I'm a huge seagal fan but i gotta say, i was a little disappointed with this one. It wasnt bad, dont get me wrong. It certainly wasnt great though.
Ive heard it said that its one of his best films and seagals back on top, he isnt. He dishes out beatings like nobody's business, which is great! His kicks were great and his aikido was back on form too.
Couple of things that let it down for me.....firstly, I didn't like the huge change of character. Seagal wasnt his typical good guy with a bad past character. He was out just for revenge, that was it...no other point to his rampage.
Secondly, I thought the blood splatters from the shootings were a little excessive.
Seagal starts with an accent too, slightly different from all his other films. He soon drops this though, so the inconsistency is there.
Finally, that annoying mouthy black guy that shot him in the shoulder lives. Erm Steve, come on, break his goddamn neck!
Good points: Great action, lots of kicking ass, a darker part is acted by seagal (some of you may love this), his character was actually believeable (although a lot of the other characters were not).
"Stand your Ground and FIGHT!"
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hellfire666
16 years ago
It's overrated as IMDB rating goes, but I think it's about right, I also rated this a 6.
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neal2zod
16 years ago
Trust me, nobody wanted to enjoy this more than I did - I was totally psyched. But his best since Out for Justice (as some people are saying?) are you kidding me?? I think it's just a case of people WANTING Seagal to be back, and kinda overlooking the fact that the movie's terrible.
The whole thing is just really poorly done, amateurish - it seems like a lot of scenes were done in one take with no rehearsal (ie the scene where he gives the sandwich and bottle of tequila to the bum - and where did he get that sandwich from anyway? the club after he talked to Danny Trejo?) The fight scenes are nowhere near the level of anything pre-Exit Wounds (when his fight scenes got bad). Serioulsy, Fire Down Below's fight scenes were better than this. At least you could see what was happening.
The shootouts were just uninventive - a guy shoots at Seagal, they miss - he shoots back, a GIANT squib goes off, and they fall down in slowmotion. Rinse and repeat. Actually reminded me of the shootouts at the end of the Shaft remake.
On the brightside, the female sidekick is really likable, and I thought some of Eddie Griffin's obviously improvised lines were funny. Oh, and I liked the Keystone Kops-style car chase with the two gangstas yelling at each other. But yeah, just because Seagal's voice ISN'T dubbed and this is NOT set in Europe and he's not EX-CIA, etc... like his last 12 movies, doesn't make this one better.
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estradajake
16 years ago
This movie wasn't by far his best, but it is one of his better DTV fares in a while I must mention. Plus it seems he does try a bit here before going back to typical fare. Of course we know why it ended up DTV because of the lack of certain elements, like someone mentioned how he got a sandwich and on top of that the accent he starts out does slowly disappear throughout the film. Yet some of this is also the directors fault that is supposed to key in on these parts on their actors.
Yet this film was shot in what? 12 or 13 days?
However, it was a lot better then his latest films. If he could take this small step and I say small because it was small and try to make better movies he may do ok.
He needs to find a nice ensemble piece with a nifty director to get him back to the top. Think what Quentin Tarantino could do with a guy like Steven?
Some of it is Steven's own fault, yet it is also a number of other outside factors. In the end I am a fan of Steven's, but there is also a part of me that dreads each new addition to his ever growing collection of craptastic film work.
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16 years ago
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agent2009
16 years ago
You should be aware that Seagal is no longer 30 or 40. What you need is another white man who can fight. Until then, my 2 words: TOny Jaa
...
I'm rich and divorced
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cvanherp
16 years ago
I total agree with everything you've noted, I've read a lot of reviews about this movie, so had high hopes. I'm a great Steven Seagal fan (have all his DVD's, except for "Attack Force" which I still can't bring myself to finish watching). Here's hoping that "Pistol Wipped" will be better?
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