End of a Gun (2016)

It's a yearly tradition at the DTVC, our Steven Seagal birthday post. This is also one I've been meaning to get to for a long time, but as long as I've been back from hiatus, this has only been available as a rental. Then a miracle happened, and RedBox's streaming service of all places had this free with ads. Wonders never cease in the world of DTV and Seagal films.

End of a Gun has Seagal as some kind of former DEA/CIA/whatever who one night in Paris/Bucharest finds Jade Ewan being hassled by her jerky boyfriend. He of course insinuates himself, gives the jerky boyfriend some slap chop routine, and next thing you know there's a shootout and the boyfriend is dead. Thing is, the boyfriend works for a drug kingpin and had an obscene amount of money in the trunk of his car, and said car has been impounded by the French police in Bucharest. As the drug dealers try to find a way to get the money, Ewan uses her ample feminine wiles to convince Seagal to get it first, which he's all too happy to do. But can he trust her? And what will happen when the drug dealers find out and come for him? It'll probably end in some kind of showdown in an abandoned factory, right?

This is every bit the 2010s Keoni Waxman-directed Seagal actioner you'd expect it to be, only with a twist. The twist is, spoiler alert, Seagal doesn't get the girl. And there's even a hint--only a hint, Seagal wouldn't allow us to have more of that--that the girl really isn't interested in him. How can you not be into Seagal though? Between the chia pet goatee, the fake Cajun accent, and the frequent doubles, what's not to like? But we're at a stage now where I've watched and we've reviewed all of these Seagal DTV efforts--I still haven't reviewed The Onion or Clementine, but you know what I mean, this kind of movie, we've now done them all--and when you find something unique about one, it's hard not to hold onto it like grim death. And that may also explain why this one is kind of harder to get than a lot of the others, Seagal took a look at it after the fact and was like "I don't like how it looks like Jade Ewan wasn't into me." These films seem to have a kind of charm in spite of themselves though, right? And out of the seven films he had released in 2016, this one might have more time with him standing than the other six combined, so there's that too. All that said, this is a fun time killer in that 2010s Seagal DTV kind of way, but you should only go out of your way to watch it if it's the last one for you, like this is for me.

We're now at 39 films for Seagal as we celebrate his 71st birthday. His output has slowed down considerably, but he does have two films in pre-production according to IMDb, so perhaps we'll have more in the near future--plus I can finally do The Onion film to get him into the 40 Club too if neither of those films happen. And if they don't, what is Seagal's legacy? Starred in some of the best late 80s/early 90s actioners, and then went on to have one of the goofiest DTV action careers--and this film is indicative of all of that. There's something fascinating about it all, isn't there? And I think it's for that reason that no one on the site other than Dolph and maybe Willis moves the needle the way Seagal does. Action fans have come for the awesome, classic early stuff, and have stuck around to watch the car wreck that is the newer stuff. And they aren't serious car wrecks either, they're like you hear the squeal of tires outside, then the crash, and then yelling, because some asshole wasn't paying attention and crashed into someone else at an intersection. No one's hurt, and ultimately it's just a matter of cooler heads prevailing and the parties involved trading insurance information, but in the meantime, I just need to look out my window and watch what's happening, which I guess is why I need to come back to these Seagal films time and again, I'm just drawn to the whole alchemy of goofy and former glory.

Why is my one shot of Jade Ewan obscured by this man's back? Because that man's supposed to be Seagal, but, as we know, he never does his reverse shots. The thing with Ewan, is she's stunning, complete with an English accent that would make any American straight male like Seagal putty in her hands, and there's really nothing wrong with that, but as we also know, Seagal can't have it seem like someone is getting over on him. The movie tries to split the baby on that, by having her double-cross him, but him act like he figured on that, but he wanted to help her anyway, or whatever, which of course no one is buying. Before Jade was in this, she was in the British pop group The Sugarbabes, who I remember having a hit here in the States with "Hole in the Head," but it looks like Ewan wasn't in that iteration of the group. She's currently on a Netflix show, Luis Miguel, where she plays Mariah Carey. I haven't seen any of that show, but here I thought she did well as an actor--maybe too well when acting opposite Seagal, or opposite his double, like she was in this scene--so I can imagine she's probably good in that show too.

This is the last of the 9 Keoni Waxman/Steven Seagal films we had to review, so it's almost like the end of something with that, isn't it? From 2009 when he and Seagal did The Keeper, until 2016's Cartels (I believe it was their last collaboration--it was one of these 2016 movies) Waxman almost worked exclusively with Seagal, the one exception being Hunt to Kill with Stone Cold Steven Austin and Gary Daniels. Maybe it's not Scorsese and De Niro, but this collaboration has been one of the most fascinating in DTV history. We always joked that Waxman is the Seagal whisperer, because he seemed to do the best at working around all of the things Seagal expects out of his movies. By the same token, it has to be tiring, and after Cartels in 2016 he hasn't worked with Seagal since. I've been using the word "fascinating" a lot in this review, but these 9 Waxman/Seagal films leave behind a fascinating legacy. The 2010s were about turning the DTV film world into assembly line productions, kicking out cookie-cutter movies with known names on the tin to get as many streams and rentals as possible; but these Waxman/Seagal films, though they were as much a part of starting and establishing that trend, they also give us something a bit more. Between the goofiness and the benign car wreck quality of what Seagal's career has become, there's a sense that Waxman is trying to not only work with Seagal, but also almost highlight the goofiness and benign car wreck quality in his own subtle way. I don't know if he's doing it on purpose, but, again, it's just fascinating.

Finally, with this probably being the last Seagal post on the site for some time, I figured I'd do one final paragraph on him. When I started the site in 2007, Seagal DTV was something I was just getting into, but even then, in a short period between 2003 and 2007, he put out 13 DTV films, all of varying levels of quality. You had absurd moments, like him playing a professor in Out for a Kill and decapitating a man by throwing a samurai sword at him from a second story window; but also there were some pretty solid moments, like The Foreigner and it's Le Samourai vibes. Over the 39 films of his we've reviewed, we've seen Seagal's accent become more Cajun'y, his goatee more chia pet-ish, and his ratio of sitting to standing tilt further to the side of the former. Through it all, Seagal's films always provided fun content for the site, whether the film was good or bad. He's the first of the big names that we're nearing completion on, and as we do the same with Dolph, Van Damme, Gary Daniels, et al, this will free up more posts for names like Fred Williamson who we've been trying to catch up on, or names like Frank Zagarino who we've just gotten started on. Also, while we may not be reviewing much more Seagal here on the site, expect more of him on the DTVC podcast, so if you're not subscribed, make sure you are so you catch all our upcoming episodes.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Right now RedBox streaming is the only way to get this free, and I think that's the way to go. It's really for Seagal completists only, but being a Seagal DTV completist is a lot of fun, so why not?

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2268433

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Gutshot Straight (2014)

I've had this one in the can for a bit. I watched it free on Vudu, grabbed the images, and then that was it, it was relegated to the world of pay on demand. This was the last Seagal I had left in the can that I needed to review, so I figured it was time to finally make it happen. In addition to us, Cool Target has done this as well.

