As Command Performance‘s end credits began to roll, I turned to my wife and instructed her to always say “No” if I ever suggest watching a Dolph Lundgren movie again. And it’d be hard to find a Dolph-ier Lundgren movie than Command Performance. He stars, he directs, he cowrote the screenplay. He also gives himself a love interest thirty-five years his junior (Melissa Molinaro), but that issue’s more with Lundgren’s ego than his filmmaking sensibilities.

Strangely, I like Lundgren to some degree. His acting has reached a point where he’s affably bad. And his direction isn’t completely terrible. Sure, it’s that lame video vérité television like “24” has made acceptable–Lundgren doesn’t need to actually compose shots–but if you’re going to direct a grandiose Die Hard knock-off on a rather low budget, it’s not a stupid way to go.

Unfortunately, the writing is completely atrocious, but it’s not all Lundgren’s fault. The screenwriter he brought in to script his story–Steve Latshaw–is clearly incompetent.

There’s a lot of terrible, terrible acting. Molinaro’s Britney Spears impression is probably the most hair-pulling, as Molinaro firstly can’t act, her character is just a lousy, lame person.

But Zahary Baharov (in particular), Hristo Shopov and Dave Legeno are all fine.

And Lundgren does have a sublime scene with a father being bewildered by his pre-teen daughters enthusiasm over a talentless, slutty pop star.

The writing’s just really bad, making it a tedious chore to watch.

Never again.