The Detonator (2006 Video) User Reviews

Wesley snipes vehicle in a standard actioner with action packed and violence

[ma-cortes · 5/10 · 22 May 2007]

The CIA secret agent Sonni Griffith(Wesley Snipes) travels to Romania for investigating a gunrunners and avoid the selling a nuclear weapon.Meanwhile he's killing Romanian gangster at a national soccer event,he's interrogating,gunning down people and burning suspects.Griffith is arrested at the Romanian semifinal cup match.Then is jailed but is freed by his friend ,the CIA agent Michael Shepard(William Hope).He's assigned a new mission ,scorting the Romanian named Nadia(Silvia Colocca).But he aware that Nadia is pursued by Josef Bostanescu(Tim Duttom),a megalomaniac nasty,he owns the stadium and soccer team and is preparing the biggest deal he've ever made.He tries to get from Nadia the information he needs: the location where are the thirty millions of dollars that she hid of her murdered ex-husband and accountant of Bostenescu and he wishes for buying the atomic bomb.When an information into CIA is leaked,allegedly from his chief(Michael Brandon)and reveals where are placed ,they must fight to survive against the gunrunners and save themselves.

The movie displays suspense,thriller, unstopped action and lots of violence when the killing happen.It's an average actioner movie with some entertaining moments but also with no sense scenes.Wesley is nice as action hero ,his early performances were as serious actor in dramas ,later turning as tough action man in films with big budget like¨Money train,Murder at 1600,US Marshall and Blade trilogy¨,although nowadays he solely movies with middling and low budget like as ¨Unstoppable,7 seconds,Chaos,The marksman¨.The movie is produced by Andrew Stevens Entertainment Inc.Andrew Stevens(son of Stella Stevens) was a famous actor of the 80s,today turned in successful producer,besides is produced by the starring Snipes and by Pierre Spengler,he's a veteran producer of known movies like the saga Superman-Reeve and the classic Three Musqueteers. The motion picture is shot in Castel studios of Romania where have been film the last vehicles of Steven Seagal and Van Damme.

His Résumé is a Graveyard

[claudio_carvalho · 4/10 · 26 November 2006]

After an undercover mission in Bucharest to disclose an international gang of weapon dealers, the agent Sonni Griffith (Wesley Snipes) is assigned to protect the Romanian Nadia Kaminski (Silvia Colloca), the widow of an accountant of the Romanian Mafia. However, the CIA safe house is broken in by the criminals, and Sonni realizes that the information was leaked from inside the Agency. Alone, trusting only in his friend Michael Shepard (William Hope), Sonni fights to survive and protect Nadia.

The career of Wesley Snipes is downhill. I have just seen this flick, and it is another disappointing movie of this actor, whose career is presently very similar to Steven Segal's one. The movie has many explosions, shots and car chase associated to an awful story and horrible acting. First, the Afro-American Wesley Snipes is chased by the police of Bucharest, but they never find a black American man. I have never been in Romania, but I believe there are not many Afro-Americans in this country. His character does not like to bath, wearing the same clothes along many days. There is no chemistry between Sonni and the sexy Silvia Colloca, but she freely has sex, falls in love for him and shares her fortune with him. The boy that performs Nadia's son is horrible. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "O Detonador" ("The Detonator")

Not so bad, after all

[s-cross · 6/10 · 4 May 2006]

I wasn't expecting much from The Detonator because both 7 Seconds and The Marksman were incredibly bad.

So i was surprised to see this is better. They cast better actors, there is a marginally better storyline and director, and overall it works. Some action sequences are entertaining, the stunts are quite brave in Romania. They don't seem to be scared to get hurt.

Snipes in fun to watch and is well supported by his leading lady, Silvia Colloca. She does a good job in portraying the sexy and mysterious Nadia and you get to care for her even if she plays tough. I liked the final sequence between Snipes, Colloca and the bad Romanian guy quite a bit.

6 out of 10. Could have been better, but it looks like the budget of 15,000.000 USD went into Snipes account as instead of in the film...

