The second piece of Seagal action to come out this year, the second dire straight to video offering from him as well. While Belly Of The Beast had some enjoyment laughing at the over the top action this film is so painfully bad that it is almost upsetting. Now I have never been the biggest Seagal fan. Having said that I have enjoyed watching his earlier films. They were pure dumb and ultra violent films with an enjoyably pretentious moralistic attitude. Seagal had that kind of Italian American, Brooklyn tough guy thing going on, his kind of De Niro and Brando impersonation. Since Under Siege though, he has become the eco-Zen- Warrior with absolutely no personality. He was in decent shape as well, never the ripped muscle man like Arnie, Sly and Van Damme but a real man kind of size and he was very quick. The action scenes in those films were brutal and slick and we would see in full glory the aikido from Seagal. Nowadays Seagal, after one two many pies, is looking very withered and old and overweight. In modern Seagal fights the are film extremely tightly with the odd wide shot featuring his stunt double and is edited in such a way to hide the fact that he is just not quick enough anymore. Seagal looks tragically bloated and sweaty and almost repugnant. I cannot see how even the most ardent Seagal fan could be anything but devastated seeing him do films like this and looking the way he does. Somehow he still sells a movie but at this rate it won't be for long.
Out Of Reach is the worst Seagal film ever, and considering Ticker, Foreigner and Out For A Kill, that takes some doing. This is a film that even z grade action men like Lorenzo Lamas and Don Wilson would want scratched off their CV. The plot has Seagal as a former government agent who runs a animal shelter (oh my god, when will he realize he's not captain planet.). He then finds out that a young girl who he is pen pals with (isn't that a horrible picture, an old sweaty git having correspondence with a little girl) is kidnapped and sold as a slave, Seagal has to come out of retirement and stop the bad guys who are lead by Matt Schulze. The film despite being a reasonable 20 million dollar budget looks painfully cheap. The film is so lazily put to together and Seagal is so bad it beggars belief. There are so many signs that he can't be bothered and is past it, form constant doubling, lazy use of a stand in and several moments when he is clearly dubbed, probably because he whispers through the while film and you can't hear him. The only times you hear what Seagal is saying is when he is being dubbed. He really doesn't want to be their and being the big name of such a crappy little picture no-one would have told him to pull his finger out. Someone needs to slap him and tell him that for the money he his paid and that they plough into his movies his fans expect a lot more. He is currently the top earner and audience grabber of the straight to video action market but if he continues like this he will be overtaken by Van Damme and Lundgren and others below them. There are rumours his next film, Into The Sun is to be distributed to theaters by his beloved Warner Brothers but I really don't see it. It is tragic and says a lot about the industry that they could make the biggest pile of poo known to man and sell it simply by plastering his ugly mug on the front.
I watched this simply out of curiosity and merely because it was a Seagal film, these DTV stars release these films and although they are generally bad there has to be a certain minimal standard of enjoyment. Van Damme, Lundgren are keeping this up with their recent efforts, but Seagal who has the highest expectations must up his game or retire. He certainly is not convincing as a tough guy any more. *
