Caffeinated Clint
The latest Steven Seagal movie reminds me of my first DVD player – economically priced but bulky, too dark and rather unkind of the eyes. And yet, it still works.
Steven Seagal, Eddie Griffin
The latest Steven Seagal movie reminds me of my first DVD player – economically priced but bulky, too dark and rather unkind of the eyes. And yet, it still works.
Seagal, like Jean Claude Van Damme, has had a pretty rotten decade – he may still have the support of his fans, but the majors have found other boys to play with now – trimmer, younger, sexier action heroes. Like the exterior of a banana, Sir Steven was tossed to the curb quicker than you can say ‘direct-to-video’, with past hits like “Under Siege” all but a distant memory.
Now, the man behind three-word action classics like “Hard to Kill”, “Out for Justice” and “Marked for Death”, is strictly performing for the lounge room brigade – headlining cheap, one-note action movies; the likes of which Wings Hauser became known for in the 80s and 90s. None of them are much good – the producers have no money to play with, the storyline of each are about as captivating as watching a hyena take a dump, and predominantly, not even the star seems very excited by any of them.
Seagal seems tired in most of the movies he does these days – barely involving himself in any action sequences (Huh? A Seagal movie that doesn’t feature the man doing martial-arts?) and seemingly spliced into the film after the fact (its evident that Seagal doesn’t share scenes with anyone anymore and instead, they just do some cut-aways to him responding to whoever is supposed to be in the scene with him). He’s there, it seems, to get his cheque and move on.
Thankfully, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel for the star of shockers like “Flight of Fury” and “Submerged”.
Seagal seems a little more enthused in Urban Justice, and you can understand why – not only is he playing a character much more suited to his age, but this guy has a reason to exist (as opposed to ‘Beefy Cop who owns a gun and must use it’). Its a return to the Seagal of yesteryear – well, aside from the fact he’s about thrice the size of Casey Ryback these days – his character in the film is appreciably cheeky (“, relentless and, welcomingly enough, kick-ass. For the first time in… I don’t know how long… Seagal actually participates in some pretty full-tilt biffo. Seems the man does still have it. The storyline too of the latest film is a lot thicker than the usual SS offering – a sort of “Death Wish” meets “Hard to Kill”, it fixes on a man, grieving over the death of his son, who heads to the Hood to take out the trash that sent his copper boy to the grave. This is the kind of vehicle Seagal’s fans have longed to see him in again.
If only they’d had a few more bucks, this could’ve been a real treat. Seagal is good in it – at times, very good – and proceedings are kept tight, vibrant and interesting. The only downfall of the film are the production values – it looks very, very cheap, and once again, Seagal’s scenes seem a little…odd. For some reason, whenever he appears on screen with someone else the room goes dark (in fact, every scene he’s in is dark!), very dark. Its as if he wants to mask his larger tummy, or trick audiences into believing he was indeed performing opposite another actor – – which, going by past experience, he most likely didn’t.
Eddie Griffin, playing a gangster villain of the piece, might’ve been better served playing a sort-of wacky sidekick to Seagal but surprisingly, he works well here.
This is a good step-forward for Seagal…. and with a few more bucks, a few more scenes not shot in a photographer’s ‘dark room’ and a script polish here and there, he could still make a big-screen comeback. Meantime, this should keep the fans happy!
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Reviewer : Clint Morris