Utterly diabolical, except for some neat action.

[supertom-3 · 3/10 · 26 April 2006]

Wesley Snipes latest straight to video film is a convoluted mess, horribly reminiscent of Steven Seagal's latest works. The script is horribly written and makes no account for the low budget it is and tries to be too clever for its own good. Sadly too, Snipes has fallen into the trap of having an ADR voice double doing much of his dialogue, and an entire narration that comes every now and again through points in the movie. It's sad to see a guy of Wesley Snipes talent doing garbage like this film, and producing a tired and clearly bored performance, barely bothered to produce his own dialogue. It's become somewhat of a joke with Steven Seagal, the fact he doesn't perform his own dialogue, but it's not something I'd have expected from Snipes. Perhaps it's due to the producer, Andrew Stevens who has worked with Seagal previously, or the director Po-Chi Leong, responsible for Seagal's epically bad Out Of Reach.

The plot involves shady government officials, terrorists who coach soccer teams, disks with incriminating evidence on and a hefty chuck of missing money. Oh and biological weapons. Now how they are connected I don't know but what I can tell you is the diabolical script is pretty hard to fathom and like many of these DTV movies, this likes to include one twist too many. The plot is also uninterestingly told, playing out it's cards with people having shady one to ones in offices and dark alleys etc. It's all kind of "lets have a sit down and dish out some plot points for the sad bastards watching this film!" The pace of the movie as such suffers because despite the dullness of the performances and the storyline, the film does have some nice action scenes. As an example of how a DTV film has successfully put across a storyline of a twisting nature, I give you Dolph Lundgren's directorial debut, the Defender. That movie had it's share of twists and over complexity but the movie has a last hour of almost entirely action, with Dolph under siege form terrorists. The plot points are told in the context of action, on the move, while avoiding death. The movie doesn't stop to tell us what's happening, it doesn't break up the pace. As such although the plot was a little convoluted, it was more forgivable cause the action never let up. The Detonator like too many of these films, stops everything to give us a convoluted walk through of who's bad, and who isn't, before inevitably shifting that round in the pulled from the rear end twist at the end. These movies can often suffer with pacing issues.

Snipes himself as I mentioned is pretty bland here. At the beginning he's putting on a camp persona as he's undercover with some arms dealers. Initially it seemed as if he was enjoying himself but unfortunately the rest of the movie sees him and his occasional voice double sleepwalking through the role. Snipes only comes alive when he's called upon to kick ass. There's some nice action here though, with some swift and crunching martial arts and some nicely punchy shootouts. The film also features a decent car chase. Silvia Colloca co-star and she's not much of an actress, but she is gorgeous, with a costume that screams "look at my cleavage!" The rest of the cast flit in and out with clichéd and uninteresting roles.

Snipes thankfully has better projects lined up from now. He has another team up with Mario Van Peebles, called Hard Luck, then he will do Chasing The Dragon, from the director Chris Nahon, who did Jet Li's Kiss Of The Dragon. Finally Snipes is apparently doing Toussaint, a biographical drama, directed by Danny Glover. The future is suddenly looking brighter for Snipes, but lets remember he was getting extremely well paid for his DTV films, around $7million a movie, possibly more. It's also funny to consider that of all these DTV god's Dolph Lundgren is doing the better films, directing himself, with the enjoyable Defender and the supremely violent and nicely done The Russian Specialist, and what's more he's doing them on a fraction of the budgets of these diabolical offerings from Wesley and Steven Seagal are producing. *1/2

Badly written, the execution is even worse

[ranakatan · 1/10 · 1 May 2006]

I've seen a few bad action movies in my days, but this one's just plain awful. I feel it's a waste of time to even write this but I'll make it short. Why this movie suck? here are 10 reasons: 1. Very amateurly directed and cut. 2. Bad bad bad acting of the whole cast. 3. Silly dialogs and too many clichés. 4. Too many plot holes, a lot of scenes don't add up. 5. Bad photographing (and a lot of continuity issues). 6. Ridiculously bad performance by the lead female actress. 7. Unreliable action scenes (and not too good, either). 8. Even for a Snipes movie, he shows a big lack of acting materials. 9. Outrageous accents (of all the cast). 10. Last, but not least - too many implausible facts, such as a tournament of soccer in the U.S., CIA needing to do background checks to get new information about their employees, a mattress that is explosion proof and so on. In essence - it's a waste of time, it's not funny, not entertaining, not even as a joke - DON"T WATCH IT!!! Seriously, just don't.

