Deliver Us From Evil

The film is handled with seemingly effortless proficiency and, improbable as it certainly is, it delivers the goods in the action department.

Hwang, his face almost always covered in beads of sweat, is a very persuasive and impassive action hero and Lee is creepy and uproariously over the top.

Deliver Us from Evil misses a few of its beats, such as some emotional stakes it tries to inject too late in the game, but on the whole it's a straightforward, brain-off action romp with cool visuals.

Lee gets the more cartoonish role, but no scene featuring his menace, Hwang's blend of determination and desperation, or both, could ever wear out its welcome.

It's one of the better recent action pics.

As with so many Asian action films, there is a no-nonsense, straight-faced approach to the storytelling; the ferociously mounted action sequences have a distinct edge that delivers a visceral punch missing from most action offerings from Hollywood.

The violence is as gory and kinetic as a video game in this red-blooded microverse, where killing is strictly a job for the boys.

No surprise that Deliver Us from Evil is no great shakes in its attempts at severe drama, but it's not much as an action film, either.

It'll get your blood pumping, but it won't show you much of anything you haven't seen before.

Deliver Us From Evil's sweaty thrills might be derivative, but they're far from dead on arrival.