For fans of action movies and martial arts films in particular, it has to bring a smile to their faces to see Scott Adkins and Marko Zaror at the top of the Diablo callsheet. The longtime friends and combatants recently worked together on John Wick: Chapter 4, and it was decided it was long past due for them to take control of a movie just for them. And they’ve done it with Diablo, from hammering out the story to producing to fight choreography, the duo were involved with everything. The result? Exactly what we want to see, Adkins and Zaror going all out, hard, fast, and brutal in a familiar, no bullshit kick to the teeth.
Adkins, also a producer on Diablo, plays Kris, a newly-released ex-con who has just snuck into Colombia inside the trunk of a car. Kris is the kind of guy who means well but can’t walk two feet without getting into a fight. The guy he paid to drive him tries to extort him for more cash and, well, Kris has to teach him a lesson. Kris is there to kidnap Elisa (Alana De La Rossa) from her powerful father, the gangster Vicente (Lucho Velasquez) who he shares a deadly past with. Snatching her from her hapless bodyguards, Kris suddenly has a bounty on his head that has every hired killer and criminal on his trail. But the biggest problem is a psychotic nutjob named El Corvo, played by Zaror.
Zaror has created an awesome new character with El Corvo. The one-handed assassin is clearly inspired by No Country for Old Men‘s Anton Chigurh. When we first meet him, he’s sitting alone at a diner with a slice of cake. He forces the waitress to sit, asking if she’s treated herself to a gift, then forces her to take a bite of the dessert. The whole time, he’s removed the stump to reveal a terrifying blade, which he uses to make her eat. El Corvo is always this creepy, and with his metal hand that he uses for both offense and defense, he’s virtually unstoppable. And boy, does he have a serious hate for Vicente. He doesn’t actually give a damn about Kris initially. He just wants Elisa for his own twisted purposes.
Diablo was written by Mat Sansom, who helped concoct the story, but it was directed by someone Zaror is quite familiar with, Ernesto Díaz Espinoza. They have worked together numerous times, most recently on the amazing Fist of the Condor, which readers of this site will know I raved about to a ridiculous degree. Zaror and Espinoza just have this vibe goin’ on. Zaror looks faster and more lethal when shot by Espionoza than with any other filmmaker. And considering El Corvo routinely tears through dozens of killers with ease, Zaror looks great in this movie a lot.
While action is what we all signed up for, there’s a surprising amount of heart, too. Much of this comes from the tenuous relationship between Elisa and her kidnapper, Kris. We’ve seen Adkins act as security before, but here he’s called on to be protective and that’s a bit different. It’s a chance for him to show a softer, funnier side and he has terrific chemistry with La Rossa. Figuring out why Kris is so invested in Elisa is pretty easy, and you’ll likely have it sussed out after a few minutes. That’s fine. Nobody signed up for Diablo to be a complex mystery, but they do manage to find a way to make us care about these two and whether they can reconcile their significant differences.
That’s great and all, but how often do Adkins and Zaror get to punch one another? Well, quite a lot, actually. Diablo is a small-scale movie and it starts off pretty modest, but I was impressed by how the fights got bigger and more intense. There’s a fantastic brawl in the middle of the movie featuring Zaror just wiping the floor with dozens of folks in all manner of unspeakable ways. The camera twisting at crazy angles to show every broken bone, all of the bloodshed. It’s a scene that looks like something Gareth Evans might’ve done, and that is about as high of a compliment that I can give. The cool thing is, the scene gets better at the end because that’s when Adkins shows up out of nowhere and the fighting spills out into a different arena. The scope of Diablo is surprisingly large, and that includes a great final showdown and rescue where Adkins and Zaror punch, kick, and slam one another so hard you’d swear someone must’ve spent time in a hospital afterwards.
Diablo isn’t breaking new ground for the genre or anything. The plot is by-the-numbers and you can see every turn coming a mile away. But so what? It does what it promises to do and that’s deliver intense martial arts action from two of the best in the game. What more is there to ask for other than a sequel?
Lionsgate releases Diablo in theaters, VOD, and digital on June 13th.
