[Film Review] The Retaliators (2021)

The Retaliators feels like two movies wrapped into one. In one, we have a wild and blood-stained tale of vengeance, the limits of morality, and the depths a ‘good man’ will plunge when all hope seems lost. In the other, a gaggle of rock, grunge, and metal musicians cameo in a loosely drawn drug story with a vague tie to the catalyst of the first. The two stories emit a strange, disparate tone, but despite all that, somehow, it just…works.

Michael Lombardi stars as John Bishop, a widower, pastor, doting father, and ultimately, a badass killing machine who briefly struggles with his values and beliefs before twisting them to fit his circumstances. The film starts with a voice over as we drone above the requisite horror opening overhead forest, gruff and grizzled dialogue asking, “When do the sins of a good man make him bad?”

There’s never a real answer to that question, luckily, as there’s little in the narrative that focuses on the religious aspects of John and his chosen spiritual path, and the atrocities John ends up committing can be completely understood based on what happens to him. He is plagued with guilt and doubt as the story unfolds, but there is a clear absence of a moral lesson in The Retaliators. When his daughter is brutally murdered, John becomes a kind of pawn in another man’s quest for revenge as Jed (Marc Menchaca, The Outsider), the cop who oversees John’s case, gives him a chance to take action against his daughter’s murderer. John is clearly afflicted, and there is a moment, before the train goes completely off the rails, when he makes a decision so infuriating it’s nearly unforgivable. But even in this moment, the movie doesn’t try to take the proselytizing high road. Instead, brutality prevails. 

What makes The Retaliators a different kind of film is the presence of so many familiar faces from the rock and metal world. Jacoby Shaddix (Papa Roach) plays an abhorrent criminal with a lust for flesh, Joseph Gatt stars as a ruthless killer and brother of the VP of a biker gang, Tommy Lee shows up as a DJ at a strip club (obviously), Spencer Charnas (Ice Nine Kills) makes a brief appearance as a drugged-out brothel owner who smart mouths his way into a plastic bag, and many more metal and rock musicians pop in and out of frame. The storyline that follows these cameos is the one that feels completely unnecessary to John’s journey, but it’s easy to forgive the filmmakers because killer needle-drops and snarky dialogue add a load of exhilaration to an otherwise bleak story.

The Retaliators is a gory, bloody thrill ride that offers some fantastic and some predictably cringeworthy performances, a kick ass soundtrack, and has a hypothetical “no girls allowed” sign hung across the front of the murder spree treehouse, as the only roles for the ladies in the film are strippers and victims. It’s fine though, because some movies are meant to be fun without worrying about anything other than fun, and this movie is fucking fun.

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