A Major Improvement......

I just watched it tonight after hearing how good it was from others. While it wasn't worthy of a US theatrical release and boasted a good storyline that declines about 2/3 of the way through, I found it to be a major step up from all his recent dvd movies. Overall a very entertaining movie. In a small way, it reminded me of Mark Dacascos' Sanctuary with it's secret organization.

Director Riene did a great job getting Seagal to act more. He actually showed a little emotion. Remorse, cute sarcasm, flirtation, an actual smile (scenes with his daughter were pretty good). Nothing great by any stretch of the imagination for most actors but for Seagal it was a big step considering he barely breaks any kind of emotional sweat in any of his movies. I'd like to see him do more movies like this where he shows a little more soul and humanity.

The action scenes were decent too. Good to see him actually doing all or the majority of the stunts instead of his stand-ins. The fights looked clean and credible rather than silly like Exit Wounds or boring like his last seven or eight straight2videos.

My only real problem with Pistol Whipped is that the director seemed to concentrate more on making Seagal look like a credible actor instead of making the story more sensible believable. I know, I know. It's a b movie but for much of the movie, the story maintains a good consistency and continuity then when all the revelations of who's who comes into play, the whole thing starts to fall apart and become silly. The early action scenes were well-done but the two final shootouts/showdown were a mess.

Anyone who thinks this is bad should go watch Against the Dark, Urban Justice or Kill Switch. Even the latest, Driven to Kill. THOSE are bad movies, especially Kill Switch. PW isn't Out for Justice or Against the Law but it's not any of those aforementioned turkeys either.