Gutshot Straight has George Eads as a down-on-his-luck poker player in Vegas--is there any other kind in movies?--who is propositioned by a creepy older guy played by Stephen Lang--does he play any other type?--to have sex with his wife. None of that sounds good, and after some shenanigans, Lang ends up dead, and Eads and the wife, played by AnnaLynne McCord, need to figure out what they're going to do. Maybe this is Eads's ticket out of his down-on-his-luck life, or maybe it's the kind of thing that will just get him in deeper. We wouldn't have a movie if it wasn't the latter, and as he gets in deeper, he doesn't know who to trust, so it's going to take all of his poker savvy--plus a little luck--to get himself out of this jam. Hopefully he and his straw fedoras make it out alive.

This was what exactly what you'd think it was, a modern Noir that unfortunately due to the fact that it was made in 2014 instead of 1954 has none of the charm and allure of those films; and because it wasn't made in 1994, it doesn't have the avant garde indie element that gets you through those--plus no Linda Fiorentino, who could take even the most "we've seen this before" Noir and make it compelling. The thing is though, as a Seagal completist--I don't even know if "fan" properly describes me anymore--this is a fascinating entry in his filmography, plus we have other names like Tia Carrere, Vinnie Jones, Loni Love, and Ted Levine to add to the ones I've already mentioned, which makes this slightly more elevated. One area where the film loses me as a Film Noir, is I don't know if George Eads is enough of a patsy, and AnnaLynne McCord enough of a femme fatale. When I think of something like The Last Seduction, the power dynamic between Linda Fiorentino and Peter Berg is evident; but Eads can't bring himself to be that Peter Berg schmuck enough, and McCord isn't Fiorentino enough to compensate. Throw in the creepiness of Lang's character, and now added to a dynamic that's not so compelling between Eads and McCord, I have Lang being so creepy I want to run away from him. Again though, I'm here for the Seagal, and this is enough of an interesting entry for Seagal completists.

We're now at 38 films for Seagal, but the issue is, the only one left is End of a Gun, and that hasn't been free to stream in forever. After that, I guess it's Clementine to get him to 40. Maybe for him Clementine in Koren with no English subs would be worth it for that. Here he plays a mob boss that Eads owes money to. It's the perfect kind of Seagal role, he gets to be all powerful against Eads's groveling for another chance to pay his debts. In looking at his bio, he doesn't have another role or film like this, so in that way this is a fascinating entry. I had it in my bottom five when I discussed Seagal with the guys from Comeuppance on their podcast a few years ago, and on further reflection, I think that's a little harsh, as Seagal has really tested our loyalty in ways much worse than this movie. Speaking of which, in terms of future Seagal reviews, there's also the issue of his True Justice movies, of which I think there's 11. For those who don't know, when Seagal's TV show True Justice was released on DVD, instead of releasing it a set of the episodes, they paired episodes off and packaged them as standalone movies. If I were to do those, we'd be talking about Seagal for the 50 Club. I don't know, maybe just outside the 40 Club is the best place for him instead...

Did you know Steven Lang was creepy? Like I don't know if anyone plays a creepy person better. I think he sits off in a corner at a mostly empty Starbucks, watches as a guy who has seats everywhere to sit, but decides to sit next to the only other person in the place, and says "yeah, that's it right there." Maybe he rides the subway, and when a guy makes sure his stance is wide enough to touch the women sitting on either side of him, unlike the rest of us who think "what a weirdo!" he smiles and says "that's what I'm looking for right there!" Perhaps he goes to the gym, under the guise of working out, but instead watches the guy who thinks the woman that just happens to be on the machine next to him must have a thing for him, and waits for the guy to harass the poor woman who's just trying to get some exercise. "Oh man, when she said 'I already have a boyfriend,' and he acted like he wasn't really into her... oh that's it right there! Why didn't I bring my notebook!" If you're a creep, Stephen Lang is out there somewhere studying you. He has fake female Twitter accounts just hoping you'll send him a DM. "Oh, you have a wife and a daughter, do you? So you just wanna be friends? Of course you do. Everyone just wants to be friends until they DM me a picture of their genitals, and I'm mining your creepiness all the way to my next role as a creepy guy who wants someone to sleep with his wife in front of him." In all seriousness, wouldn't Lang be great as Falwell in the dramatic film version of that scandal? I would watch that as quickly as I watched the Hulu documentary. Here's to you Stephen Lang, turning creepy into an art.

I couldn't believe that this was only our fourth Tia Carrere film on the site, but when I looked over her bio, the DTV stuff she's done doesn't always make it on here. She doesn't have as many action films, at least not DTV ones. She has a small part here as a guy who hits on Eads to get him to buy her a drink, and he stiffs her--all while creepy Stephen Lang watches, ready to get his hooks into Eads. To be honest, I think she would've been better as Lang's wife. She's still a good amount younger than him, but she also has the power to manipulate Eads in a way that could be more Postman Always Rings Twice. In looking over her bio, I don't know how many more films of hers we'll do, but she'll always have some big ones to her credit: Showdown in Little Tokyo, a great episode of The A-Team, and of course the iconic Wayne's World, which put her on the map. She also has a Seagal True Justice two-episode movie, True Justice: Lethal Justice, so maybe we will see her again. Let's hope so, because she's one of the greats, and seeing her in a scant role here just reinforced that.

Speaking of the woman who played Lang's wife, AnnaLynn McCord, we've actually covered a film she's been in before too. Kinda. She did a film called Fired Up, which was about two football players who join the cheerleading team, and hilarity ensues. I called it "Ski School at cheerleading camp." I don't know if you remember at that time, but for films like that that grossed over $10 million at the box office, instead of doing full posts, I gave them a paragraph at the end of another post, in this case the fanny pack spectacular Cyborg Cop. I didn't realize this, but whatever method IMDb uses to gather external reviews, it still caught that paragraph on Fired Up in its net, and it's part of the external reviews for that film. I have no idea how many of those I did, because the reviews on Blogger are listed by the main post, but eventually what I ended up doing was turning those paragraphs into full on Wild Card posts on Fridays, back when I did multiple reviews a week. I always think someday I'll go back through the reviews and catalog things like that, along with replacing the photobucket images (don't get me started on that scam outfit!) with the actual images, and remove all the old broken mattmovieguy HTML links (that one was on me for forgetting to update my card with the domain service), but it just seems so daunting. At the same time, people are constantly finding those old posts, so it would be nice for them to have the same experience as we get now with the new ones.

And with that let's wrap this up. I discovered that as of right now, you can stream this free again on Plex and Vudu. For Seagal completists, I think that's the way to go, and it's worth it for that. I guess if you're a Stephen Lang fan, to see him channel his most creepiness might be a draw too. Either way, free to stream is the way to go if you're venturing in.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2252552

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Cartels aka Killing Salazar (2016)

This is one I watched a while back on I think Epix, and then it was taken down or we lost the Epix free trial or something like that, so I waited for it to become available, and when it didn't, I got images from the trailer so I could review it, only for it to be added to Tubi. It was also available as Killing Salazar with a different cover on Xfinity, so after watching it on Epix, I went to watch Killing Salazar, only to discover they were the same movie. In addition to us, our friend Mitch from the Video Vacuum has covered this. 

