry goes to almost comical lengths to make sure Stephen Lang never gets an actual name. Not a nickname. Just a throwaway alias, Nomado. The commitment is impressive.
We open in a diner where Lena (Thompson) works for her father, which conveniently allows the town riffraff to stroll in and establish their bullying credentials. It doesn’t take long for things to feel familiar. The tension-filled meeting with Sheriff Wiley (Lundgren) has strong First Blood energy – small-town law enforcement sizing up an outsider who clearly didn’t wander in by accident. The broader setup smells heavily of Road House, too. I’m fairly certain Lowry has both on Blu-ray within arm’s reach.
Then we cut to an older man playing piano, because of course we do, and surprise! Keitel is the father of the local town bully. It’s a nice touch, but criminally underused. Keitel deserved more screen time. When you cast Harvey Keitel, you don’t keep him in the corner like a decorative lamp.
Director Isaac Florentine clearly knows his lone-vigilante cinema. The first big gunfight/car chase combo has serious The A-Team vibes, meaning Uzis blazing, shotguns pumping, enough bullets to restock a small army… and somehow no one gets hit. It’s almost nostalgic. But after that, the movie finds a mean streak and suddenly remembers bullets are, in fact, lethal. Bodies start dropping, and there’s even a surprisingly decent hand-to-hand fight scene mixed in.
The story itself? Completely by-the-numbers. You know this story of the battered town and the reluctant hero from before, and this one doesn’t deviate an inch from the formula. It’s highly implausible, at times bordering on ridiculous, and has one cringe-worthy war flashback that looks like it was taken straight from the ’80s straight-to-video bargain bin.
And honestly? That’s kind of the charm. Hellfire just feels like a lost 1988 VHS rental. Gritty, simple, and unapologetic. I wasn’t mad I spent 95 minutes with it. I just won’t be revisiting Rondo anytime soon. If you have a soft spot for old-school vigilante flicks and recognizable tough-guy faces, you might squeeze some fun out of this one. Just don’t expect it to reinvent the genre. It’s too busy paying tribute to it.
