Dolph Lundgren blows holes through everybody in sight in "The Killing Machine," a swiftly-paced account about a former KGB gunsel who flees to America and becomes a hired gun for the Russian mob. Lundgren wears two hats again as star and director and this trim 88-minute shoot'em up doesn't squander a second. The best thing about "Breach of Trust" scenarist Raul Inglis' screenplay is that things keep changing throughout and the film has book ends. The dialogue isn't exactly memorable, but our put-upon protagonist finds himself between a rock and a hard place after he quits the Russian mob and has to battle gunmen in his face until he dispatches all of them. Posing as an investment broker, Edward Genn (Dolph Lundgren of "Rocky IV") is in reality an assassin on the payroll who is incredibly good at what he does. Nevertheless, he believes that he has made some bad choices. One of those bad choices was helping a comrade escape Mother Russian and vanishing into obscurity into America. One day Edward gets a contract, but he is contract and he has to shoot it out with dozens of assailants. If this weren't enough for an action-oriented epic, Lundgren and Inglis raises the stakes by making our hero's little daughter and her mother Joey (Sefanie von Pfetten) bull's eye targets. Virtually everybody that Edward knows winds up betraying him until he has no friends. U.S. authorities save his wife and daughter and force him to kill his old friend, Vadim (Bo Svenson of "Inglorious Bastards") in return for safety. Lundgren delivers another stoic performance as the gun-wielding assassin who outsmarts most of his foes. Mind you, "The Killing Machine" qualifies as a low-budget, B-movie shoot'em up with some gunfights and fistfights capably staged by Lundgren and lenser Marc Windon captures all this gritty action with imaginative camera work and angles. The plot itself is strictly formula, but Lundgren energetic direction compensates for some of this familiarity.
