Silent Trigger (1996)
Silent Trigger is a 1996 American action thriller film directed by Russell Mulcahy starring Dolph Lundgren and Gina Bellman about a sniper and his female spotter. Lundgren plays Waxman, a former Special Forces soldier who is now working as a heavily armed assassin sent on a mission by a secretive “Agency”, to assassinate a target from an abandoned skyscraper in construction. Memories and moral dilemmas resurface when a former spotter from a failed assignment shows up.
Plot.
The movie takes place in and around an unfinished city skyscraper, the “Algonquin”, where a sniper/spotter team (Waxman and Clegg) set up a firing platform on a top floor. The two arrive independently of each other, two of the Agency’s assassins. As they meet, they recognize each other, as they have been on a mission together before. This mission is portrayed in a series of flashbacks. In the first flashback, Waxman and Clegg were supposed to assassinate a female politician. Waxman hesitates when the politician lifts a child and, while hesitating, a helicopter appears, air assaulting soldiers in the courtyard behind the team’s firing position.RELATED:
Top 9 Dolph Lundgren Action Movies.
The two defeat the attacking force, including the machine gun-equipped helicopter, whose pilot and copilot are shot through the canopy.
Returning to the primary scene, one of the construction site security personnel is new on the job. The drug-addicted regular, O’Hara (Christopher Heyerdahl) attempts to win a statutory position over him by scaring him. As Waxman opens a roof door, a light by the security personnel turns on, and the newcomer, Klein (Conrad Dunn) leaves in search of it.
The internal lift of the building is clearly audible, and Clegg surveys Klein’s movements, when he arrives. She interrupts his inspections when he is about to open the roof door.
She takes him to the lift, sending him downwards. However, just as she is talking him off, she sees Waxman sitting on top of the lift car. He mounts a bomb on the lift car and, when the car begins moving, nearly falls down the shaft. He is saved by Clegg, and they both attempt keeping up the “just business”-facade, although some romantic appreciation is apparent.
While the two on the rooftop readjust their gear, O’Hara, presumably, decides to rape Clegg. However, Clegg pulls her small-caliber sidearm, and threatens O’Hara into the lift. When O’Hara returns downstairs, he picks up his gun and puts on body armor. He then surprises Clegg, while she is standing over the sink of the top-floor bathrooms.
Clegg points her gun at him, and shoots a well- aimed bullet into his chest. Unsurprised by this, O’Hara attacks Clegg, but is encountered by Waxman, and a violent fight takes place in an unfinished hall between various building materials. The fight is won by Waxman, and he ties the now bloody O’Hara to a toilet.
Clegg and Waxman consummate their feelings for each other. Afterwards, as duty continues, Waxman heads for the bathrooms, but sees water running out under the door to the bathroom. He pulls his gun, and discovers that O’Hara has disappeared.