A interesting movie

[harbeau · 3/10 · 3 September 2006]

Unlike some of the reviews written here, I didn't hate this movie. It is a movie that COULD have been much better than it was. Not Oscar material, true, but much better than it was.

I thought the plot had a good hook and through line. Granted, this movie was badly written. And TERRIBLY directed and produced. I mean, how many irrelevant flashbacks can you have? Why were we there? What exactly is the point of the opening sequence? It seems like the producer(s) watched American Beauty a few too many times and thought 'I'll use that in an action movie!' I thought the movie wasn't that badly acted. Wesley Snipes did a credible job, he just ran afoul of some bad direction. And once this movie hit the production room, things just got worse. The main actress, I think, had the same problems. Some of the other acting was suspect, yes, but it was a low-budget flick. Again, I would say it is the director's job to pick that up and correct it.

As an overall recommendation, I would agree with the first review I read that this movie is not worth seeing. Or maybe it is worth seeing, if you are a film student and want to see what NOT to do.

3/10, and that's giving it praise.

If you take it for what it is, a straight to DVD film, it's really good

[mikloris · 7/10 · 3 May 2006]

First and foremost: What's with the voice dubbing? It is so clear it isn't Snipes's voice. I didn't understand why they didn't get him to voice his character in the voice over bits? Did he want more money?

The Detonator is not a bad film, much better that many straight to DVD films I've seen recently. It could have been better though. If they payed more attention to the dialogs ( silly at times), if they spent a little more cash on the action sequences ( some blue screen stuff isn't great,really), if they got a different editor ( sometimes it feels like a stitch up), if they got the actors playing Romanians to actually sound Romanian ( with the exception of Silvia Colloca, whose accent seems quite accurate)

it could have been better. But for its market , it's pretty cool.

I was entertained by this film. didn't have great expectation, so I wasn't too disappointed. Wesley Snipes seems a little bored at times and the result is that he's a little lame. But he shines when doing action stuff. The best performances come from the supporting cast: Italian actress Silvia Colloca as the troubled Nadia ( in some knock-out costumes) delivers a good performance, given the lines she was given she does a decent job ( especially when showing some emotional range), William Hope and Michael Brandon are good as the FBI agents.

Snipes went off and detonated his Carrer.

[argentobuff · 4/10 · 17 May 2006]

Since Wesley Snipes descended(or Ascended)to the world of DTV action movies the result has been Miss,so-so,and miss.Unstoppible was weak.7 seconds was entertaining.The marksman was the proverbial scraping of the septic tank.

And what of The Detonator?We'll anything would be above suffering the Marksman again.But the Detonator holds a small amount of merit that is hampered by a lazy star and Low budget.

Sonny Griffith is a not-so-by-the-book Covert op who busts illegal arms dealers in Poland.When his latest assignment ends up a bullet-buffet leaving a pile of bodies;Sonny then is ordered to escort a witness; Nadia (the ever-hot Silvia Colloca) to the US.Trouble is; Sonny is being duped by a traitor in his own organization who is keeping his trail hot for Gangsters with Nuclier Ambitions.

Snipes delivers in the action department.He is in half-blade mode here.He actually does well in the first 15 minutes of the Detonator,before descending into pure sleepwalking mode that ruined the Marksman.Colloca does more than look pretty.There is some conviction to her scenes.A lot of the actors look familiar,and have been in the last 3 or 4 Seagal/Snipes movies.Its always good to see Michael Brandon again.

