SYNOPSIS
DOLPH: UNBREAKABLE is a raw and revealing portrait of the action icon Dolph Lundgren. From a troubled upbringing in Sweden to global superstardom, the film explores Dolph’s hidden battles — including childhood trauma, chronic injuries and a brutal cancer diagnosis — and his relentless drive to survive and inspire. Through a medley of nostalgic home videos and archival photos, captivating interviews with comrades the likes of Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean Claude Van Damme and endlessly quotable clips, Lundgren delves into his life before and after the spotlight, and through his personal accounts, the larger-then-life superstar illuminates fans to the battles he waged in his head, heart, and body throughout his utterly fascinating lifetime on-and off the big screen.
What We Thought:
We here at The Nerds Templar are big Dolph Lundgren fans. We here are at The Nerds Templar have dealt with some crazy medical issues ourselves with cancer being one of them. Dolph: Unbreakable was a difficult watch, seeing a man who might have been one of the closest things to human perfection look weak from cancer, but as the title implies, he didn’t break.
If you only know Dolph Lundgren as an actor you probably think of him as Ivan Drago in Rocky IV. He only spoke a handful of lines as the giant Soviet fighting machine against Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa yet he’s one of cinema’s greatest villains. You may or may not remember him as Frank Castle in a 1980s adaptation of The Punisher. You may or may not remember him as He-Man in a 1980s adaptation of Masters of the Universe. Maybe you know him for Universal Soldier or The Expendables or his slew of straight-to-video flicks in the 1990s/2000s and supporting roles in the Aquaman movies or his return as Drago in Creed II.
If you only know him as an actor, you might not know that the man who looks like a Norse god is actually one of the smartest human beings around. Yes, the man who played Ivan Drago is actually a genius. Lundgren received a degree in chemical engineering from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in the early 1980s and a master’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Sydney. The documentary gets into his time at MIT and how he struggled with wanting to be at school, but also live the New York lifestyle with Grace Jones, who he was dating at the time. Ultimately he picked the lifestyle and his film career came from it.
The documentary does a good job in balancing the professional and personal story of Dolph. You learn about his early life in Sweden with an abusive father. He lived with his grandparents for a bit and it shows you how he got into martial arts. He was twice a European champion in the early 1980s. It gets into his marriage with the mother of his two daughters and how he wasn’t the most faithful man and wasn’t always around for his girls. It gets into his most recent relationship with the woman who was there during all his cancer experiences.
But it also reminds fans of the professional side. He’s been in a ton of movies I enjoy like Rocky IV and MOTU and The Expendables franchise and Universal Soldier. I watched a lot of straight-to-video flicks in the 1990s and 2000s and have seen movies like Joshua Tree (sometimes called Army of One), Skin Trade and In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds. He has great stories from his movies and it even shows him going to set while fighting cancer for films like Aquaman and Expend4bles. I will be honest and say that was hard to see knowing what kind of shape he was in even at his age prior to getting sick.
Dolph: Unbreakable is a raw, unfiltered look at a man most people know very little about. He’s not shy about his personal life, both good and bad. He’s not shy about his career, both good and bad. He’s not shy about his cancer diagnosis and not expecting to make it at times. If cancer has ever touched your life, you respect his brutal, honest outlook. I was moved by his honesty and heartbroken seeing him in the shape he was in at times. I’ve always been a fan of his movie work and knew the documentary would get to me because of it, but I’m glad I watched it no matter how tough it was.
