My review of Shadow Man

Here’s my review of Shadow Man, latest release from Steven Seagal.

The first twenty to thirty minutes of this movie are better than anything Seagal has made since Exit Wounds. Really good stuff that with a little bit more polishing could have been just as good as anything in all of his pre-DTV days. The most annoying thing in these 20-30 minutes is the voice dubbing. This time, I can say, hand-on-heart that it most definitely is NOT Steven’s fault, it just seems that getting a Seagal impersonator to “sound” like Seagal (at least to try to) is cheaper than getting Seagal himself to do ADR work in the sound studio. Other minor issues in this first part of the movie are all down to the director’s ability to…direct. Everything on-screen oozes presence, fun and involvement. Seagal seems happy to be in this movie and actually looks like he cares about the movie, the music is not that bad, the acting overall is ok, the plot seems to start going in an interesting direction, etc. This is a huge step forward when compared to recent Seagal movies like Mercenary for Justice or Black Dawn in which we got a sleepwalking Seagal, bad acting, cheesy overcomplicated unintelligible plots, bad music and crappy editing.

See, 90% of these DTV action movies are bound to have nothing new or interesting in them, they are mostly 90 minute-long commercials for the movie portfolio of the starring past-his-prime-and-glory-days action star. BUT, if the action star, director and crew seem to have fun while making the movie and put just a small amount of thought and soul into their work, then we might just get an above average simple and entertaining action movie.

Recent examples of this better-than-it-should-be type of moviemaking are most of Van Damme’s movies, especially Wake of Death and the two latest movies from Dolph Lundgren, The Defender and The Mechanik (aka The Russian Specialist). Wake of Death is the DTV cheap version of Tony Scott’s Man on Fire, BUT it had a couple of things to make it above average: proper acting from Van Damme, a storyline that made sense and was engaging (as action movies go), a good directorial effort from Philippe Martinez and a nice soundtrack, plus a cast of characters and actors that were miles away from the usual cardboard cutouts. Several small details here and there added up to give us a quality action movie that had proper acting, directing, music and a nice story with some interesting action, not an award winner, but most definitely much better than the recent cow excrements Hollywood calls action movies.

Dolph Lundgren’s The Defender was a take on an Assault on Precinct 13 type of story. So, nothing new, but with a surprising turn in front AND behind the camera from Dolph (he directed the movie), some nice acting from Jerry Springer as the president of USA and a storyline that made sense and had a few interesting things to point out about the current state of the war on terrorism, the movie rose up from the mud it had been intended to sink in and shone.

Dolph’s other directorial effort, The Mechanik was even better as Dolph had more time to prepare the movie (pre-production) and has what I found to be the most impressive acting in any DTV movie from Ben Cross. Dolph has some nice moves behind the camera and he also has the intelligence to keep everything as down to Earth as possible. Almost all DTV action movies have really small budgets, but they always try to look and feel like they are huge-budget Hollywood type fancy-flashy action movies in the hope that they will fool the audience into buying the movie and all other DTVs from the same company. The never manage to do that, they just end up looking like distant retard cousins of the bigger action movies of the past, cousins that you have pity for, but who you don’t really want to be around for long.

With The Mechanik, Dolph had a small budget and the best thing: it shows up on screen. Some might say that that is not a good thing is, but in this case, it is because Dolph makes the movie look like it is gritty and SFX-less because it wants to be so, not because it has to be so. Every cent, dollar and euro was spent well on The Mechanik and in the right places. While most movies try to pretend that locations in Bulgaria and Romania are actually streets of L.A., New York, etc, The Mechanik actually has a story that is supposed to take place in an Eastern European location that is supposed to look crappy, old and dirty. It’s almost like some of the westerns of days gone by in the sense that it has that same gritty, dusty, dirty feel to it that lets you know that the characters are in a bad, sin-filled location and that bad things are bound to happen. Another example of this is Eli Roth’s Hostel, in terms of location and cinematography and the Van Damme man-in-prison movie, In Hell (aka The Savage).

The point that I was trying to make so far is that Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren seem to have found a niche, a place for themselves in the movie market. Instead of trying to make cheap AND bad action movies that try to fool the audience into thinking they are more than they seem to be, they have turned the situation around and have started to make simple and engaging action movies that cater to that side of the audience that wants to see such a clear cut type of action movie. And they added the right amounts of quality into the mix to turn out what I believe are some of the best action movies of the past decade. I would have honestly liked to see Replicant, In Hell, Wake of Death, The Defender and The Mechanik on the big screen instead of recent crap action wannabe movies like The Punisher remake, Elektra, Cradle 2 The Grave, Doom, etc.

Coming back to Steven Seagal, well his movies have not made the same step towards quality like the ones from Van Damme and Lundgren have. Since Half Past Dead his movies have been un-engaging, poorly directed, badly edited and badly acted. The action side of all of his DTV movies has been a HUGE letdown and disappointment. It’s sad to see fans wondering if his voice will be dubbed by some Seagal-wannabe or whether his body double will be in more of the movie than Seagal himself. He has been using body doubles even in scenes in which his character is supposed to just cross the street. I know that this is most likely the producers’ fault. Probably they sign a contract with Seagal for a number of days in which he is supposed to work for the movie. Let’s say that Seagal is supposed to actually shoot scenes for the film only during 2 weeks out the entire 5-7 weeks it takes to complete a DTV action movie. If extra Seagal scenes are needed beyond the 2 week frame of time, it sure is cheaper to get an obvious body double instead of getting the man himself. I think this is the sole reason why Seagal keeps making so many movies per year, with only 2 weeks per movie; he can actually make 10 movies per year. Add to that a paycheck that could range from 1 to 5 million US $ per movie and it sure is a lucrative and prosperous deal.