The action is telegraphed here.But never boring.Running,car chases,Fights.Director Po-Chih Leong seems to have gotten better after the Seagal farce;Out of Reach.He does a credible job.But is constantly hampered by the low budget.Enough with the eastern Euro-locations.Its cheapening the movie's look.Vancover cannot be that much expensive can it?

The Detonator ends just average.It does not have the so-bad its fun aspect of Seagal' Mercenary for Justice. But it is nowhere near as entertaining as Van Damme's Second in command.Nor as thrilling as Dolph's Mechanik.Perhaps Dolph should direct Wesley next eh?

Its high time The producers pump a little more money and thought into these DTV titles with the kind of money they are making from them.Its only fair.The result could be a high seller perhaps?

Snipes would be advised to try making this one his last DTV action flick.Its sad to see YET another waste of this gifted actor's Talents.

Snipes in the right way

[ce-coletti · 7/10 · 7 January 2008]

In the movies dictionary, Wesley Snipes is synonym of... action and action, usually without much brain, but this is an exception. In spite of the title, that suggest a movie right in the style of the ex basket player, after the first half of the movie we perceive the difference: a very intelligent and well-weaved screenplay. Snipes play the CIA agent Sonni Griffith, that investigate the gun's traffic by a team that is owned by a millionaire (Tim Dutton), but everything gets wrong e he is placed in a guard mission of a woman (the beautiful Silvia Colloca), that recently find your dead husband and it's being persecuted by the same millionaire. The English Po Chih Leong deliver a correct direction, the final is a surprise, the movie satisfy, and Snipes, finally, is in the right way.

I'm Surprised It Made It As Far As Direct-To-Video

[boblipton · 4/10 · 6 October 2019]

When the Rumanian Mafia break into the safe house he's storing their accountant, Snipes' bosses are angry with him. Telling only his buddy, William Hope, he gets ahold of Silvia Colloca, the accountants widow, and runs around Bucharest (the architecturally uninteresting parts) trying to keep her alive.

The script consists about 97% of crashing-cars stunts, and I figured out about three minutes in who in the CIA was leaking information to the bad guys. There are plenty of shaky-cam shots, and I think there may be more footage with the camera tilted than with the camera level. Although Snipes and Miss Colloca are both capable actors, this is a movie where more care was taken in making sure that the lady's brassiere always rises the same height above he blouse than the script. Unless you're one of those people who think that crashing cars and gunfire make a good movie.

Very entertained !

[khauhieu · 9/10 · 25 April 2006]

I just watched the movie, and I have to say that I am surprised. I didn't expect it to be that good. The movie is awesome, very entertained. And I like Wesley, a great cast. I loved other movies of him like Blade Trilogy, and this movie is not an exception. Also have to say Silvia Colloca is very attractive. She is better than in Val Helsing. A happy ending as well, I just love it. One ex-CIA tried his best to protect one stranger, a man always "acts without any order". Highly recommend that movie to everybody, smooth and nice flow, good for relax. Just vote for it 9/10, maybe it should be only 7/10; but it did give a good feeling. Thanks Wesley and Silvia :)

Close Your Eyes

[RobinCook70 · 6/10 · 5 May 2006]

I rented this movie last week and after watching Snipes' 7 Seconds movie, this one was definitely a significant improvement.

One of the things that bothered me was there were numerous areas where I could not understand what was being said and I even hit the remote to go back again and again and still remained stumped. There was no English closed-captions/subtitles option on the DVD, so I was stuck with moving on. One comment from numerous Asians I know whom have come to live in the USA and have learned to speak our language is, "I try to watch African-American movies, but can't understand what they are saying." I had a few areas of trouble with understanding some English spoken in Van Damme's movie Second in Command and that DVD didn't offer English subtitles/closed captions option either.

