ONE IN THE CHAMBER is a fairly decent stab at the B-movie thriller genre, featuring plenty of hard violence, tough guy behaviour and character twists for viewers. The story is about two rival assassins who end up teaming up to battle the Russian mafia. Cuba Gooding Jr. is the ostensible lead, the usual hard man with a soft heart for the ladies, but his thunder is stolen by supporting co-star Dolph Lundgren. Lundgren is fantastic here, shot in such a way in his fight scenes that makes him look the toughest he's ever been, a powerhouse performance that reminds you why he continues to be a familiar face in action cinema. Other likeable co-stars include Brit villain Billy Murray and the underrated Louis Mandylor. There's plenty of fighting, bad guys being shot and the usual tough guy behaviour, so fans should enjoy it.

Ray Carver (Cuba Gooding Jr.) is an assassin for hire in Prague. He is hired by crime boss Mikhail Suverov (Andrew Bicknell) to kill the Tavanian family over a territory issue...it's all about respect. One of the Tavanians survive to the dismay of the Surverov family. This ignites a war. Surverov then hires Aleksey Andreev (Dolph Lundgren) to finish the job. Meanwhile in an ironic twist the Tavanian's hire Carver to kill his former boss the Surverov family.

The two assassins have different approaches. Ray Carver likes to keep a low profile while Aleksey wears Hawaiian shirts and usually comes in the front door. Carver works out, reads the Bible, kills people for hire, and stalks a girl. Dolph Lundgren gives the film some attempted comedy. During the opening credits, they opt to change the fonts and make the "N"s backwards. I thought it might somehow relate to the film, but it wasn't that deep.

Both these stars have done better films and Cuba has certainly done worse. The Eastern Europeans sounded like they learned English by watching Dos Equis beer commercials. The film ends at a point where there could be an interesting sequel if they bothered to hire writers.

PARENTAL GUIDE: F-bomb, near sex, no nudity.

The action of the film is actually good and well-wrote. I have seen some of the actors in so many movies so I can say that they play pretty good. However, all the links to the place where the action takes place is said Prague, so the capital of Czech Republic. I am not agree because I recognize most of the places because there are from y country, Romania. The action starts actually in Brasov, in the middle of our country, and then, at the end, there are some views from Bucharest, the capital of Romania. The stage manager wanted some good landscapes, so he used Romania's landscapes as being in Prague? I still do not get why they did this. There are some places to promote in Czech Republic or what? Why do they tell to the viewers that the action takes place in Prague if the Atheneum is in Bucharest, the Hotel Grivita is there too and so many other places? Why do they use from time to time sequences from Prague, like the tram and the Dancing Building so they could say that all the action takes place there? Shame!