Cartels has Luke Goss as a special forces soldier who's been called in by the US Marshals to join their team, who are then called in by the DEA to do a job for them? The "job" is transporting crime boss Florin Piersic, who everyone thinks is dead after DEA agent Steven Seagal kills him. These transport things never go as planned, and another DEA agent, Howard Dell, tells the marshals (who are maybe more military than marshals?) they need to "sit" Piersic in a fancy hotel in Romania before can be transported back to the States, where he's going to rat out other criminals. Once things go bad, will Goss be able to make it out alive?

This is roughly what the story is, and to be honest, does it matter that much? This thing has the feel of a project that was made because Seagal's people came to line producer Ben Sacks and asked if he could get him another movie because Seagal needed the money. (I also have this sense because Sacks was interviewed on "I Must Break This Podcast" with Sean Malloy, and he talked about this kind of thing with Seagal.) Looking at it in that vein, this is one of three films like this made at the same time and released in 2016, the others being Contract to Kill and End of a Gun (the latter of which I haven't seen yet), and while this isn't the greatest, as I watched it I wondered if it had someone other than Seagal if it would've been a lot better. I tried my best to see how many scenes Seagal did with the other stars, and it's possible it was none, and that any time we see Seagal with another star that he was edited in using Lucas-style alchemy--one that stands out in particular, when Seagal and Goss are in the interrogation room, and they bring in someone from Goss's unit who attacks Goss, and then Seagal gets the guy in some wrist locks to stop him. After that, Seagal and Goss sit back at the table, and it's possible it's the one scene they did together, but it's also possible Goss was added in after. There's also a fight Seagal has with UFC champ George St-Pierre, where I think neither actually fought the other, that they were shot at separate times and fought doubles. The Seagal double thing was so bad, that they gave his double a credit among the cast (which is not where he's listed on the IMDb credits). On that score, maybe the take isn't that this film is pretty unremarkable among the rest of Seagal's DTV filmography, but rather that it's amazing how remarkable this is at all considering how Waxman, Sacks, et al were able to Frankenstein this together with all the Seagal constraints involved.

We're now at 37 films for Seagal on the site, with I think three left: Gutshot Straight, which I've watched and just need to review; End of a Gun, which I'm waiting to be available on one of the streaming services, but may have to rent to see; and Clementine, which I haven't been able to find in English. Those together should get us to 40 for him, plus he has a couple new projects in development. According to the IMDb trivia, this was the last of his Waxman films, but on his filmography, they list it in between Contract to Kill and End of a Gun. Either way, after he does these three with Waxman that come out in 2016, his output slows down, only doing China Salesman in 2017, Attrition in 2018, and then seems like he gets back to his old self with General Commander and Beyond the Law in 2019, before the pandemic hits in 2020. This one feels like the worst of the bad Seagal, where it's obvious he's not in a lot of scenes with his costars, to the point that he may not even be doing the fights. Most of it is Seagal behind a desk in a leather jacket with his Chia Pet goatee saying things to Goss while he interrogates him like "I wasn't born on the fucking turnip truck, man!" and "I wasn't born at night, it was a bright, beautiful, fucking day," whatever that means. By this film, it's all almost become a parody of itself, but the results are there, as this is on Tubi with him front and center on the cover, set up perfectly for anyone browsing thinking this might be a fun Saturday night watch, and now Lionsgate gets another stream and a cut of the Tubi ad revenue.

 

It would be interesting to know if Luke Goss did a single scene with Seagal, or if that one time they're in the shot together he was CGI'd in Lucas-style. That's one advantage to having the younger guy doing the heavy lifting being a bald guy, he's easier to double in post if you need. Also, one of the advantages to being the heavy lifting guy in a Seagal film is you never know when Keoni Waxman's going to stop making Seagal films and will need someone to act in a new project, like he did when he tapped Goss to be in The Hard Way with Michael Jai White. This film had a lot of Bro Energy, with guys grimacing, pointing weapons, yelling military jargon at each other, etc., and that's where Goss's American accent makes him the Super Bro, like the rest of the cast were pulled from the decent clubs in Vegas on a weekend, but Goss was from a slightly more upscale one. He smokes cigarettes better than everyone else, he grimaces better, he holds guns better. The problem was, I don't think this needed more Bro Energy, it needed Brit Goss with his natural accent, maybe tossing out some British slang, or calling an eggplant an aubergine. One thing I hope is, with the current rise of the British actioner, people will want Goss to be an American less, because the films where he gets to be a Brit tend have a bit more flavor to them, and a movie like this that had a lot going against it due to the constraints that come when Seagal's involved needed all the help it could get.

This is now 11 films for Keoni Waxman on the site, of which 9 are Seagal films. The two of them did 10 total, the one I'm missing being End of a Gun, so the question will be after that one how many more we do. While he has a few that fit what we go for on the site, he has others like The Anna Nicole Smith Story that we probably won't cover. That number sounds low, but for directors on the DTVC, other than Pyun who has over 40, no one else has more than 15, so Waxman is right in there with some of the greats; on the other hand, as we do more from those guys, he may get left behind if he's moving on to projects that don't fit what we do here on the DTVC. I think that's okay though, his work as the Seagal Whisperer will go down in DTVC history as one of the great feats, and this film could potentially be his best work if this was made the way I think it was made. I literally could count on one hand the scenes Seagal had where he was in the same shot as his costars--and even those were suspect. The use of doubles, overdubs, creative angles, possibly even CGI to make it look like Seagal was interrogating Goss, or even better, fighting George St-Pierre if they weren't really fighting, is like Godfrey Ho level stuff; plus his action scenes were really well done, especially in spite of his constraints. I'd say he's cemented his legacy with us, but I'm still curious to see what he has in store next for us, or to explore some of his earlier work.

Finally, as someone who was a huge fan of the UFC in the mid-to-late 2000s, George St-Pierre was one of my favorites, so it was fun to see him here. Right before this he did Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which I haven't seen yet, and then played that role again in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier TV series, which I also haven't seen yet. He has a couple things in post-production right now, so it'll be cool to see how his career progresses. This is his fourth film on the site, the first two being Hector Echavarria TapOut films, and the third Kickboxer: Vengeance, so it looks like he's getting better parts. I think a buddy picture with Adkins directed by Jesse V. Johnson would be the best, maybe something where Adkins is sent to Canada to take down a criminal, and he has to team up with St-Pierre who's already working on taking him down. And what would be great is it could be shot in Canada, and actually take place in Canada, instead of Canada pretending to be America. How nice would that be?