The second main thing that bothered me was with the sound affects. If you close your eyes and listen to the gunfire and explosions ... they all sounded the same, like someone banging a bat against a piece of thick glass. I appreciated the sound in one scene near a swimming pool and could hear the pool's water, but then poof the sound of this just disappeared ... but was nicely replaced with the sound of a light breeze through the trees. At least in this movie the irritating same old clapping boom boom sound was absent for the background action scenes. But, do all car engines racing around in streets and different guns being fired and numerous explosions have the same sounds? This movie like 7 Seconds contains pretty much the same visual candies and the car chases really could get lessened and shortened. They reek of filler padding to add length to what would probably be a TV length show if cut out. We have come to expect action films to have loads of visual candy, but the combination of lackluster sound affects and padding took this movie down more notches than it deserved. The visuals were good, but my ears were insultingly assaulted. LOUD can go only so far before I'm mentally handicapped.

Once again, the script was very good and so was the acting. There was not as much of Snipes' bopping heads as other movies. Snipes has a tough guy image that perhaps he should shed and consider calmer/quieter scripts. This movie would have done better if it had less padding and a better sound crew (plus add subtitles!). I wasn't disappointed in watching this movie and would recommend it for at least a one time viewing. I wouldn't buy the DVD.

Another washed up action star in yet another poor film set in Eastern Europe.

[poolandrews · 3/10 · 24 January 2008]

The Detonator is set in Bucharest where some sort of ex CIA Government agent named Sonni Griffith (Wesley Snipes) has tracked down a arms dealer named Dimitru (Matthew Leitch), things go wrong though & Dimitru finds out that Sonni is working for the US Government. After a big shoot-out most of Dimitru's men have been killed by Sonni which the local Romanian police force are unhappy about, top man Flint (Michael Brandon) decides to send Sonni back to the US & at the same time protect a woman named Nadia Cominski (Silvia Colloca) who is also being sent back to the US. However it turns out that Nadia is wanted by Dimitru & his football club owning boss Jozef (Tim Dutton) who need her in order to complete a deal for a nerve gas bomb which they intend to set off in Washington killing millions of people...

This American & Romanian co-production was directed by Po-Chih Leong & The Detonator confirms beyond any shadow of a doubt that Wesely Snipes has joined the washed up action film stars club who are relegated to making generic action films in Eastern European locations, yep Snipes has joined such luminaries as Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal, Dolph Lundgren, Rutger Hauer & Chuck Norris. I give Snipes a bit of credit since he held on a little longer than the rest with the excellent Blade: Trinity (2004) still fresh in a lot of cinema goers minds (every film he has made since has gone straight-to-DVD) but it had to happen sooner or later, like a lot of the names I've mentioned Snipes has lived off the reputation of a few great films & if you look at his career he's been in more bad films that good ones. Like the recent films of JCVD & Seagal The Detonator is pretty awful. The script by Martin Wheeler is as predictable, boring & by-the-numbers as anything out there. The Detonator is the sort of film you expect to see on an obscure cable TV channel playing at 2 O'clock in the morning. The Detonator is chock full of clichés, Snipes is forced into a situation where he has to protect a woman & at first they dislike each other but by the end they are in love, his closest friend at the CIA turns out to be a traitor while the obnoxious by the book boss no-one likes actually turns out to be a pretty decent guy, Snipes character is allowed to run around Bucharest shooting, killing & blowing people up like it doesn't matter & he never gets arrested, the action is dull & forgettable, the bad guy own a football club so there are lots of annoying football terminology & there aren't even any funny one-liners.

Director Leong doesn't do anything anything to liven things up, The Detonator looks cheap with a car chase in which the two cars never seem to get over the 30mph mark. OK the action scenes are relatively well staged but they are few & far between & utterly forgettable in a 'bad guy shoots at Snipes & misses, in return Snipes shoots at bad guy & kills him' sort of way. There's a half decent car crash & explosion but very little else. It seems some of The Detonator was shot in a Romanian football stadium, I think I'd rather have watched the game for 90 minutes rather than this film.

With a supposed budget of about $15,000,000 The Detonator is reasonably well made but not that much really happens. Set & filmed in Bucharest in Romania. The acting isn't that great, Snipes just doesn't seem interested & feels like he is just there for the money which I don't blame him for at all.

