Den of Lions (2003) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

Den of Lions is a modestly budgeted straight-to-vid espionage thriller set in Eastern Europe, of the type that usually star Steven Seagal or Wesley Snipes. In this case the star is Stephen Dorff, the second-tier Kiefer Sutherland, and he plays a Hungarian-American FBI agent working undercover to infiltrate the Russian mob in Budapest. Making the job really complicated is the fact that the he falls in love with the daughter (Laura Fraser) of the mob's kingpin (Bob Hoskins).

Why would America get involved in these Eastern European matters? Well, it seems that those crazy mobsters are not just pushing prostitution and drugs this month, but are also having a Veteran's Day sale on weapons of mass destruction. They've figured out a way to obtain a nuclear weapon through their connections in the former Red Army, and plan to sell it to Middle Eastern terrorists.

Candidly, the film isn't very tight or suspenseful. It begins with a long car chase which is virtually irrelevant to the rest of the movie. Following that is a period of narration in which Stephen Dorff tells us the back-story about the development of the Russian mob in Budapest, as related in the manner of a typical Dragnet introduction - "I was working the day watch out of bunco" - with a little bit of Sam Spade thrown in - "It was a cold night in a cold town. It was black, but nothing is every really black or white." While we hear about the agent's personal history and the history of the mob boss, some vaguely related visuals show us around Budapest a bit. All of that is followed by a sub-plot which lasts almost an hour, in which the agent convinces the kingpin's daughter to free a woman who was separated from her family and kidnapped into involuntary prostitution. All of that doesn't make for very compelling story-telling, and tends to distract from the real heart of the film, which is (or at least should have been) the nuclear threat. Unfortunately, when all the back-story and sub-plots are concluded, and the story finally gears up, all it has to offer is the usual staple diet of the genre: gunfights and chase scenes.

Bob Hoskins still stars in plenty of good movies. Just last year he made Danny the Dog and Mrs Henderson Presents, in which he played two very different roles, both very professionally, as always. The fact that he occasionally appears in crap like Son of the Mask, Maid in Manhattan, and Den of Lions is not scaring me yet, but I hope that Hoskins, always a personal favorite, is not yet getting ready to join the Ben Kingsley Club of actors who never pre-read their scripts as long as the paycheck meets their requirements.

The most entertaining part of the film's denouement is a long bit of completely gratuitous nudity from the gorgeous Hungarian actress Zita Gorog. When the mobster's house/headquarters is finally besieged by the Hungarian police, with only a few minutes left in the film, Gorog (playing, I suppose, a gypsy prostitute) is sleeping inside, wearing only a tiny thong. As the gun battle begins, she gets out of bed and wanders around the house in that state of nudity, ostensibly drugged-out, until she finds the mobster's lifeless corpse, which she proceeds to strip of valuables! Her spectacular body was naked for about two minutes of running time, and I don't think she had any lines! To be honest, I don't know if I should call that scene gratuitous because, although it was certainly irrelevant to the development of the plot, and came in out of left field, it did add some interesting texture which the film generally lacked in other scenes. Those two minutes, which include the Hoskins death scene, are probably the best part of the film. So cross out "gratuitous" above, and let's just call it a guilty pleasure, just about the only real pleasure in the film, and a very late one, coming some 90 minutes after the opening curtain.