My review of 'Born to Raise Hell'.
Source: http://www.freewebs.com/mhbrh
I hope you enjoy it!
BORN TO RAISE HELL (2010)
(Directed by Lauro Chartrand)
"SEAGAL IS BACK......to making lame movies..."- Signed by MartialHorror.
Plot: An agent working in Romania hunts down a ruthless gypsy gang who sells drug and participates in nasty home invasions.
Review:
Man, for once, I am left utterly speechless on a Steven Seagal movie. We all know of Seagal's decline, but his career seemed to inch forward back into respectability for a moment or two. He played the villain in “Machete”, his first theatrical wide release since “Half Past Dead”, which was something. I also happened to feel that “A Dangerous Man” was a surprisingly decent direct-to-DVD actioner. Of course, he also has that T.V show where he drove a tank into some dudes house and killed his dog (!!), and that is far more jaw dropping than anything his movies have produced in the last 10 years. Unfortunately, “Born to Raise Hell” has Seagal back in his old habits. Is the movie bad? Sure, but it's not agonizingly bad. Like 95% of Seagal's Direct-to-DVD films, it is comfortably bad in that it's merely a below average film. People who continue to endure his films – such as myself- are used to this level of bad. I'm speechless because I don't think I can say anything about "Born to Raise Hell" that I haven't said about every other piece of crap Seagal movie I've seen in the past 10 years. Reviewing Steven Seagal films has become redundant.
You know what? Screw it! I'm going to be harsher on this type of movie. I'm sick of this 'comfortably bad Seagal' *beep* From now on, I want Seagal's films to be flat out awful or at least above average. No more 2 star ratings!
Steven Seagal plays Steven Seagal if Seagal's name was Bobby and he worked as an International Drug Force agent (or something like that) who's working in Romania. Seagal is your typical cop on the edge, but he gets results so the higher ups pretty much let him do what he wants to do. He is currently tracking down Costel (Darren Shahlavi) and his gang, who are busy trafficking drugs. Costel is a vicious piece of work and as a hobby, he commits home invasions of the rich. He's shown killing some dude and then raping (and killing) his wife. Unfortunately, Costel is a crafty bastard and Seagal needs to force a more respectable mobster named Dimitri (Dan Badarou) to smoke him out.
So what can I say that hasn't been said before? As I alluded to earlier, the film isn't notably bad. It's just below average. Everything about it from the writing to the acting to the directing is below average. The only amusingly bad aspects come from the fact that Seagal also apparently wrote the script. I laughed at how everyone seems to worship the guy and delivers contrived dialogue about how amazing Seagal is (although even that is nothing new). However, I was certainly not laughing when Seagal had a love scene...Oh dear God, will that image of Seagal (fully clothed; NOT THAT I'M COMPLAINING) caressing some naked chick (half his age) like some pervy old man ever leave my mind? I also love that even this film knows its own conventions. I love how the rookie cop with the pregnant wife is pretty much told he's doomed to die by one of the villains. Guess what happens to him?!
The director tries to keep things stylish in the same way that all direct-to-DVD directors try to be stylish. Film is sped up, blurred out or there will be a lame jump cut mid scene. Sometimes this all happens when characters stand around, doing nothing. Other times it happens during a fight scene, which backfires and makes the fights incomprehensible. The final fight looked decent, but the director had no idea how to execute it (or maybe Seagal was being fussy and didn't want to do anything advanced so he had no choice). This is his first film, and it is typically amateurish.
Anything good I have to say? Well, the diner fight is actually decent because Seagal gets to show his skills and the director keeps the freaking camera still, without any attempts at style for once. I also thought Dan Badarau's performance as Dimitri was effective. He seemed to be giving it his all, while the rest of the cast (including Seagal) came across as bored or inexperienced. Other than that, it could've been worse, which unfortunately has become another overused claim with Seagal. We could've had Seagal fighting stock footage ("Flight of Fury") or Seagal fighting intolerably bad lighting ("Against the Dark").
If you've seen any Seagal movie, you've seen “Born to Raise Hell” and it's no better or worse than the lot of them. Seagal has everyone worship him, smexes a gal whose probably no older than 20 years old, befriends an honorable gangster who's a significantly better actor than him, has a rookie partner who dies and of course beats the *beep* out of everybody without ever breaking a sweat. That's Steven for you! While he's got a new director, the directing style looks no different than any other direct-to-DVD film Seagal has done. The only thing different about this is that I don't recall any corrupt cops here, for once. The film isn't really any worse than most of Seagal's 2-star efforts, I'm just finally getting fed up with his 2-star efforts. So from now on, I'm going to be harsher with the rating.
Violence: Rated R worthy. Not heavy R, but it has its moments.
Nudity: There is quite a bit of it. In fact, some scenes of strippers going topless come across as padding because there's no real reason for those sequences. There's also a love scene with Seagal (shudders) where the gal is naked and a rape scene (no nudity there though that I remember, props to the director for not being too tasteless there).
Overall: “Born to Raise Hell” is just another below average, direct-to-DVD Steven Seagal flick. Anyone who watches it knows what they're getting into and honestly, I'm getting tired of it.
1.5/4 Stars
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