The Detonator is yet another poor clichéd action film starring a has been actor & set in Eastern Europe. Why do Sony keep making these things? Not recommend, there are much better action fare out there.

worst movie i have seen in a long time

[daniel-829 · 1/10 · 10 August 2006]

to start off, i'm easily pleased. i'm in no way a real critic, and movies that authentic critics, friends, family, and newspapers may find awful may even be fun for me to watch.

not this one however.

i got it since it was the newest wesley snipes movie in my DVD-store. i like snipes, but this was a let-down.

bad story, bad actors, continuity-glitches, crappy sound, depressing locations, a pseudo- cool snipes, i really had to force myself to finish the movie.

they even left some markings in the shots where a car was supposed to come to a stop.

and i'm not talking about "small production company/young director/low budget" kind of bad, where you may ignore some mistakes because you feel sympathy.

a wanna-be block buster action movie that disappoints like no other in a long time.

If I wanted to see this much violence I'd simply move to Iraq!

[surprisinglylargeamount · 4/10 · 14 January 2007]

Let's get one thing straight: I like much of Snipes' work. Unlike his other high-kicking contemporaries (Seagal and Van Damme) he can actually act. This film, however, does little to enhance his reputation; it's not exactly unwatchable - but I am not in any hurry to watch it again either. In fact, if I never saw it again it wouldn't bother me - there are just loads of better films out there to waste my on! It's a pity because with a bit of imagination and and some subtle changes this could have been a worthwhile film. Instead the director has chosen to almost try and bludgeon his audience into submission with too much over-the-top violence and very little characterisation.

The biggest problem I have is with Snipes' co-star, Silvia Colloca. It baffles me that the producers of this film went to all the bother of hiring a stunning beautiful (for my money anyway) and talented actress like Miss Colloca and then give her such a pathetic one-dimensional character to play with. If she was hired to simply add a bit of "glamour" to the movie she doesn't even do that very well; there's no nudity in the film and also no sex scene worth mentioning. Strange, really. Given the amount of violence in this film it baffles me why the producers have taken such a conservative attitude to sex and nudity. Are we living in 2007 or in 1957? What the producers of this rubbish (and probably the actors as well) have forgotten is that films are meant to be fantasies. Like most of the inhabitants of this planet my real life is very boring. I would love to be chasing terrorists, be able to handle myself like Mr Snipes and hook up with a beautiful young thing like Miss Colloca. This film satisfies none of those fantasies very well. Which is precisely why I am giving it such a bad review!

Oh dear

[tricky3 · 1/10 · 13 March 2019]

The worst film I have seen in a very long time. Just terrible.

Terrible.

Not good, not bad either

[alessandro_kramer · 6/10 · 3 May 2006]

OK, it's a straight-to-DVD action film, and it shows. The editing is poor, the storyline is not incredibly compelling, the action sequences are just "ok". But it did't fail to keep me entertained. The on screen chemistry between Snipes and the lead actress Silvia Colloca brings a bit of fun and wit in the story. I have to say the scenes between those two are my favourites. The girl has a real attitude and it's quite cool to her confronting Snipes's cool temper. In fact, Silvia Colloca graduates from a bit role In Van Helsing and shows she can act and she has the asset of a good leading lady. And she looks stunning, by the way... Snipes is fun to watch as usual and his action sequences show of his talent. I struggled a bit with the supporting cast and their accents. Most of them sounded Russian to me, as opposed to Romanian. But maybe I'am being picky.

6/10 rent it if you want some non-intellectual entertainment.

