Needed to be Cleaner
Jason Price (Dolph Lundgren) was once a government agent but these days whilst still working with certain government agencies runs his own operations, helping people disappear. But when an old friend with criminal connections asks to disappear things don't go to plan as he ends up killed and various contacts within Price's network are also turning up murdered. It leads Price to believe his network has been infiltrated by the mysterious hitman known as The Cleaner who is cleaning shop one hit at a time. It forces Price to try and work out not only how his network became corrupted but also trying to find out who The Cleaner is working for. Trouble is who can Price trust?
Let me get straight to what the problem is with "Hidden Agenda", and yes this is a movie with more than one. The storyline is technically simply; a hitman is taking out Price's contacts and those who helped disappear and so whilst not knowing who he can trust must try to prevent things from getting worse. Unfortunately those behind the scenes wanted to make it more and as such we have an array of characters and moments of drama yet so much of it is in fact unimportant, smoke and mirrors to try and make it more intriguing. But what all this filler does is to make "Hidden Agenda" difficult to follow. Even a subplot surrounding the women in Price's life fails to add anything to the movie.
But there are other problems with "Hidden Agenda" and it feels like this was made by the production tem who make Steven Seagal movies as the action ends up heavily edited. Of course you may not notice it if you aren't watching out for it but it feels like every punch or kick is followed by a cut and you sense rather than the action scenes in this being shot in a fluid manner they were all staged and then constructed in the editing room. Maybe it is just me but I miss the days when fight scenes felt real with less cuts and it takes away some of what the movie should be about.
Adding to the issues with "Hidden Agenda" is the generic, anonymous nature of the characters and truth be told the movie was over and I had no idea what some of the main character's names were or what they did. Of course part of the point of the movie is to confuse you so that you end up intrigued but the poor character writing doesn't do this, it just adds to the movie's issues. What it also means is that the actors fail to make much of an impression and whilst Lundgren certainly puts in a performance it isn't memorable.
What this all boils down to is that "Hidden Agenda" ends up just another poorly written and over edited action thriller which certainly doesn't show what Dolph Lundgren is capable of.
