My quick rating – 4.6/10. I’m apparently forever a sucker for a Dolph Lundgren vehicle, because Wanted Man had me pressing play with the same optimism I reserve for late-night tacos and B-tier action flicks. Add Kelsey Grammer into the mix, and suddenly my weekly Frasier watches are bleeding into cartel shootouts. Honestly, a crossover I didn’t know I needed.
The setup in Wanted Man is as familiar as Dolph’s signature stoic glare. Lundgren plays Nick, a police officer with the personality range of granite but the charm of, well…Dolph Lundgren. When he’s tasked with retrieving Rosa (Christina Villa), the sole eyewitness to a DEA massacre, things go sideways fast. The cartel’s involved, bodies drop, and somewhere along the road trip of doom, Nick discovers that the real villains might not be wearing the expected uniforms. Shocking, I know. Corrupt American forces? In a 2024 action thriller? Groundbreaking.
Dolph is exactly what I ordered. Tough, square-jawed, and carrying the depth of a man contemplating whether to add more protein powder to his diet. And it works. The man understands his lane and speeds through it with hazard lights off. Grammer, meanwhile, pops in to remind us he can class up literally anything. Crime scenes, interrogation rooms, possibly even a gas station microwave burrito. His screen time is limited, but always nice to see Frasier Crane wander into an action film and decide to stay.
The supporting cast in Wanted Man is…present. Christina Villa does what she can with a character written somewhere between “traumatized witness” and “generic plot courier.” There’s potential there, but the script gives her about as much depth as a puddle in the desert. The antagonists, meanwhile, are so one-dimensional that they may as well have worn shirts reading “Bad Guy #3.”
Because yes, Lundgren not only stars. He also directs and co-writes. And while the man can snap limbs on screen like breadsticks, Wanted Man doesn’t exactly reinvent the genre. The action is competent, sometimes even crisp, but rarely thrilling. Kind of like watching someone who knows all the choreography but doesn’t do anything with the punches. And the pacing also stumbles. I felt it grab my attention just long enough for the script to wander back to a cliché, like it’s revisiting an old friend.
The central twist? Let’s just say if you don’t pick up on it early, you might be watching this movie with your eyes closed. It lands fine, it just doesn’t surprise.
All that said, Wanted Man is polished enough to keep your attention. Especially if you’re a Lundgren loyalist or a Grammer nostalgist. The cinematography looks sharp, the standoffs are decent, and it runs smoothly as a background watch. However, do not go in with high expectations. You have seen this film before, and you have seen it done much better.
