This is my overall favorite Seagal flick, but it has one major problem that annoys me more and more with time. All the vignettes with Gino going into reminiscing about 'when we wuz kids'. Just complete nonsensical fluff about 'tha naybahood', which do nothing to further the plot. They are all completely meaningless!
share'They are all completely meaningless!'
Couldn't you apply that statement to all of Seagal's movies?
To be fair, I think Seagal (only three films into his career) wanted a shift from the 'Aikido biff-em up' genre he'd made his own. After two (now customary) monosyllabic performances in 'Hard To Kill' and 'Marked For Death'....Seagal (despite his limitations) seemed as impassioned with the marterial in 'Out For Justice', as he had in 'Above The Law'
'Out For Justice' was originally titled 'The Price Of Our Blood' and envisioned to be a straight-up 'Mobster' drama (with a few fight scenes here and there)....But 'Warner Bros' were keen to repeat the winning streak they had with Seagal....so ordered both the 'Three-Word-Title' change and also brought in an editor (Michael Eliot) to whittle it down to a 90 minute action movie (several scenes that were cut are briefly glimpsed in the music montage) and a couple of deleted scenes were featured in the U.S. TV version (and can be occasionally found on Youtube)
For what it's worth, I think it's Seagals best movie....despite his (over-earnest) speeches...........I wish he'd give half a the shit in subsequent movies, as he did here (but sadly, he went straight onto 'performance-auto-pilot' after this....and frustratingly enough, remains there to this day)
Thanks for the background info. Still my favorite Seagal film too.
shareTo be fair, I do think he cared about On Deadly Ground (which was practically a vanity project) and Fire Down Below (which is the most "serious" of all his films.) Not coincidentally he gets to portray himself as a great environmentalist hero speaking truth to power in both.
But yeah he's long been on autopilot. He has to know his direct-to-video oeuvre exists for him to cash a check rather than resuscitate his career.
I know that naybahood well and I thought his performance was very authentic. Exactly what I would expect from a native of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn whose natural rawness/exuberance is tempered by a serious dedication to the martial arts.
This is my second-favorite Seagal movie after Under Siege.