I’m not foolish, everybody is making movies for the money and while I’m certain that Van Damme and Lundgren get paid well, they also take their time to AT LEAST TRY to make good movies. Seagal seems to just not care. He is out of shape and while that would not bother me since the martial arts that he specializes is are not about brute force, but about using the enemy’s force and weight against themselves, I am bothered by the fact the producers AND Seagal himself are trying to hide this by only filming Seagal from certain angles or in a dark room to try to hide the extra weight. That means that Seagal ends up looking ridiculous and is almost unseen in his movies. He also looks sweaty and dirty even if he is just having a conversation in the movie. The overweight factor is incompatible with the mean, bad tough guy persona Seagal has had in all of his movies. Sure, it worked in his pre-Half Past Dead part of the career, cause he was tall, slim and fast. NOW, he looks fat, dirty and lazy. He sleepwalks through most of his DTV outings as if he is not there to stop the bad guys, just looking for the paycheck.

Some unintentional humor has come as a result of this. His first DTV movie was called Belly of The Beast and Seagal sure had a beast of a belly in that movie. Also, his most recent movie (the one I will eventually write about in this paper) is called Shadow Man and he sure keeps to the shadows in all of his DTV movies.

Also, he has been wearing the same ugly long leather coat in 90% of his DTV movies starting with The Foreigner. It looks bad on him and only serves the purpose of hiding his extra weight. Also, it looks silly when Seagal wears that type of coat during summer, winter, autumn, underwater, on a plane, during a fight, during a shootout, all that remains is to see him wearing that coat during a sex scene.

That same coat makes a comeback in the second half of Shadow Man. Boy, does it look bad.

Remember that I said that the first 20 to 30 minutes of Shadow Man are quite good? Well, that is the worst thing about this movie to be honest. See, because the movie starts out so well, you get high hopes about the rest of the movie, and the rest is normal below average stuff same as we have been getting from Seagal in his DTV days. The plot gets lost along the way in what seems to be an interminable cast of characters that the director and the movies itself have no idea what to do with. So many people are looking for the so-called THE ITEM that you get lost in who works for whom, who is double crossing whom, who is good, who is bad, why the characters are doing this or that… To solve this, they just have Seagal kill almost every bad guy in the movie in under 10 minutes that come at the end and which are a relief because with only 3-4 characters left, yow know the movie will make sense, too bad it’s over. See, the plot is simple and not hard to follow, it’s just presented in a messy, agitated and disjointed way. The movie TRIES to force you to pay attention, but it just ends up boring you and making you want to turn it off.

The good thing about this movie is that Seagal seems to want to be in this movie, seems to be having a good time, seems to be trying and I can honestly say that this time I liked the movie BECAUSE Seagal was in it NOT DESPITE that Seagal was in it. He was plenty of hand to hand fights that are almost very good, his character is the same burned-out-retired-undercover type of CIA agent he has been playing since basically Half Past Dead in all of his movies (most of them anyway), but since Seagal is having fun, it actually STARTS to work, it never does, because the script and the director never give it enough time to do so.

Michael Keusch is really awful. The only nice direction in the movie is a car explosion scene at the beginning of the movie, everything else is poorly directed and stolen from better and bigger action movies. He has no style, no eye for the action, although I admit to have seen sparks of quality here and there, just not enough to make his directorial style more than the usual gun-for-hire type of DTV efforts that plague the market.

The cast is NOT bad, not great either, but they do their job properly and don’t mess up the movie, BUT the really bad dialogue that is given to them and the messy plot makes them get lost-in-translation somehow. They are cardboard characters, slightly good ones, but just not good enough.

The SFX are sometimes really bad and sometimes good (see the car chases for the bad and the car explosion at the airport for good). The costumes are ok, the locations are ok, but sometimes they work, sometimes they do not.

See, if those first 20 to 30 minutes from the beginning of the movie had been put together just a little bit better and IF the rest of the movie had been just like that, this would have been a really good movie, but it just isn’t. The worst thing about this movie is that it HAD the potential, the ingredients are there on the screen, but they just form a pile of ingredients instead of one simple to digest yet nourishing meal. This is not tasty or good, it’s passable, AT BEST.

I won’t get into more details, let me just say that I AM a fan of Seagal. Up until and including Exit Wounds he made sold action movies that were entertaining and I really want him to get back to making such movies that is why I keep watching all of his recent movies. BECAUSE I STILL HAVE HOPE.

Into the Sun and the first 30 minutes of Shadow Man fuel that hope, but it just does not seem to grow into anything palpable. The only project that Seagal has in his future that I have hope will be a return to form is Prince of Pistols which he wants to direct himself and will be shot on location in New Orleans. See, I hope that if Dolpf Lundgren could go behind the camera twice and both times with unexpectedly good results, then maybe Steven Seagal could do the same.

Watch Shadow Man to see Seagal at his best since Into the Sun (which was his best since Exit Wounds) and for some nice hand-to-hand combat, but be warned that movie is below average and that the body double is back, only in scenes which have Seagal’s character cross the street, get into a car or running. The fights are 99% done by the man himself. Be aware that very poor voice dubbing is present, but in small amounts and that the plot is messy. Seagal has fun in the movie, the girl playing the part of his daughter is a good actress and that a familiar face from Belly of The Beast is back in a similar role, one in which he is good.

Overall, 4/10 (Wake of Death 8/10, The Defender 7/10. The Mechanik 8/10, Into the Sun 6/10). All of the four points the movie got are for Seagal, since there is nothing else worth watching this movie for).