Oh Wesley...what happened to you!! Drab, mish-mashed TV movie

[Robert_duder · 5/10 · 30 June 2006]

There was a time when Wesley Snipes WAS action. Blade, Passenger 57, Boiling Point, Demolition Man...now he seems to be the king of straight to DVD and I hadn't seen him in action in awhile so I decided to go with The Detonator. In all fairness Snipes is not the problem. He stills kicks some serious ass and he can actually act which is a plus for an action star but the story was just bogged down with non-sensical and confusing plot and characters. The film falls victim to a common error committed by writer Martin Wheeler who is probably just an action film fan boy who thinks he can write his own. He's slapped together a film completely neglected plot holes, sense of style or even fitting together and just let it fly. Action films don't have to be realistic but they have to have a basis in reality so that the audience will ignore the lack of realism (ie: Transporter 2)

Wesley Snipes plays scorned Government agent Sonni Griffith who is wanted back in the U.S. for murdered a mobster and yet apparently is allowed to roam Europe on assignment...yeeeah. He is after a big gun runner until his cover is blown by a mysterious phone caller. Now he has to escort a protected witness back to the U.S. Snipes is good, there is nothing wrong with his performance. His martial arts is wicked, and his gun play is superb, the man could still be an action superstar but the plot and story stinks. Italian actress Silvia Colloca plays the protected witness, Nadia Cominski who despite a rather poorly slapped together Russian accent does a decent job. She's tough, and her and Snipes have great chemistry although the I hate you, I love you routine is a little forced at times. Matthew Leitch gives a stand out performance as head bad guy Dimitru (misspelled Dimitri on IMDb.) For some reason I wanted his name to be Dimitri because that's the common name but no it was "u." Anyways Leitch gives a really great performance as a blood thirsty angry vicious killer/hit-man for a much larger mobster. Although Leitch and Snipes don't actually go head to head that often they are great adversaries and in a weak story such as this it would have easy for the bad guy to be a real pansy but instead he gives a terrific performance. William Hope plays brutally vicious mobster Michael Shepard. Seeing him in the same shot playing with children and then threatening and murdering other people is disturbing and he is a great mobster. He's mostly a straight to video kind of guy but he is a great actor and does a good job playing the bad guy. Warren Derosa plays fellow cop Mitchel who never quite fits in with the cast especially Snipes. He doesn't have the acting chops to fit in and he really just always looks like a schmuck. Deciding whether he is the one working against them never enters the mind because his character is boring and mostly useless.

With a much, MUCH stronger screenwriter The Detonator might have been able to fly but because of the completely lost script the film is pretty much ruined. There are a few neat action sequences, and the story is watchable but there is just far too many plot holes, things that are completely not necessary and characters that don't fit in. Maybe there are fans of Wesley Snipes that still hold it out for a triumphant return to theater but I can tell you this won't help. Wait for this one to show where it belongs...on cable...5/10

Good couch potato flick,

[tarbosh22000 · 6/10 · 12 May 2010]

Poor Wesley Trent Snipes. He can't catch a break. With his recent tax troubles and movie career down the drain, all he can do is make cheap Romanian action movies. If all the action stars (Seagal, Snipes, Lundgren, and Van Damme) are in Romania, when are they gonna team up and make the ultimate action flick?

In "The Detonator", Snipes plays Sonnie Griffith, a secret agent whose newest job is protect Nadia Cominski(Silvia Colloca) from gangsters and corrupt police. That's it. The action scenes are entertaining but once again Snipes looks disinterested in the proceedings. Silvia Colloca was hired to look sexy and she does it well. The biggest problem is the laziness brought onboard by Wesley: He doesn't care, and he took the Seagal route and dubbed his voice. Half of the time it doesn't sound like Snipes, just a poor impersonator. Hey, on the bright side, at least we're boosting Romania's economy.

Overall, It's a good couch potato flick, but I think it's a step down from "7 Seconds" and "Unstoppable".

For more insanity, please check out: comeuppancereviews.com

Nothing but the Best.... Or Worst.

[andc-fresh · 3/10 · 30 November 2007]

Yes it is your typical direct to video action flick. And of course they do their best to change it up a little bit but fail miraculously. Snipes delivers his perfectly bland performance that he always does. Colloca proves that you don't need any talent to star in a film but just sex appeal. The worst part is that it didn't cover my bad movie basics which are: 1 – Cheap looking villains. 2 – Perfectly timed one-liners. 3 – Intense car chases with massive explosions. 4 – The hero hooking up with the hot chick. 5 – Multitudes of nude or scantily clad women for no reason. OK so I lied, it covers those but does so horribly.

