The old-school action comedy "The Dangerous Duo" from the creator of "Blue Beetle" Angel Manuel Soto, starring Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa, has been released online. What does Alexander Nevsky have to do with it and why the main loser in this game...

Navy officer James Hale (Dave Bautista) receives sad news that his father, whom James hasn't seen for a long time due to vague grievances, died in an accident on a city road. James's wife, Leyla (Rhoimatta Fox), believes he should inform his brother Johnny (Jason Momoa), a police officer from a small reservation, but James avoids it under various pretexts. Then Leyla secretly calls Johnny and catches him at a bad moment: his beloved woman Valentina (Morena Baccarin) is leaving him.

Nevertheless, gathering in full at the funeral, the brothers start bickering at a kindergarten level right at the deathbed, and later learn that their father did not die accidentally: someone really wanted him not to make a series of important revelations. Then the half-brothers, overcoming mutual hostility, begin their investigation and find themselves in a web of criminal conspiracy, where every thread leads to their own unspoken grievances.

Thus begins "The Dangerous Duo" — a new Amazon Prime Video film positioned as an honest, old-school action movie about two big guys, created according to the standards of the video store era, when muscular men dealing with mafia clans were held in high esteem. The film confidently occupies its niche in the pantheon of openly macho action — expensive, star-studded, high-tech product of the Hollywood conveyor belt, but devoid of even a hint of authorial style.

The formula is painfully familiar: aggressive marketing and chemistry between actors are prioritized, overshadowing questions of script originality or character depth. Director Angel Manuel Soto, who previously directed the solid but overlooked "Blue Beetle" amid the DC universe restructuring, here simply conscientiously follows these rules.

From the first frames, "The Dangerous Duo" is a classic buddy movie: two antipodes, bound by a shared painful past, forced to work together. James is composed and disciplined, straight as an arrow. Johnny is chaotic, drinking, more like a disgraced rock star than a law enforcement officer. Their confrontation should provide both dramatic tension and comedic effect. If the latter works every now and then, the drama quickly falls into clichés. The script soon stops bothering with psychological credibility and simply exploits proven patterns.

And yet, the advance given to the film at the very beginning was truly powerful. The main bet of the project is the duo of Bautista and Momoa. Both possess powerful screen presence that makes even weak material forgivable. Their interaction is the only truly lively and working part of "The Dangerous Duo." But this tool apparently fell into the wrong hands, and if we assume the film were directed by, say, Panos Cosmatos, it would have turned out better.

Even in the ironic plane in which the film is initially presented and from which, generally speaking, no deep thoughts are required, "The Duo," sorry, lacks basic "fat," sharpness, audacity, and a certain peacock-like narcissism to fully shine in the B-movie niche. However, all that director Soto managed to achieve is grainy film that only pretends to mean something. But that, alas, is not enough.

Everything else is just pale scenery. The promising mystery with the yakuza and corruption quickly turns into a formal excuse for another shootout or another verbal spat. After capturing the viewer's attention with one fairly spectacular fight in a confined space, where Momoa fights like a bull in a china shop, the director then lets everything slide, and even for a simple action movie, it all looks quite cheap and not at all angry. The film's tone oscillates between ironic comedy and family drama about brotherly love, never finding a golden mean. Jokes are interspersed into bloody confrontations, drama drowns in farce. Instead of a light, dynamic adventure, we get something tedious and internally contradictory.

In the end, "The Dangerous Duo" is a small but still a disaster. It neither irritates nor delights; it simply exists as a file in a digital catalog. For a viewer wanting to spend an evening with familiar clichés without extra thought, this may suffice. For those expecting at least a hint of inventiveness or emotional resonance from cinema — no. However, the film does have one plus: its plot is perfect for another remake to be directed by Alexander Nevsky. The level, indeed, is spot on.