THE DOORMAN (2020) - Movie Review

Director: Ryûhei Kitamura
Starring: Ruby Rose, Aksel Hennie, Rupert Evans, Jean Reno, Julian Feder, Kíla Lord Cassidy, Louis Mandylor
Genre: Action, Thriller, Drama
Writer: Lior Chefetz, Joe Swanson, Devon Rose
Runtime: 97 min
Rated: Rated R for violence throughout, language and brief teen drug use
Buy This Movie: Blu-ray (Amazon), DVD (Amazon), Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV

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Synopsis:

Former Marine Gunnery Sergeant Ali Gorski returns home to New York after a failed attempt to save the American Ambassador’s eight year old daughter amidst a terrorist firefight in Romania. Hoping to get as far away from the violence of war as possible, she takes a job as a doorman at the labyrinthine old apartment building her brother-in-law Jon lives in with her niece Lily and her nephew Max. When a group of mercenaries led by the elegant Victor Dubois invades the building, intent upon retrieving priceless art hidden in its walls, they have no idea what hell aunt Ali is going to unleash to save her loved ones.

Review:

Streaming movies have this reputation of being cheap garbage dumped on digital like the direct-to-video movies of yesteryear. "The Doorman" is not an exception to that rule. This is just another dumb "Die Hard" knock-off with abysmal production values and terrible acting. The only country that released this movie theatrically was Russia, and I think that says it all.

The movie's opening terrorist attack in Romania, or the backwoods of Romania, to be more exact, is about the only half-competent action scene. I'm a little confused why they would pick Romania as the setting for the terrorist attack, since it's the most unlikely place in the world for this kind of event. Anyway, things go downhill from there. The movie's structure addheres closely to the "Die Hard" formula, replacing Christmas with Easter (why ?!), and ripping off plot elements like the terrorists discovering the relationship between their captives and the lone wolf picking them off one by one.

Ruby Rose is a charisma void and doesn't seem able to pull off the action scenes, which would explain the choppy editing trying so hard to conceal the stunt person doing all the fighting. Her one-liners are also terrible. Who ever wrote the "I'm a Scorpio; it would never work" quip, should never write another movie again ! Jean Reno is sleepwaking through his part as the big boss villain. I'm not saying he needed to chew scenery for his scenes to work, but his line delivery is dead boring. I also recognized Rupert Evans from Guillermo del Toro's "Hellboy", and he's actually okay in the little screen time he has. To my surprise, Louis Mandylor is the only one who seems to be having fun with his part. The kids, however are pretty annoying. To be fair, Kíla Lord Cassidy, who plays Ali's niece, redeemed herself with a remarkable performance in the 2022 film "The Wonder".

The lack of a decent budget is on full display in this movie. Shot in Romania, it looks like one of Steven Seagal's recent movies. The sets are generic and poorly designed, the camerawork is uninspired, the fight choreography is unexciting and underwhelming, and there's some incredibly bad green-screening during a rooftop fight. Basically, every single thing that could have elevated this dumpster fire, just doesn't work.

I don't know much about director Ryûhei Kitamura's other movies. I've only seen "The Midnight Meat Train", a Clive Barker adaptation that was pretty good, but "The Doorman" is a godawful disaster. Stay away from this movie at all costs !

SCORE: 2/10