Pentathlon became the final film of Bruce Malmuth’s directorial career but for Dolph Lundgren, the movie’s hero, it was still early in his long career on screen that would establish him as one of the greatest action heroes in Hollywood. The sports-themed political action drama starts with an interesting premise but struggles to make it to the finish line without losing much steam.
Lundgren plays Eric Brogar, an Olympic pentathlon winner athlete from East Germany who uses the sporting event in Seoul to escape from his coach Heinrich Mueller (David Soul), a neo-Nazi control freak who demands complete subjugation of all his protégés. Hoping to find a new life in Los Angeles free from the tyranny, Eric faces adjustment challenges in the new country while Mueller decides to go after him. But there is more to Mueller’s psychopathic plans than recapturing Eric.
Pentathlon is one of the toned-down action films, one relying on dramatic tension and fleshing out the lead characters instead of reckless shooting and long combat sequences to thrill the audience every five minutes or so. For fans of more realistic stories in the action genre, it’s like a welcoming break from convention. Eric’s character isn’t an all-macho fireball of revenge or ass-kicker on a mission but a regular guy trying to live in peace, which is a notable merit of the movie. However, the romantic subplot kind of gives the flow of the movie a hiccup with the underdeveloped character of Julia Davis (Renee Coleman).
Then there is the political narrative in the movie – the depiction of neo-Nazis and their plot to sabotage peace in the world. It doesn’t fit well with the sporting spirit of the story. The movie’s biggest flaw though is the final encounter that mars whatever precedes it by coming off as a ham-handed segment that tends to impose credulity and defies good taste. If overdone and underdeveloped were to happen at the same time in one scene, Pentathlon offers its ending.
