Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

linda-583-735658 Pentathlon tells the story of an olympic athlete who defects to the USA and is hunted by East German Stasi agent (David Soul). Compare film with the German book, "Tod dem Verraeter" (2000) by Heribert Schwan, which tells the TRUE story of olympic athlete, Lutz Eigendorf, who escapes East Germany and is tracked down allegedly by Stasi and murdered. When I watched Pentathlon I could not help but compare it to the book and wonder where the film writers came up with the story???? And by the way, Soul, with a pseudo German accent, is awful in this flick. Wherever the film's plot came from, it could have been an exciting action film. Instead it was dull and plodding.

Frank Markland Dolph Lundgren stars as an Olympic athlete who is looking to make his comeback. However not only does Lundgren face the hurdles of getting back in shape, quitting smoking and pulling himself out of a depression he also has to contend with a psychopath/neo-Nazi coach (David Soul) who is still obsessed with him after Lundgren defected years before. Dolph Lundgren is really one of the most inconsistent action stars in the business, for every enjoyable action flick he makes (The Punisher, I Come In Peace, Universal Soldier,Army Of One) there is more that are just plain terrible (Cover-Up, Masters Of The Universe, Red Scorpion) however in sheer dullness few of his titles live up to the painfulness of Pentathlon. I admit that the plot hints at some fun, with Lundgren facing a neo-Nazi army while training for the Olympics but sadly this is supposed to be character driven and in the hands of Lundgren, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that he's in way over his head. Lundgren tries extremely hard to make the part credible but he fails and instead contributes one of his worst performances to date. Lundgren of course can be effective mainly when he beats up on various bad guys but we instead get too many scenes of Lundgren soul searching and hence this is as dull as it gets. David Soul is amusing in the role, adding a wisp to his villainous scowl which almost makes up for the horrendous story but overall let's face it, placing him against Dolph Lundgren is nearly impossible and it's hard to believe that a director (Who helmed Nighthawks mind you!) could believe in the idea that a fight between Lundgren and Soul would even be close. Worst of all there is next to zero action, it's as if Lundgren wanted to try and act and despite his best efforts, one will never appreciate him for anything more than just providing mindless action and nothing else beyond that. Lundgren has a screen presence sure, but he's not a great actor so if you take away his ability to fight then it's no secret the movie is bound to be a disappointment.* out of 4-(Bad)

indyronin Being a big Dolph Lundgren fan, I was surprised to see a completely different side of him in this one, portraying him as being a pathetic, injured burnout who flips burgers for a living, while walking down dark alleys with no company beside his portable TV and his beer. When he is menaced by a group of hoodlums, they laugh at him when his trick knee gives out and he can't chase them. This struck me as being very odd, because it was Dolph acting like a regular guy, rather than the sarcastic killing machines he's typecast as. Sadly, as enjoyable as all of the footage of him being a loser (and his inspiring comeback into grade-A Pentathalon runner material), it sort of abruptly switches gears, turning into one of his usual action movies with a nonsense subplot involving neo-Nazis. It's a shame that the whole thing couldn't have been like the first two acts, or this would be by far his best performance, in a close tie with GR13 from Universal Soldier.

Chad-14 This has got to be one of the five best movies of all time, it is absolutely amazing. Dolph should have won many academy awards already in his illustrious career, but he tends to be overlooked. When I think of exciting action, I think of Dolph Lundgren. Dolph is also very versatile, he can play almost any role, from the sinister yet likable Ivan Drago, to the amazing Major Frank Cross, and who can forget him as He-man, I thought he should have got best actor for that. In this film he does an excellent job as Eric Brogar, he truly shows that anyone can go to the Olympics, if they train hard enough. Keep on making those great movies Dolph!!! GO DOLPH!!!!!!!!!!!