In the mean streets of London's East End, a former Serbian commando and a fourteen-year old boy plot revenge against a powerful crime lord and his ruthless lieutenants. As our heroes prepare to take on their enemies, the boy is mentored in the dark arts of assassination and learns the true meaning of friendship, honour and respect. Set in London, this revenge flick is extremely violent, grim, and gritty and is filled with gore, torture scenes, and stacks of dead bodies. However, despite stretching credibility to the limit, it does offer some solid acting and the storyline, at times, has some redeeming qualities.<br/><br/>Lars Mikkelsen, the older brother of Mads, stars here as Dimitrije, a man seeking revenge against those who murdered his wife and young son, during the Bosnian War, some 20 years before. Before the war, he was a trained assassin, and has now left a trail of dead bodies across Europe, as he closes in on the main culprit of his family's slaughter.<br/><br/>The main culprit would be Lazarus (Darrell D'Silva), who is now a ruthless drug lord in the London area. One of Lazarus's couriers is a young lad named Montana, who is not aware yet that this same mob that he's working for killed his father and has all intentions of eventually killing him as well. McKell David makes quite the solid motion picture debut here as Montana.<br/><br/>One night, when he's robbed on his cash, along his route, the mob attempts to "off" him, but is thwarted by the intervention of Dimitrije. These two souls will now have a common purpose in seeking revenge against Lazarus and his henchmen, and Dimitrije will begin to train Montana in all aspects of weaponry and fighting skills.<br/><br/>Amidst all of this, Lazarus is trying to uncover who in his inner circle is trying to take over his business, plus also contend with two extremely corrupt London detectives. Of course, it will all culminate in a bloody and violent showdown.<br/><br/>Overall, this movie, directed by Mo Ali, and written by Jeremy Sheldon and Peter Lowe, may appeal to the die-hard fans of this genre. However, for the rest of us, if you can get past all the brutal and graphic violence, there is, as noted, some good acting and a fairly decent storyline in spots. In the Revenge action movie sub-genre, "Montana" is a great protégé movie with compelling characters, a ton of growling (LOVE that! LOL), and great fight scenes. <br/><br/>I highly recommend it and hope you enjoy the morality. It's always good to see the bad guys get their comeuppance. There's a ton of cursing and some of the characters are major jerks. So satisfying when they get taken down. There is some time spent developing the back story on the characters so you care what happens to them.<br/><br/>The title is a nod to Scarface in case you the miss the reference. At first I thought it was set somewhere in Eastern Europe but it turns out to be London's East End. Bits of it reminded me of John Wick.
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365 weeks ago