Since I'm done talking about the current movie and pitching a new one, it's probably time to wrap this up. You can catch this on Tubi here in the States. Personally I think this is only for Seagal completists, or St-Pierre or Goss fans. Outside of that, it's better to skip it, but I appreciate the work done here to get this film over the finish line in as good a shape as it was.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4949290

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, A Girl and a Gun, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Code of Honor (2016)

With Mr. Seagal turning 70 this weekend, we had to do one of his movies to celebrate, and this one's been in the can for a long time, so what better time to review it--especially since soon I'll be getting to the point where I'll need to watch it again in order to remember what happens in it. In addition to us, our friend Mitch at the Video Vacuum has done this one as well.

Code of Honor has Seagal as a retired military colonel who has snapped and is now waging a vigilante war against local drug dealers and mobsters. The cops have no idea how to stop him, but as luck would have it, his former protege, Craig Sheffer, is in town, and he knows what they need to do to take him down. The problem is, Sheffer has his own demons to tackle. When a dancer at a local club is a witness to one of Seagal's attacks, Sheffer agrees to help her, and protecting her and her son proves to be the chance at redemption he's needed. At the same time, criminals are still dying. What does Sheffer know about his former mentor that could help bring him down? It turns out they're connected in a way that goes much deeper than just Sheffer trying to stop him.

 

For a Seagal DTV actioner, especially one from this period, this isn't too bad. Mitch had this as his best DTV flick since Pistol Whipped, which I agree with and think was definitely true when it came out, and really only now I'd personally put Attrition over it. The major difference between this and Attrition though, is in Attrition we had a totally invested Seagal, whereas here we have our usual not invested Seagal, but the film construct makes it all work. Seagal doesn't talk until 48 minutes in. It works. He sits most of the time. Same thing, it worked with what they were going for here. The problem is, the card this film played from a story standpoint, can only be played once--it's the film equivalent of a gun with only one bullet, and they fire it here, so no other movie can use this approach to mitigating the Seagal Factor. Beyond that, the action was good, Sheffer was solid, and Louis Mandylor was the DTV mainstay we've come to know and love. For 2010s DTV Seagal, this is a pretty good bet.

By my count, we have three Seagal films left, Cartels, Gutshot Straight, and End of a Gun; and then we have others like Clementine and The Onion Movie if we want to do that. It makes sense, as he hits the big seven-oh, that he'd slow down some. We can compare his turn in this to another vigilante flick, Death Wish V, where Bronson was 73 when he made that. Is that the number for Seagal? Or should we expect him to go beyond that? An 80-year-old Seagal still making DTV actioners? And considering Bronson was killing people with remote control soccer balls in that movie, and also considering Seagal has been sitting more in his films since he's hit his 60s, maybe Death Wish V is the model for the newly septuagenarian Seagal going forward. I for one would be okay with that. This film also provides a roadmap for a potential less active Seagal, but, as I mentioned above, it's the gun with one bullet, and the film has already shot the bullet, so another film can't use this story device. 

This is our fourth Craig Sheffer film here on the site, but this might have been my favorite role of his. He does the heavy lifting expected of someone costarring in a Seagal DTV actioner, but it doesn't feel like he's doing the heavy lifting to support Seagal. The way the story unfolds, it slowly becomes more about Sheffer, which is very different from the usual Seagal fare where Seagal remains the main character around which the story revolves, but he sits while the younger star has all the hard action scenes. It's the perfect mitigation of all the limitations Seagal puts on a production he's in, and Sheffer is great in his part to make it all work. I don't know how many more times we'll see Sheffer on here, but he has a fair amount of older DTV stuff that we haven't done yet, so this definitely won't be the last time. Another DTV mainstay who we've been seeing a lot of here lately is Louis Mandylor. He's in that new breed in the mold of Eric Roberts where he's trying to pump out as many films in a year as he can, yet unlike Roberts he also has some pretty substantial parts in some of these movies, especially the Jesse V. Johnson actioners. He I definitely can say this isn't the last time we'll see him, because he's been in some films I have in the can that I'm ready to review.

One of my favorite comic book characters is The Punisher, and I appreciated the way this movie used the Punisher Paradigm. It's easy to just rip off that concept, but they did some unique things that worked. By the same token, I like the idea of Seagal as the actual Punisher in a reboot DTV film series. If you think about it, his first appearance was in Spider-Man 129 in 1974, which would've made Seagal 22, so he could be a modern, elder Punisher, making sense of nearly five decades of killing. That's the thing with comic book characters, instead of aging they're often rebooted, but for someone like the Punisher, who has no superpowers, he'd age like the rest of us, and it would be great to see that ground covered. There is some hope now that despite Disney taking over the Netflix Marvel shows, they haven't cut them at all; by the same token, could we see Disney doing the Punisher, especially a 70-year-old Seagal Punisher, the way it needs to be done?

Finally, back to Seagal, in addition to those last few DTV flicks I have to do here, there's the matter of the True Justice releases. For those that aren't sure what those are, instead of releasing Seagal's True Justice series as complete seasons on DVD, they released a series of two-episode "movies," and these "movies" are now available on Tubi. What's interesting is these were once listed on Letterboxd as part of his filmography, but have since been removed, I think because they're technically not movies; though, in the DTV world, we see this thing a lot, especially with failed TV shows, they'll be merged and packaged as movies to recoup some of the lost revenue on them. I guess the thing with these True Justice ones is we'll worry about them when we finish the last few actual DTV movies Seagal has left that we still haven't reviewed. It is very Seagal though that he would have his TV series released this way, isn't it?

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of my writing this, you can stream this for free on Tubi. I think if you're looking for great Seagal on his 70th birthday, a classic like Hard to Kill or Marked for Death is a better way to go; but as far as DTV Seagal from the 2010s, this is one of the best--which isn't saying much, but still means this is a good time.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4060866

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, A Girl and a Gun, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

A Good Man (2014)

As we're working our way through the rest of Seagal's DTV oeuvre, this was one that for a period of time was only available to rent, and then popped up on Amazon Prime. Now it seems like it's Tubi, but who knows how long that'll last for, so I figured I'd review it and get it over with. This is also a complete the triangle movie, as our friends at Comeuppance and The Video Vacuum have also done this one, so I'm finally joining them.

A Good Man has Seagal as kind of the guy he was in Force of Execution. After a special forces thing goes south and innocent women and children are killed, Seagal goes off the grid, fortunately to a country in Eastern Europe where the production costs are low and the oligarchs love him. While there he meets a woman who looks like she might be a single mother--but lest ye think m'lady is more of the promiscuous sort, lo and behold the child is her sister! Whew. When said sister is kidnapped by a Chinese gangster that wants to sell her or something, our off-the-grid be-chia-pet-chinned hero swings into action with the help of sometime Scorpion King Victor Webster. Will they prevail?

