As a studious person, I feel the need to constantly examine the world around me. It doesn’t matter if it is the bunnies hopping around my house, the people inside of Target, or the films of Dolph Lundgren. I can’t help it. I need to quantify and qualify everything. While I was watching Dolph films, I jotted down a number of questions I was curious about. My analysis is broken down here for our collective enjoyment.
Please note that in order for a film to be analyzed it also had to meet the general criteria for a movie to be considered a Dolph Lundgren film. Bit parts and minor roles don’t count here!
Question #1: Is Dolph More of a Cop or Military Man?
As I mentioned, Dolph routinely plays a current or former cop or military man. Once I made it to about the year 2000 in his filmography, I was deeply curious as to which one he plays more. Since I wasn’t capturing this information at the beginning, I read the background information of any character I could find on IMDB and Wikipedia.
I organized his roles into three general buckets. Current or former cops/agents/marshals were labeled cop. Current or former military servicemen were labeled as military. All other roles were marked N/A. Here is the general breakdown:
Number of Leading Cop Roles: 11
Number of Leading Military Roles: 22
Answer: Dolph is more of a leading military man with 22 roles that had military background.
Question #2: What Rank Does He Carry Most Often?
Once I asked the question of was he more of a cop or military man, my better half said “is he more of a captain or a sergeant”? Since I wasn’t capturing this information at the beginning, I read the background information of any character I could find on IMDB and Wikipedia. Oddly, many of his police characters had generic titles like “Agent” and “Detective”.
Answer: Dolph is most often a leading Captain, playing the role 6 times.
Question #3: What Is His Most Common Character Name?
As I was watching these films, I started asking myself questions like “how many times has Dolph played a Frank?” or “wasn’t his name Nikolai a few movies ago?” I dug through IMDB and Wikipedia to map out his character names. If he played the same character more than once, the number of times the name is used counts as once because it’s the same character. I discovered a few things:
Most Frequent Lead Character Name: Nicholas / Nick / Nikolai
Number of Times Used: 5
Films Used In: Men of War, Skin Trade, The Russian Specialist / The Mechanik, The Last Patrol / The Last Warrior, and Red Scorpion.
Funfact: Dolph has only played a character named Hans (his birth name) twice. The first time was as a French allied forces member in War Pigs. He will play Hans for the second time in the upcoming film Operation Seawolf.
Answer: Dolph most commonly plays leading characters with a variation of the name Nick.
Question #4: What Nationality Is He The Most?
While Dolph is Swedish, he rarely plays a Swede. In fact, as a leading man, Dolph is only a Swede twice. Most people think of him playing a Russian thanks to Ivan Drago in Rocky IV. However, throughout his career, Dolph largely plays American leading men.
Leading American Roles: 34
Leading Russian Roles: 5
Leading German Roles: 2
Answer: Dolph most commonly plays leading characters that are American.
Question #5: When Was His Best Movie Stretch?
Dolph’s best movie stretch spans from 1985 to 1994. His career took off like a bullet, and none of his major acting roles were misses. This stretch includes:
Rocky IV
Masters of the Universe
Red Scorpion
The Punisher
Dark Angel
There were a few lunkers and then he makes Universal Soldier, Joshua Tree, Pentathlon, and Men of War. These four movies were great. It is difficult to beat Dolph Lundgren’s stretch during this era.
Answer: Dolph’s best movie stretch begins with Rocky IV (1985) and ends with Men of War (1994).
Question #6: What Was His Best Acting Performance?
The best movie I saw for the first time was Men of War. This Swedish character seemed to be one of the most genuine Dolph has played in his career. There are moments when he’s a total badass, yet he’s also tender enough to believably interact with children. In addition to Dolph, it also has BD Wong, Trevor Goddard, Tiny Lister Jr., and Catherine Bell. I kept wondering why I had never heard of this film. Apparently, it was buried because Mirimax thought Dolph couldn’t bring in an audience. Booooooo Mirimax!
I also saw one thing I had to make note of, even if it wasn’t eligible to be the best role. Later in his career, Dolph had an excellent smaller role as a quasi bad guy playing Aleksey Andreev in One In The Chamber. While the rest of the film was a snoozefest, Russian Hitman Miami Daddy Dolph Lundgren was fantastic. Complete with the loud patterned shirts and stylish hats, his comedic timing and accent combined to make him one lovable killer. Watching him punch and shoot people was so much fun. I want a USA Network TV show about him, and it can even cross over with Burn Notice. Make it happen USA!
Answer: Dolph’s best leading performance was as Nick Gunar in Men of War (1994).
Question #7: When Was His Worst Movie Stretch?
While I genuinely love Dolph, there was a stretch of movies that was downright brutal to sit through. Starting in 1995, Dolph begins making a bunch of boring, uninspired films with Hidden Assassin. It begins a 9 year skid, where the only movies worth watching more than once are Sweepers, The Last Patrol, and Detention. (Note: While The Minion is genuinely a terrible movie, it is at least entertaining for all of the wrong reasons.) The nearly decade long skid ends at The Defender. His career picks back up again with The Russian Specialist.
Answer: Dolph’s worst movie stretch begins with Hidden Assassin (1995) and ends with The Defender (2004).
Question #8: What Was His Worst Leading Performance?
Genuinely, Dolph is at his best when he is a good guy. I have a suspicion that Dolph is a good guy in real life and thus has a hard time being a bad guy. Case in point comes his worst acting performance in Jill Rips. Matt Sorenson is a drunk asshole of an ex-cop. He is a hot mess who wants to simultaneously solve his brother’s murder while banging his brother’s widow. Granted, just reading that sentence makes it clear the screenwriter delivered one big mess of a character to play. However, none of this performance was believable in the slightest.
Answer: Dolph’s worst leading performance is as Matt Sorenson in Jill Rips (2000).
Question #9: What Was His Best Directing Credit?
As I was part way through Dolph films, I realized he directed some of them. He really hit his stride when directing his brainchild Command Performance. In his interview with Movieweb, it is pretty clear that Dolph had a blast both conceptualizing and making this movie. His collaborative filmmaking style definitely paid off when he added the guitar kill to the film. This is genuinely one of my favorite Dolph films because his love of what he was doing shines on screen. Do yourself a favor, and go watch Command Performance on Tubi.
I also want to give a shout out to Dolph’s directing in Castle Falls. While the script has issues and ultimately it is the writing that slows down the film, Dolph does a great job bringing the good bits out of it. Scott Adkins whoops some serious ass in the film. Dolph shows off a bit of his softer side. It is fun to watch them on the screen together, almost like a passing of the torch.
Answer: Dolph’s best directing credit is Command Performance (2009).
Question #10: Who Is This Guy Who Keeps Showing Up? How Many Movies Did They Make Together?
As I was a good chunk of the way through watching Dolph movies, there was an actor who stuck out as an extremely familiar face. This actor is James Chalke. The first time I noticed him during the Dolph marathon was in Retrograde. They appeared in 10 movies together over a 13 year period:
Retrograde
The Defender
Missionary Man
Direct Contact
Command Performance
Skin Trade
Shark Lake
Don’t Kill It
Larceny
Dead Trigger
While they may have parted ways since then, it is rather impressive that of James Chalke’s 28 acting credits (as of time of writing) that over 1/3 of them are in Dolph Lundgren films. If you want to check him out in my favorite role of his in a Dolph film, check out Don’t Kill It, in which he plays a crazy preacher.
