Alarum

Sylvester Stallone has made classics (Rocky, First Blood), classic turkeys (Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot), and a whole bunch of mediocre action pictures that all blend together in the mind. (If you can distinguish Assassins from The Specialist, congratulations.) His latest, Alarum, definitely falls into that last category. It’s not bad so much as hopelessly generic.

The title refers to an organization comprised of rogue spies hoping to improve the state of espionage around the globe. The United States government is not a fan. Married spies Joe (Scott Eastwood) and Lara (Strange Darling’s Willa Fitzgerald) are on what’s supposed to be a romantic vacation at a winter resort. They’re suspected of having joined Alarum, so CIA “fixer” Chester (Sylvester Stallone) is sent to determine whether this is true. He’s also got orders to eliminate them if necessary.

Alarum probably would have been a hit in the mid-1980s, with Stallone in the role of Joe. The film has the vibe of action cinema from that era, where plot and characterization were often secondary to how many guns were fired and how big stuff blew up. Actually, those two things are joined together here, as Chester and Joe use high-tech guns that can blast huge holes through brick walls. There’s nothing groundbreaking about the action, but director Michael Polish – whose The Astronaut Farmer is one of the most underrated films of the 2000s – stages it satisfactorily.

The performances are decent, too. Stallone has really settled into his late-career role as a world-weary, seen-it-all tough guy. Age suits him onscreen because he’s willing to poke a little fun at his own image. He strikes up a humorous rapport with Eastwood, leading to a few funny moments. Fitzgerald is the best of the group, bringing a fierce quality to Lara that makes her equal to the men, as opposed to a generic female in need of saving.

Where Alarum fails is in all the other departments. The plot does next to nothing to develop the idea of the rogue spy group. Even at the end, we still aren’t sure why it exists or why the government feels threatened by it. The mercenary character feels out of place a lot of the time, with very little suspense generated from his presence. Relationships between the players are similarly underdrawn. The Joe/Chester rivalry could have been exploited in a variety of fun ways, none of which the film bothers to look for.

Sylvester Stallone has made far worse movies. (Again, he starred in Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot.) The thing is, though, that a lot of his worst movies were at least memorable. Alarum is bland enough to render itself almost instantly forgettable.


out of four

Alarum is rated R for language, violence, and sexuality. The running time is 1 hour and 35 minutes.


© 2025 Mike McGranaghan