My comment on ''The Detonator''!!!!!!

[politicsownsus · 8/10 · 21 February 2014]

Not exactly one of the best straight to DVD only Wesley Snipes action/adventure films,but it's effective enough for me to watch over and over again period.The direction of some of the action scenes could have had much better pacing as far as not using weapons is concerned.I LOVE the explosions in this action/adventure film which are some of the best,if not the best i have ever seen for Wesley Snipes straight to DVD only career period.The Romanian woman he has to save is very good looking indeed.The shootouts are some of the most intense,if not the most intense in Wesley Snipes action film career period.In the beginning of this film i saw the hero pretend to be a real life stereotype that is extremely offensive to me period,but the HARDCORE action throughout the film more than makes up for this period!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He was a bad man.

[lastliberal · 6/10 · 7 February 2009]

Snipes has joined Seagal and van Damme in the direct-to-video market after doing some really good films like U.S. Marshalls, Passenger 57, The Art of War, and Murder at 1600. I wasn't expecting much, but I had a good reason to check it out.

Lesbian Vampire Killers is not out yet, so I had to watch to get a Silvia Colloca stimulus. I'm glad she wore the same outfit the whole movie, because it and she was hot! The movie was not a complete disappointment as there were loud explosions, great car chases, and lots of bullets.

There was also lots of Silvia, and that's worth seeing.

The detonator defuses

[sauravjoshi85 · 3/10 · 2 April 2019]

What do you want from a movie. Good storyline, good direction, good screenplay, good acting and off course adaptive location but as far as this movie is concerned you will miss almost everything. You will feel pity on Wesley Snipes because he chose such a movie and yes he has proved the same by his bad acting. Silvia Colloca was pathetically awful. The movie too predictable that after something even a layman can guess what is going to happen next. Some scenes are ridiculously placed in the movie and doesn't make any sense. Dialogues are badly written and irritates. Action is weird. Barring few ok scenes this movie is pathetic. Not a worth watching.

Yawn..

[akg1249 · 3/10 · 28 September 2017]

Such has been Wesley Snipes' career despite his obvious talent that he has had to take up many shoddy projects just to keep his coffee warm. Nevertheless, it's always good to see Wesley Snipes kick and punch and shoot the bad guys. When it comes to action flicks, he's a reliable hero and a natural. But if that's why you wanna watch this movie, don't. Chances are solid that you won't even last the full length of this movie in your seat.

This is a low-budget, straight-to-video affair that does barely enough to be considered a movie. 'Could've been good' can be said about lots of movies but let's not go there with this one because nearly everything would need to be redone from the scratch to make something good out of the plot. Acting is meh while everything else is just plain trash. CGI used in simulating action scenes is low-class and pathetic. Tim Dutton impresses with his persona; I wouldn't mind seeing him as a villain in other serious projects. Pretty Italian actress, Silvia Colloca, is mostly irritating trying to pass off her flat chest as a well-endowed bosom with the help of a push-up bra. Eeek! William Hope is one of those actors who can't perform badly even if he wanted to.

VERDICT: Avoid, unless you have nothing to do in your life like I do.

SIMILAR & BETTER movies: Matt Damon's BOURNE series, Spy Game, Ronin, Casino Royale

the worst film on gods earth

[mail-1030 · 1/10 · 28 October 2006]

OK, ill be brief. This film wasn't just bad it was very very bad, with line4s like " if you deal with the devil you expect to get sh*t on your shoes" you know your in hideous film territory. After watching this film i wanted to kill myself and my entire family, it gave me such a vast feeling of self-loathing I wanted to do murder. don't watch this film. i will kill again. but when I do it will be terribly edited with a pathetic soundtrack and stock shot for hire action sequences and bad shirts.

fortunately there is a flipside, its the first action film to feature a three door ford sierra.

unfortunately it ends up trashed on its roof :(

Ps: Worse than the Marksman