Plot: A mysterious stranger rolls into town on a unique motorcycle. All he carries is the bible and a desire for justice. Past vengeance collides as Ryder rights an injustice from his past and liberates the small town from a malicious oppressor.
I don’t know how this slipped under my radar for so long, but I don’t think I had ever watched Dolph Lundgren’s Missionary Man before this week. He directs and stars and it’s essentially a crossover of Billy Jack meets Pale Rider.
Dolph is a mysterious preacher known as Ryder who is also an avenging angel; he comes to a small town that is overrun by a crime lord called John Reno (Matthew Tompkins) and takes out the trash.
It’s a familiar tale, but I still had a good time with it mostly due to Dolph being an invincible badass who beats up the bad guys on a regular basis. It’s well paced with fight scenes and shoot-outs and some nice squibs too. One villain even gets shot in the face with a shotgun and boy do we see it.
My only real gripe with Missionary Man is how it looks; according to IMDb “due to a down-conversion gone wrong from HD to DVD, the picture quality and colors don’t match the HD master that was approved by director Dolph Lundgren”. It makes the film dull and colourless, but it has garnered some fans who think it gives the film a dreamlike quality. I guess that’s true, but I would still prefer if it was just in normal colour.
The villains are all hateful and it’s very entertaining seeing them getting what they deserve; John Enos III was particularly charismatic and nasty as the biker called Jarfe. I loved his story of why he was given that name.
I like how we never really know what happened to Ryder and he remains elusive even at the end. Was he back from the dead? Did he just survive being shot? We are left wondering which I thought was cool.
Overall, Missionary Man may look ugly, and the story is nothing new but it has enough violence and bloodshed to be worth a watch and Dolph looks awesome in it with his blonde hair and shades.