Hard to Kill

An American action thriller; A story about a police detective who uncovers high-level corruption and is attacked and his family are left for dead. In time he decides to pay them a visit. This is a lively and ambitious revenge flick and does a little more than simply string fight scenes together. It has some similarity to "Commando" (1985) in the way the action flows - villains are disposed of with great efficiency because there are so many to get through and there isn't much depth. Seagal and Le Brock strike up a friendship which is appealing but when this transforms to love interest it feels false because it is rushed and convenient to the plot progression and no more. The film wastes no time in satisfying the audience's bloodlust but uppermost in its appeal is the charisma of Seagal and his aikido movements to disarm his foes.

Wow. The Seagal movies just keep on coming. Right after I commented on 'Out For Justice', I caught the horrible 'Out for a Kill' on pay TV, and then 'Hard to Kill' came on after that on free-to-air. With any luck, the most awesome of all Seagal's movies - 'Under Siege' - will be on sometime soon, but for now, 'Hard to Kill' was rather awesome.

Seagal plays Mason Storm, a cop investigating links between some mobsters, crooked cops, and crooked politician, and suddenly everything turns into a 'Kill Bill' prototype: The bad guys kill Storm's family, and leave him for dead. After waking up from a seven-year coma, Storm sets out for vengeance.

'Hard to Kill' is an entertaining action movie. The amount of limb-snapping may be lower than usual for a Seagal movie, but the fight scenes are good. An added bonus is the fact that 'Hard to Kill' features some of Seagal's best lines and moments ("I'm gonna take you to the bank, Senator Trent. To the blood bank!"). The hide and seek scene has got to be the best scene Seagal has ever filmed.

'Hard to Kill' rates as one of my favourite Seagal movies, and certainly much better than anything he's done lately. Seagal fans should get a kick out of this - 7/10

"Hard to Kill" is bar-none the best Steven Seagal film by a cosmic mile. That is not saying that this is a masterpiece, but it works pretty well due to some really evil bad guys (led by William Sadler) and the fact that Seagal's character is legitimately out for revenge. Seagal is a cop who has just learned that Sadler, an ambitious lawyer with political aspirations, is involved with shady cops and high-class crime syndicates. This information will lead to an attempt on Seagal's life which will kill his wife, cause their young son to just barely escape death and cause Seagal to go into a coma himself. Of course he awakes some eight years later and his only motivation is to bring all those involved to justice. Works well due to Seagal's performance more than anything else. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

This movie is absolutely HILARIOUS.

If people even know who Steven Segal is, they should already know what they are getting into before they start playing this movie (meaning that it is FULL of plot holes, jumps in logic, continuity errors, outrageous stunts, etc).

That having been said, this movie is so much fun to watch it more than makes up for its shortcomings. Watch this movie with a group of friends that enjoy laughing at unintentionally ridiculous action and I guarantee it will deliver in spades - I found it to be a lot funnier than most comedies.

Mason Storm is a tough cop who uncovers the beginnings of something big when spying on gangsters on a deserted pier. He uncovers a conspiracy involving a politician – a discovery that gets his wife and his partner killed and him and his son thought dead. After being hidden by a friend in a coma hospital under an alias for seven years, Mason wakes up to find that his wife's killers are still after him and that the politician has become a very big target indeed.

After seeing a podgy Seagal in rapper `banger' movies in the past few years, it is almost a relief to see him in a film where he is slim, agile and a bit less `up his own ar*e' with all that new age stuff! That's not to say that `Hard to Kill' is a good film, for it certainly isn't, but it's basic nature is almost refreshing in how lacking in pretension it is – want a revenge thriller which is of video standard, then this is for you.

The plot is laughable at times. The whole thing lacks cohesion and logic, often making huge leaps with no real explanation. However it does just about enough to provide reasons for Seagal to fight with groups of people at the same time. Some of the dialogue is hilarious and reminded me of the character in the Simpsons who apes Arnie and delivers cr*p kiss-off lines. Seagal's funniest is `I'll take you to the bank – the blood bank!' Dialogue like that reminded me that this was a video movie and not a blockbuster! The action is basic, although it is nice to see Seagal in fights where his movies are fully visible and are fluent, the only thing that put me off here was just how cruel the whole thing was.

Seagal is a rubbish actor if you expect anything more than his whisper-voice-of-menace acting style and his one facial expression where he looks like his piles are giving him mild discomfort. However for fans this will be accepted and I was OK with it as par for the course for his films. LeBrock has no real excuse for being as bad as she is – a rubbish English accent, awful dialogue and really poor delivery. Sadler is OK but has very little screentime – playing the least subtle corrupt politician in the world! I mean, sitting and talking with thugs and hoods in front of all the cameras and never using middlemen!?

Overall this film is OK at what you expect from it – fight scenes with Seagal's skills on good show. However almost everything else (characters, logic, plot, humour, acting) is either really basic or so poor it's funny. In some ways this is better than his recent movies simply because the recent ones raise expectations with their budget and effects – here I had no illusions about what I was getting into!