Most of Seagal's money goes to good causes; health care, fund raisers, and children's support. the rest goes to a lost cause; strait to video, cheesy productions, and while some of these were okay, I'm not sure how many people have actually bothered to watch them. Steven Seagal's Reality series Lawman is a step in the right direction. It presents something fresh, interesting and certainly worthwhile for whatever fan base Seagal has left
Believe it or not, Mr. Seagal has been a deputy sheriff almost as long as he has been a movie star. This series follows him through the streets of Jefferson county, Louisiana. Even though he is still pretty large and cumbersome, he is not as useless as he looks in his movies. The guy is perfectly capable of speaking normally it seems (wereas in his latter works, he could barely open his mouth). He can move fast enough to hop fences or catch runners on the streets. But here, we also get to see Seagal as a human being, not just a body. He helps out his neighbours, he visits hospitals, lectures kids, and even introduces his team to traditional Chinese medicine. We also get to see him in concert (briefly), and while his music ain't bad, his stage show needs some work.
If I am gonna make a complaint about the series, it would be regarding a slight lack of tension and believability. The programme may not be fake, but it is assembled in a kind of stagy/schematic form. Every episode contains three or four arrests, and each takes up a mere thirty to forty seconds (a couple last longer). The editing is a bit tight, and it's obvious that lots of material is cut out. The camera is able to get pretty close, and if I was being arrested on the street one night, and noticed a camera in my face, I might be tempted to start cursing and fighting back. Actually I wouldn't do that, but I'm pretty sure many of the people here did. What is even more interesting is that half of those who get arrested are surprised when they notice Steven Seagal. After twenty years, you'd think rumour would've gotten around the criminal undergrowth that Seagal is a cop in the community.
One other thing worth mentioning is the photography. A lot of the miscellaneous footage (much of which is landscape imagery) are actually nice compositions, and the intense saturation of the picture is also nice touch. In fact it does in a way contribute to the quality of the series. For example, quite frequently the combined light from three or four police cars on a crime scene illuminates everything in a dramatic coat of purple. (blue + red, right)
As a whole, Steven Seagal's Lawman is imperfect, but entertaining nonetheless. The occasional hints of artificiality are not enough to harm the show, which is definitely Seagal's best entertainment investment so far this century.