Since Seagal is contractually obligated to prevail, we know what the answer is. The thing is, despite being made in 2014, this kind of feels more like an early 2000s Seagal DTV effort, if you know what I mean? Maybe not as good as The Foreigner or as fun as Out for a Kill, but it does what you need it to do when you're looking for a Saturday night staying in movie. For someone of Seagal's level, I think that's really all we're looking for, and if we get more, all the better. Seagal felt more engaged here, but he also had Victor Webster doing more of the heavy lifting. There was kind of the gross thing with him getting the beautiful girl half his age, but if the rest of the movie's okay like this one is, I can forgive that stuff. There is some weirdness with the girl being kidnapped and the whole pedophile angle that makes this a little on the darker side; plus that 100-minute runtime would've worked better trimmed down to 88 minutes; but overall I'm okay with this one.

This is film 35 for Mr. Seagal, and by my count I think we have 5 more: Code of Honor, Gutshot Straight, Cartels, End of a Gun, and Clementine. (I guess we could also fit in The Onion Movie.) That means when we do finally finish, he'll be in the 40 Club--plus he has a couple on IMDb in pre-production. He's a DTVC Hall of Famer, and one based primarily on his 2000s DTV output, but also because his reviews tend to move the needle here more than anyone other than Dolph. That's the thing though, when I'm covering his 2010s films that are usually him sleepwalking through sit-down roles, yes, the reviews are moving the needle, but to some extent I feel like I'm cosigning that bullshit, the way I said I'm not going to cosign the Willis Fake Shemp sleepwalk movie bullshit. On the other hand, with only 5 films left, I'm committed to finishing this off, sleepwalk or no sleepwalk.

This is yet another Seagal/Keoni Waxman collaboration. We have two more of their collaborations left to review, so that's at least two more Waxman movies we'll cover, but it may be worth looking at his non-Seagal films as well. He now has 10 films covered on the site, but only 3 are non-Seagals: Sweepers (which he isn't credited under his own name), The Hard Way, and Hunt to Kill. I see a few in there that may fit the site, so those few plus the remaining Seagals would put him around 15, which is high for a director, and may get him Hall of Fame consideration. I think what's interesting about these Seagal films is, they make up pretty much his entire work between 2009 and 2017, and it feels like he's created some kind of approach that works for Seagal. It doesn't always work for us, because in many of them it's a mix of sit-down scenes and Fake Shemps, but the fact that Waxman has made it work on some level with Seagal should be commended. 

Victor Alexander plays the male lead who does the heavy lifting for Seagal, joining guys like Byron Mann, Johnny Messner, and Bren Foster who have had that distinction. We know Alexander from the Scorpion King sequels, which tend to leave a bit to be desired; but here in this role, I really liked him as the guy propping things up when Seagal would rather sit down. Looking at his IMDb bio, he's been doing more TV roles and Christmas movies lately, and I kind of get that, because being the guy propping up the Seagal film is a thankless job--other than Messner, you're not on the cover, you don't get to get the girl, and you may even need to get rescued by Seagal. Better to be the hunky lead in a Christmas romance, I agree.

Finally, we've mentioned before that Seagal sometimes affects a Cajun accent, but here it was another level, at least in the beginning. Mitch at the Video Vacuum described it as an "elderly blues singer in a rest home," and I don't know that I can say it any better than that. There's also an awkward love scene at the end of the film that Seagal has with the beautiful woman who's half his age. The thing is though, while this might torpedo another movie, it adds to the charm of these Seagal flicks, the same way the Chia Pet goatee, the Fake Shemps, the sit down roles, and the not doing his ADR does. I was trying to think of anyone else who has this effect, and the only name that comes to mind is Gary Busey.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can check this out on Tubi here in the States. I think free stream is the way to go, I don't know if it's worth a $4 rental. Beyond Seagal completists, this does have a fun factor that makes it worth checking out.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3480556

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, A Girl and a Gun, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

 

 

 

Contract to Kill (2016)

This is one I was trying to watch for a long time--in fact it was the second-to-last Seagal film I needed to see, the last one is now End of a Gun. It came up for free on Xumo, so I jumped at it and made it happen. In addition to us, our friend Mitch at the Video Vacuum has covered this too, so you can go to his site to see what he thought. Now, without any further ado.

Contract to Kill--not to be confused with any of Seagal's other to Kill movies--has Seagal as a former secret service assassin--not to be confused with the other films where he plays a former secret service agent--who's called back to duty for one last job--not to be confused with the other films where he's a former agent called back into duty for one last job--that involves him forming a team that does most of the heavy lifting and allows him to sit most of the time--not to be confused with the other films where he forms a team that does all the heavy lifting and allows him to sit most of the time. As luck would have it, he and his team find out they're pawns in a government game--not to be confused with the other times... okay, you get the idea. This is your standard Seagal/Waxman get Seagal some money 2010s DTV actioner.

 

And that's what we've got here, standard DTV fare from Seagal, especially when it's directed by Waxman. Seagal has his trademark chia fuzz goatee and widow's peak hair; he sits more than he stands; he does some slap-chop fights where the other guy can't possibly get a hit in; and his co-stars do more of the heavy lifting. The thing is, these movies have kind of got me. They're fun in spite of themselves. It's not like a bag of Doritos, where I know where the goodness is, and I know I'll be paying for it later if I finish the whole family size bag; these are more like the Wise rip-off Bravos, where I see them on sale, eat them, realize they're not as good as I remember, but their rip-off-ness kind of grows on me, and I like the idea of spending less to eat something not as good. Does any of that make sense? Maybe I out-metaphored myself.

We're nearing the finish line of Seagal's DTV films. By my count we have five left after this--six if I do Clementine, which I may do because it'll be the one that puts him in the 40 Club. The other thing is, with the slow pace at which I'm putting out reviews, he may get some new films out by the time we're finished, meaning we'll have to do those as well. Seagal is going to be 70 next year--which is interesting, because when we started the site his IMDb listed him as born in 1951, so somehow became a year younger since 2007. I used to go by what I called the Death Wish V Standard for action stars, meaning Charles Bronson was 73 when that came out, so that's the oldest for an action lead. Seagal is closing in on that number, and I feel like if he gets more sit-down roles with Waxman at the helm, he could surge past Bronson's Death Wish V age. I never considered it before, but killing someone with a remote control soccer ball is perfect for a sit-down role--and to some extent this movie sets us up to go there, using drones to do a lot of the work for Seagal instead.

This is Keoni Waxman's ninth film here on the site. That doesn't sound like a lot, but for a director that's a pretty big number. To give you a sense, he's one behind DTVC Hall of Famer Cirio H. Santiago. Does that mean Waxman could someday make his own way into the Hall of Fame? I think it's a real possibility. From a numbers standpoint, I think Isaac Florentine and Sam Firstenberg would need to get in before him, and Jesse V. Johnson is right with Waxman as another director who needs consideration; but Waxman's work as the Seagal whisperer alone is Hall of Fame worthy. Between '09 and '17, the only film he did that wasn't a Seagal film was Hunt to Kill. He also did the The Anna Nicole Smith Story, the one that starred Willa Ford as Anna Nicole Smith. That might be an interesting non-Seagal Waxman to check out.

