THE RETALIATORS – Preacher plays it nice till his daughter is murdered by bikers; bitter cop with a cellar full of secrets shows him the light. Any self-respecting revenge flick aspires to stir up the lizard brain and pave the way for either catharsis or a good wallow. ‘The Retaliators’ emotes (death of a child, come on), but there’s something slightly cumbersome about the way it moves. It needed to be sharper and maybe shorter. And it’s full of easy go-tos and stock-in-trades like the ‘strip shows and slaughterhouse’ vibe of the biker’s stronghold, familiar enough from countless TV shows and direct to DVD movies. But that’s where ‘The Retaliators’ is coming from anyway. In that sense, and in the sense that it’s a genre flick that isn’t afraid to take any ridiculous turn if it brings home the schlock value, including a zombie style climax crammed with gore, it gets it right. There are Christmas trees involved, by the way.
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