Diablo Review – Scott Adkins enters Cormac McCarthy territory in a cross-border revenge thriller | film

no “A Country for Old Men” by Anton Chigurh was the scariest thing to come out of Latin America since the Argentine inflation. So, it took a surprisingly long time to see a live imitator: the dark-clad avenger El Corvo, played here by Marco Zaror. Not only does he have a wild hairstyle (bald on top this time), but he also has a philosophical bent, asking his near-victims if they’ve given themselves a gift recently. If Cormac McCarthy’s heist isn’t enough, director Ernesto Diaz Espinosa’s action-heavy thriller also provides El Corvo with some scenes taken from The Terminator, and the villain from Enter the Dragon’s Blade-hand, for good measure.

Diablo isn’t just a cliché, though: martial artist Scott Adkins has an interesting potential role in upending the usual cross-border revenge quest. He plays former bank robber Chris, who is accused of entering Colombia and kidnapping Elisa (Alana de la Rosa), the daughter of drug baron Vicente (Lucho Velasco). To make good on her promise to her dead mother to snatch her from the king’s clutches, he bundles her into the trunk – and soon he has not only Vicente and an assortment of six people, but also El Corvo, hoping to cut off the bounty.

After giving Elsa a gun to reassure her while she’s in the backseat, Chris has to play daycare dad to a spoiled teenager who – for reasons that aren’t hard to guess – has the same volcanic temperament as him. Despite De La Rosa’s intelligent, animalistic performance, and a nose aflame with rage, it’s a mismatched duo that never quite catches fire. With relatively little character detail on his part, Adkins comes off as more of a tough, uncontrollable sparring dervish. Despite the show’s pranks, his backstory doesn’t translate into satisfying redemption on the run.

Fortunately, there is always gratuitous violence. After a few lackluster bouts in which Chris dispatched assorted henchmen, Adkins and Zaror tore each other down impressively (twice). With Zaror also serving as action choreographer, the fight remains tense and volatile: they bust up an illegal casino the first time, and in the climactic second, Adkins fends off El Corvo as he heads up a long staircase to join Vicente in trying to prevent Elisa from being sucked into an aggregate crusher, in a kind of industrial-heavy version of My Two Dads. Unlike tedious preparation elsewhere, this is the right kind of basics.