One of Seagal's costars in this is the always great Russell Wong. I saw on his IMDb bio that he's in the new Clifford live-action film that's opening in theaters this weekend. I wonder who's tougher to work with, Seagal or a big CGI red dog? Wong plays the drone guy, so he does a great job allowing Seagal to spend more time sitting. Again, I wonder who sits more, Seagal in this film, or the big CGI red dog? It's a unique situation, because we're used to guys like Byron Mann or Bren Foster who do the heavy lifting in more martial arts scenes, but Wong is doing it with a remote control. Either way, whatever allows Seagal to do the least amount of work, the better.

 

Speaking of which, look at that screen above, which comes from an extended slow chase where all Seagal does is sit behind a steering wheel and pretend to drive. It's amazing stuff. Seagal also does a fight scene sitting, but this takes the cake for me. With Waxman coming up with new and creative ways to give Seagal action scenes while he's sitting, this shows the lengths of his ingenuity. Hall of Fame nominations are coming in October, and it feels like Waxman is really making a push. If not this year, maybe next year? Especially if more of his Seagal films have gems like this.

And with that, I think we're done. That was quick, right? I feel like I was just starting this review, and suddenly we're on the 8th paragraph. This is now available on Tubi, which makes it a much better option. If you like a good ol' Seagal/Waxman 2010s DTV "actioner," this will do the trick. If you don't, then even for free on Tubi it's a pass.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5470222

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, A Girl and a Gun, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

 

The Patriot (1998)

I actually had this for next week's review, but with today being Seagal's birthday, I figured I'd bump it up in the rotation. This film represents something of a milestone for Seagal, as it's his first ever DTV film, so we could say that this is the start of his DTVC Hall of Fame career. In addition to this review, Richard Hawes of the DTV Digest and I discussed this on a podcast last year, episode 73, so if you haven't yet you can go check that out in our archives--and also you can check out Richard with Mike and Stephen on the DTV Digest podcast on iTunes.

The Patriot has Seagal as an immunologist living a relaxing life on his ranch, raising his daughter, and running a clinic in Montana. That's when a White Supremacist separatist group gets their hands on a deadly virus created by the US government to use as a biological weapon, and the separatist group unleashes it on the town. Now it's a race against time as Seagal needs to use everything he knows to try to defeat this deadly outbreak--at the same time using everything he knows to kick the asses of any militia members who try to get in his way.

 

This wasn't so bad. It doesn't have as much fighting, and I think that was on purpose to keep the runtime shorter--which is a reasoning I can get behind, though it does feel like the opening to get us to a place where things actually happen is a bit long. It also has the feel of a 90s big screen film, even if it's not a huge budget, and that may explain why I thought for so long that this was a big screen film. It's more of a quirk that it's DTV, than it is the DTV kinds of flicks we've grown accustomed to with him, and I think that novelty plays well. In addition to all that, the scenery in Montana is fantastic. 

For Seagal, 1998 was a time when the wave was cresting, and this film is an example of him trying to either keep it from cresting a little longer, or at the very least find another wave to ride. In 2001, he has both Ticker with Albert Pyun, and Exit Wounds, the latter of which ends up being his last theatrical gasp, with one more attempt in 2002 with Half Past Dead to keep up the momentum from Exit Wounds, only to see it not do so hot and Seagal's DTV career start in earnest, giving us another 30+ films (many of which have been reviewed on here). The end of the 90s wasn't just the cresting of the wave for Seagal, as we see the same thing happening for Van Damme, the only difference being that Seagal hit on one of his last gasps with Exit Wounds, and Van Damme never had another success like that.

 

The question then is, where does Seagal go from here. He's turning 69 today as I write this, which means he's 4 years away from 73, the age Bronson was when he did Death Wish V. We're seeing action stars work longer careers now, and with Fake Shemps and split-second editing, it's possible that Seagal could go longer than 73. The thing is though, he doesn't have anything in the hopper beyond an announced Above the Law sequel, and after he had 6 films come out in 2016, he's been down to 1 or 2 a year until 2020, which was the first year since 1999 that he didn't have anything released. It'll be interesting to see if this is ultimately where he leaves us; or if he does get that Above the Law sequel off the ground, what that ends up looking like. By my count, we have six more of his DTV films to review, so if he doesn't put anything else out, he'll be just shy of the 40 Club--though I guess we could bend the rules and do some of his big screen films to get him there.

Among the costars he had in this, including mainstay character actor LQ Jones as his ranch manager; Camilla Belle, who later went on to star in the remake of When a Stranger Calls; and his own daughter, Ayako Fujitani; for me the best supporting performance was the fantastic Montana scenery. One of the problems with DTV films, is they're either shot in places that are meant to look like others, so we can't focus on the scenery, especially if it'll give away the true location; or they're shot in smaller urban environments in order to save costs. Bringing all that equipment out to an area like that is difficult and puts a huge burden on the crew, so I get why fewer films are shot in places like this--plus I'm not sure Montana needs the money that states like Louisiana and Michigan do, so it may cost more for permits to shoot there. I have never personally been to Montana before, but a movie like this is a great advertisement for it, so hopefully someday I'll be able to make the trip out there.

 

Finally, while he didn't star in this movie, I thought I'd mention the passing of DMX this past week. He and Seagal are forever linked with Exit Wounds, so much so that in 2019 there was an attempt to trade off that success with Beyond the Law. He was an absolute icon of the late 90s/early 2000s, in part because of roles like the one he had in Exit Wounds, but much more so because of his massive success as one of the greatest rappers of his era. I don't remember a party I went to at that time where I didn't hear one of his songs at least once over the course of the night. To say he will be missed would be an understatement. Here's to you DMX, you were one of the greatest.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Right now you can stream this on Tubi if you're in the States. I can't think of a better way to go. In and out in 90 minutes, and you get to see Seagal's first official DTV flick. Also, if you haven't yet, you can go in to our pod archives to check out the episode Richard Hawes of DTV Digest and I did on this film; and definitely subscribe to the DTV Digest on iTunes as well.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120786

And if you haven't yet, check out my novel, Chad in Accounting, in paperback or on Kindle!

 

General Commander (2019)

This is one of the last Seagal films I need to see, so when I found out it was on Prime to stream for free, I had to jump at it. Did I have high expectations for it after what I'd seen of his other recent efforts? Probably not, but we need to get them all reviewed eventually on here, and since I'd seen it I needed to cover it. So, let's see how it was.

General Commander has Seagal as the leader of a special ops team who, in the process of carrying out a job, loses one of his men. He and his team want to go back in and get their revenge, but the US department head who makes those decisions won't greenlight it. Luckily Seagal has an old friend with big pockets who's willing to bankroll his team's revenge mission. Now it's a matter of getting the gang back together, finding the baddie, and taking him down. With an 86-minute runtime, they need to get after it quickly!

 

You'd think with that short of a runtime this would be quick and to the point, get in and get out, waste no time, make the most of every scene. Turns out, that wasn't how it happened. We have the opening action scene where the teammate gets killed, we have a brief scene in the middle where a guy tries to take out Seagal and he slap-chops then stabs him to death, and then we have some action near the end, but beyond that, a whole lot of nothing happens. I looked in the IMDb trivia and think I found out why: this wasn't supposed to be a movie, it was supposed to be a TV series about this crew pulling off 45-minute episode length jobs over nine-episode seasons. As we've seen over many years here at the DTVC, that trick never works. Throw in a Seagal who was making Attrition at the same time, so he was even less invested than he usually is, and we were stuck with a slog that just didn't work.

