Driven to Kill

After some very mediocre work in features and STV crap I wasn't expecting anything but horror from this flick. It turns out that there is nothing like a good old violent revenge movie to get some life out of Steven Segal. This is not an amazing movie as it still has a very low budget and Segal still can't act, but at least in this one it seems as it's actually him throwing the punches and shooting the guns, which is a step up from some of his previous work. Not amazing but an entertaining ride for Segal fans.

This is easily one of Seagal's better DTV efforts. Its on a par with Urban Justice but not as good as Belly of the Beast. To compare it to his earlier movies would be unfair as he makes much smaller budget movies these days. First off if you are a veteran of Seagal films of the last ten or so years you can tell if he cares about the movie or not and he certainly seems to be putting a bit of effort into this one. No body doubles of bad dubbing in this which is good. The story is very generic, a basic revenge movie. Not unlike the movies Charles Bronson made when he was a similar age to Seagal now. The action scenes are well done with some good shoot outs and fist and knife fights. The acting is a little hit and miss although the bad guy who will be familiar to people who seen the awful Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull was very good. So worth a rent on a Friday night but i really wish Hollywood would give Seagal another big budget action movie. Hell lets get another Under Siege movie out before its too late.

I thought that this was an OK film with the usual violence and action which accompanies all Steven Seagal films. In this one Steve is a former Russian Mafia villain who comes back into town after being invited by his ex-wife to see his daughter get married. However, his return into town is not met with approval from the local Russian Mafia boss whose son is in fact the guy who will be marrying Steve's daughter. Steve's ex-wife is then murdered and his daughter is badly hurt which is the cue for our hero to seek revenge. Fist fights, knife fights and shootings are a plenty as Steve rips apart the bad guys. Although Seagal films are not expensive glossy productions action fans should enjoy this one.

"Driven to Kill" (originally, and more appropriately, titled "Ruslan") is one of the best Steven Seagal flicks in a long time. Now, after total crap like "Kill Switch" and "Against the Dark," almost anything in focus would seem good. But D2K actually has a lot to recommend it--it has a strong, engaged bada$$ performance by Seagal, one with no obvious body/stunt doubles or voice dubbing, a straightforward story, and the kind of action you'd expect. The direction, while not splashy, is competent (a rarity for recent Seagal flicks).

Now, to be honest, it would take a few more million dollars, a lot of retakes, some recasting of supporting roles, and a car chase or two to make this into a theatrical action-exploitation flick along the lines of "Taken." But for a DTV movie Driven to Kill is actually quite exceptional. And for a Seagal DTV this is up there near the top of the heap with Urban Justice and better than Pistol Whipped. It reminds me of a Charles Bronson low budget mid-80s movie like Murphy's Law. However, the shortcomings that affect all direct to video movies with their short shooting schedules and low budgets also brings D2K down a bit as well. The biggest problem is that about half of the supporting performances are embarrassingly lame--the female police officer and the oily lawyer in particular. And there were also some really strange choices made for the film's score. Upbeat Russian folk music during dramatic and violent beatdowns? Seems odd to me. In fact, sometimes the music behind the action is so ill-fitting that it seems like we're listening to a placeholder score that the filmmakers intended to replace. They might as well have said "hey, get that old polka album--we'll use that music for the part where Ruslan cracks the guy's neck!"

But, despite these flaws, I really enjoyed D2K. It has a small scale old school action vibe that I could get into and little to none of the unintentionally comedic incompetence we have come to expect from Seagal's output over the past decade.

Recently, I was reading a review of another Steven Seagal movie, and in it the reviewer commented to the effect that it was just the same as his other movies. Watching "Driven To Kill", I got the same feeling. Oh sure, there are a few minor changes, like making Seagal a Russian (which leads to some unintentional hilarity, hearing Seagal's wheezy and pause-filled whisper doing a bogus accent.) But with the rest of the movie, you will see nothing new. Seagal is still fat, and he continues to wear heavy coats to mask his weight, and is mostly filmed from the chest up. (There is a very funny moment when we see him run for several seconds - he can barely do it.) It should probably come as no surprise that there aren't that many martial arts moments here compared to his early films, and they are rapidly edited and filled with shots of what appear to be doubles doing his work. The gun battle scenes are also equally hard to make out as well. The general production values (cinematography, set decoration, etc.) are passable, and that's about all that's positive I can say about this.