This is number 32 for Seagal on the site, and by my count we have 7 left, of which I've seen 6--the last one I'm waiting on is End of a Gun, which to this point still hasn't been included in any of my streaming packages. With films like this one, it's a labor of love. I don't even know how much I can blame this one on Seagal. A studio or whoever was trying to make something out of a TV series that didn't sell, so they packaged it into an 86-minute movie, and were able to get Seagal attached to it. Maybe it was Seagal going to some producers and saying "hey, I need another movie out there, what do you have?" and they were like "actually, you could play the person you've been playing for the last ten years in this part." Where does that leave us though?

 

To be honest, where it leaves us is, does it at least have some good action? If you look at external reviews on any of these newer Seagal flicks, that's the thing that divides the ones where reviewers forgive all the baggage that comes with these movies, and the ones where they don't. And that's where this one falls on the wrong side of that line. When I'm calculating 40+-minute stretches of no action, we're in trouble. Seagal can do all the Fake Shemps in reverse shots he wants, he can sit in a totally different location than the actor he's supposed to be in the same room as--hell, he can just sit and not stand at all--as long as there's solid action every 15 minutes or so. With Scott Adkins putting out high-octane actioners with Jesse V. Johnson and Isaac Florentine, the bar is higher now, and these ones with minimal action just don't cut it anymore.

When I think about how the plot of this film unfolded, to pull off more suspense and planning than action in an action film, it has to be amazing stuff, whereas action scenes every 10-15 minutes don't need to be perfect every time to work. One I can think of that did work was Sabotage, but in that one you're talking about Tony Todd giving a masterclass on how to be a great baddie, Mark Dacascos as a great lead, along with Carrie-Anne Moss and Graham Greene. I'm not saying this cast was horrible, but they weren't that level. Also, even though that film was more suspense based like this one, they never went a full 40 minutes like this one did with no action at all. 

 

One of the faces I recognized outside of Seagal's was this one, Byron Gibson, who has done a ton of films shot in Thailand and the Philippines. According to him IMDb bio, he was cast on a whim in a Jean-Claude Van Damme film in 2008, and that's been it from there. He plays the heavy a lot, which makes him perfect for these kinds of movies which are often shot in locations like Thailand and the Philippines. He should be like a modern Mike Monty or Jim Gaines, but I think the fact that he isn't gets to the heart of what's wrong with these modern Philippine/Thailand movies compared to their late 80s/early 90s counterparts. Those movies kept it simple, kept it fun, and didn't try to do too much. Also I think the Italian directors who did most of them, or Cirio H. Santiago, knew how to keep the film engaging. Hopefully some day Gibson will be the next Mike Monty. Someday.

And with that, let's wrap this one up. I think as a TV series of 9 45-minute episodes, this could work. As an 86-minute movie though there are just too many long stretches of no action. It's available on Prime which works in its favor, but I think you should exhaust some other actioners on your list first.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7043534

Beyond the Law (2019)

This one appeared on my radar when it was first released on VOD, and I was just biding my time until it was included in one of the subscription packages I already have. First it became available on Hoopla, which is where I think I watched it for this, but it is also available on Showtime On Demand, which we also subscribe to through our cable package--either way, not a bad deal. In addition to us, Todd Gaines at Bulletproof Action reviewed this, so you can go there to see what he thought. Now, without any further ado.

Beyond the Law is not the early 90s Charlie Sheen action-thriller, but rather a 2019 suspense yarn with some action in it featuring Johnny Messner as a former crooked cop whose son is murdered and he wants answer. The murderer is played by Zack ward, aka Scut Farkus, who is crime boss Steven Seagal's son. With Messner and Seagal on a collision course to wackiness, we also have DMX as the detective on the take trying to stand in Messner's way. The real problem though is, Seagal, as the baddie, always has it in his contract that he can't be beaten in fight, so how does Messner vanquish a baddie he can't beat?

  

I don't know what to make of this movie. The cover told me all I needed to know, right? The actor with the most screentime is always the one furthest to the back on the tin, so I knew going in this was a Messner movie instead of a Seagal or DMX movie. That then leaves us with the issue that we only have Seagal and DMX in this to splash on the cover and make the movie worth more to the studios--I mean, would I be reviewing this right now if Messner was front and center on the cover with Zack Ward? Maybe not; or maybe I am because maybe the people who made it are getting the word out to people like me so we can sell it for them. I would love to sell a Messner vehicle to people as a Messner vehicle, as opposed to killing it for another lackluster Seagal performance.

That I think is what makes this the worst, this cynical aspect where Seagal needs to be unbeatable, so the film had to come up with a way for him to lose without him losing. Is it worth it that much to get his face on the cover so people like me will review it and say "save your money"? That's what the DTV world has come to though; and while maybe we could say it's always been that, that the only difference now is instead of me seeing Seagal on the cover on the video store racks, I'm seeing Seagal on the cover in a thumbnail on my VOD rental selections, but there's something about this that feels more crass. The reality is we didn't even need Seagal in this, Zack Ward was plenty bad enough as the baddie, Seagal's inclusion just weighed it down; but from the cynical VOD standpoint, it doesn't matter, because Zack Ward standing where Messner is, and Messner standing where Seagal is, and Seagal nowhere in the film, means fewer VOD rentals, so it's better to make the overall film suffer, because the film itself is no longer important once we've already plunked our money down to rent it.

 

All that being said, I want to get into Messner in this. Why is it that every cover he's on has him with this look on his face like he's a teenager whose mom just told him he can't go anywhere until he's cleaned his room? And why do all the roles he's in feature him as this personality-less protagonist, when his IMDb photo has him with a monkey on his shoulder? Why can't he have a film that showcases both his action chops and his personality? Why can't he have a wisecracking buddy cop movie? Pair him with Michael Jai White or Byron Mann, and give us 88 minutes of fight scenes, shoot-outs, and great one-liners. This is another movie where we feel like we're just scratching the surface of Messner, and I think part of the reason for that is the studios are afraid to make the movie I described, and instead need to pair him with people like Seagal and Dolph. The studios need to trust us as a movie audience more. If you make the Messner movie, we will watch it.

DMX, like Seagal, isn't so much as wasted in this, as we're wondering why he's here. Other than a scene where he's at a bar asking for a full bottle of Hennessy, and the bartender doesn't get what he means, and he keeps saying "just give me the bottle," there's nothing particularly DMX about his role. He's really just there to be on the cover to get us to rent it in the hopes that it will be Exit Wounds 2. On the other hand, Zack Ward really delivers as the baddie, kind of the way Tim Abell carries Sniper Special Ops despite Seagal being on the cover, Ward carries Beyond the Law from the other side. Again, it's more of that cynical side where Messner and Ward were all we needed, but the studios don't like a move with just them on the cover, so enter DMX and Seagal, which gets me to review it and other people to watch it. On the other hand, this only has 14 external reviews on IMDb, meaning maybe Seagal is hitting his saturation point with these, and even the lure of a potential Exit Wounds 2 wasn't enough.

 

Finally, this film was directed by James Cullen Bressack, who is know more for his horror films. For me, I remember when he was first starting out, I was on a mailing list he had to get the word out on his early movies. The problem for me was, his films were too extreme for my tastes personally, and I didn't think it was worth it for both me to put myself through them if they made me that personally uncomfortable, and worth it for him to have me review a movie that wasn't made for me. Just the same, I wanted him to be successful, so to see him here directing this movie was really exciting for me as someone who hoped he'd do well. For that reason, I decided to include this shot above instead of a screen of DMX. To me it felt like the shot of a director trying to make the best of a film he was given that was beset with many limitations. It's too easy in the cynical DTV world to focus on the bad and turn up the snark, and miss some of the good that comes out of movies like these, like Messner and Ward's performances, or Bressack as a young director trying to put his stamp on a film that isn't his own.

And on that good note, it's time to wrap this up. I think as part of a streaming services you already have, or on Hoopla for free, this is worth checking out. Beyond that, it feels like we're playing into the forces that turned this movie into what it was, that every rental makes the studio think they're right by having a less-invested Seagal with his script demands or a DMX whose part could have been played by anyone in this just so they could be slapped on the cover; but by the same token, by skipping it altogether, you miss out on Messner, Ward, Bressack, and others who did their best to make this beyond just an enticing cover for a VOD rental.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11161374

Absolution aka Mercenary: Absolution (2015)

With this review, Steven Seagal joins the 30 Club. I considered doing something like The Patriot, which we covered on a podcast with DTV Digest's Richard Hawes, but I've had this one in the can for a while now, so I figured it was as good as any to celebrate this milestone. In addition to us, our friends Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, Mitch at the Video Vacuum, and Blueprint Review have all covered this, so you can go to their sites to see what they thought.

Absolution is apparently a sequel to A Good Man (as of this review I haven't seen yet), which was also a sequel to Force of Execution, though none of them seem all that connected other than by the fact that Seagal plays people named "John". Anyway, John is a special ops guy who gets a job to take out a terrorist in hiding in Eastern Europe. He does this with his friend Chi (Byron Mann), who does all the heavy lifting. When they celebrate after, a young lady enters the lounge they're celebrating in, and asks for Seagal's help. She's escaping crime boss Vinnie Jones (known as "The Boss"), who had planned to torture her to death. This is John's chance at Absolution, played out in the same tired "white man saves white slave from white slavery, and she becomes his daughter/lover" trope. Will he pull it off?

You can see why maybe I wanted to do The Patriot for a post like this, because Absolution is kind of the same old same old with Seagal. No reverse shots, plenty of stunt doubles, someone else doing all the heavy lifting--in this case Byron Mann--, it all feels like it's becoming too much. It's almost like it's become a cynical take on the audience as well: we put Seagal on the tin, get him in enough scenes, make this paint-by-numbers script with a few action sequences and Eastern European women in skimpy outfits, and we'll make it available to stream. And the reality is, Seagal gets clicks on my site for the same reason his face on the tin gets streams and Redbox rentals, so it's hard for me not to review them, as I imagine it's hard for producers and studios not to make them. Maybe this is my cue that I need to take a break from Seagal and spotlight some other names--though I have like 4 or 5 more of his movies in the can ready to review, I just need to write them.

I think the big thing is, between Seagal's amazing big screen theatrical output in the late 80s/early 90s, and then the fact that a lot of his 2000s DTV stuff was a lot of fun, it's hard to not come back to these. That's why he's in the 30 Club now, and why at one point, before I went on hiatus, I had all of his DTV flicks reviewed on here. Now we have about 7 or 8 left, so he may not make the 40 Club with Dolph and Gary Daniels, but he's always going to stand out as this legend in the action world, both DTV and big screen, and I don't know if there will ever be enough films like this to make us forget that and make us stop coming back. At the very least, I'm going to be doing those 4 or 5 I have in the can, and depending on when the others are available to stream without paying extra for me, I'll probably make those happen too.

As I mentioned above, Byron Mann is in this as Seagal's partner, but he's the one doing all the heavy lifting. In a way, this is like Sniper Special Ops with Tim Abell, where, like Abell, his name isn't even on the cover--Vinnie Jones gets second billing--but he's really the standout. I would say though, unlike the Abell flick, Seagal is in this one enough to be the lead over Mann, while Abell was the true lead of his film. The thing is, I can't get enough Byron Mann. He was great in Wu Assassins, and was great on Arrow. Yet in all these things, he's never the lead. He's always propping up the lead and making all the scenes better because he's in them, but never the star. I'd love to see something where he is the lead, maybe something like this where he gets to wear tailored suits with no ties, burns a lot of heaters, and then kicks a bunch of guys asses. 90 minutes of that would be amazing.

There's a great podcast I listen to, "I Must Break this Podcast," done by Sean Malloy, who was a guest on our show one time (the link to his podcast page is in the "Other Great Sites" section, or you can do like me and subscribe on iTunes). In a recent episode, he had this film's producer on, Benjamin Sacks, and Sacks talked about doing these movies with Seagal. Essentially it's Seagal coming to them saying "I need another movie," and then they put it together. The thing is though, he was doing so many that he was saturating the market and diminishing his value. If you look at it, right after this in 2015, he has 6 films released in 2016--and even before and after, he's doing at least 2 or 3 a year. And when the movies are all pretty much the same, it does hit that wall of diminishing returns. To his credit, Sacks also said that when Seagal goes for it in a scene, it looks spectacular. Maybe that's what we're all hoping for when we go back to the well ourselves on these, and too many times the bucket comes up dry. (And check out that podcast episode for more great stories from Sacks, Sean does a great job on that interview!)

Keoni Waxman is back as well. We joke that he's the Seagal Whisperer, but I think for a producer like Benjamin Sacks, there's probably an understanding that when Seagal comes asking for another project, Waxman's the guy to get it done with all of Seagal's demands, and done under budget and on time. The other thing he does is lean on the Seagal partner role, in this case Mann. Look at that shot there, total movie star stuff, Rebel Without a Cause. In other films it might be Bren Foster. That's why The Hard Way was a nice change of pace, because he had Michael Jai White as the lead, and could accentuate his part as the star the way he had to do here with a supporting part. Just going idea man here, but what about a buddy cop movie with Mann and White, directed by Waxman? If you're into it, let me know and I'll bang out an 85-page script by next week.

Before this gets to be too ridiculous with me pitching script ideas, I'll reel myself in and wrap it up. As of writing I believe this is on Tubi. I think it is worth it for Byron Mann's performance; but for people who are tired of the standard DTV Seagal flick we've been used to for the past five years or so, this is that same movie. With that in mind, I'd say proceed at your own risk.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3503840