Replicant (2001) - By Mark Oswald

Once again Jean-Claude Van Damme is in a movie playing two identical characters; whether they’re twin brothers, or technically the very same person, he really seems to love this kind of shit. This fascination began in 1991 with the ‘brothers separated at birth but reunited by their parents’ former bodyguard to avenge their deaths’ picture, Double Impact (not to be confused with the absurd buddy movie Double Team starring Van Damme and Dennis Rodman). This bizarre cinematic fetish continued on in Time Cop, Maximum Risk, and the subject of today’s discussion, Replicant.

The Room 2 starring Jean-Claude Van Damme

When the film starts out, we see a mother being terrorized in her apartment by an unseen assailant, but when the camera pans up to the intruder’s face, it’s Mr. Jean-Claude (with greasy chin-length hair and lame yellow-tinted sunglasses, like some Euro-pop singer/snowboarder). He proceeds to set the woman on fire, and then sing “Rock-a-Bye Baby” to her infant child before leaving it to burn along with its mother. First of all, it’s kind of a shock to see Van Damme as a cold-blooded killer, but when he makes an escape being chased by Michael Rooker, you could make the inference that you’ll be rooting for Rooker instead of Van Damme, when in actuality, you will be rooting for both, in a sense. Mind blown yet? Very good, let’s continue…

You see Michael Rooker’s character is a cop who’s been playing a game of cat and mouse with this psychopath for years. He even gets calls from him while at his retirement party. After escaping capture yet again, it is revealed that a high-level government organization has secretly cloned (replicated) JC’s character from a strand of hair left at an earlier crime scene. They’ve been growing him for some time now, in hopes that this Replicant will possess some kind of psychic link to the killer, and will in turn help in bringing him to justice (seems to me like they put an awful lot of money into the project based solely on this whole psychic connection theory, but they must have felt pretty strongly about it; and I'm no scientist, so I'm not going to judge?) The G-Men want Rooker to work with him, based on his vast knowledge and experience with the case.

If you have been following JC’s DTV timeline you may have noticed a visible enhancement of his acting ability, rather than just his “doing the splits” ability. I haven’t seen all of his DTV features, mind you, and he didn’t seem to be giving it his all in The Hard Corps, but I’ve been thoroughly impressed with his dramatic work in Wake of Death, In Hell, Until Death, and of course JCVD. Some of these performances have actually been hampered by the other actors around him not being nearly as good, which is weird, but overall I’m trying to say that he’s gotten a lot better. By the time he did Replicant, however, I don’t think he had yet reached his full potential as an actor. Here he does get to branch out though. As I said, he finally gets to play a villain, but in addition to that, he gets to play a clone/man-child/animal-boy/wannabe gymnast. Once he is created, he must be taught how to walk and talk, and overall just act like a human being. He is shown gymnastic videos which teach him to be athletic and do splits and stuff. So for once in Van Damme’s filmography, a movie actually goes out of its way to explain his penchant for doing the splits. I also thought that the martial arts wizardry of Gymkata was going to make a triumphant return, but I was sorely mistaken. There is a scene later on, where after forming a stronger connection to his killer other half, he starts performing martial arts moves as if from muscle memory. Both JCVDs start fighting each other with the exact same moves, but don’t seem to be making contact because they completely cancel out each other’s maneuvers. Admittedly though, the whole thing would be a lot more exciting if they would use more than only three moves. Seriously, come on guys.

Michael Rooker’s character gets the thankless job of bringing the Replicant around to different places, trying to jolt some of his memories in order to find them a lead. I’ve always liked Michal Rooker. He’s not what you’d call a handsome leading man or anything, but he’s consistently intense and always seems to be putting his best foot forward, performance-wise. He did gain some minor acclaim with his work in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, but I remember him most from his roles in Mallrats, Cliffhanger, and a random made-for-TV action movie I saw as a kid called Back to Back.

Directed by Ringo Lam, who also collaborated with JC on Maximum Risk and In Hell, a good job is done with keeping the pace up while also delivering several assorted action moments differently than I have seen them done before. It’s hard to put my finger on exactly why, but many times when a car crashed or a body got slammed through something, it seemed new. It could be the framing or camera placement, but a lot of the stunts came off as a lot more exciting than in other films where I’ve seen similar moves orchestrated not quite as affectively. Unlike some of Van Damme’s other DTV efforts, the budget on this one seems a little higher as well. The government facility where Replicant JCVD is grown and trained is a flashy, slightly futuristic looking area that must have taken some time and money to create. The overall look and coloring of the movie is a kind of cheap, but what is shown within obviously took some skill to produce.

Jean-Claude's all tuckered out after the Jim Varney look-a-like party

While the story itself is only slightly unique and the theme may seem a little low rate to non-action fans, I found Replicant to be an altogether enjoyable experience. It’s not as good as some of my Van Damme favorites like Sudden Death, or even other dual-Van Damme pictures like Double Impact and Maximum Risk, but it’s definitely better and/or less bizarre than Double Team and the general unenthusiasticness of The Hard Corps. I’d say rent this or Watch Instantly on Netflix if you get the itch.

Body Count - 7

Special Forces (2003) - By Mark Oswald

Well I said in my review of Attack Force Z that I was going to be reviewing some more group-based Action films in preparation for The Expendables, which comes out in a few days. Now I haven’t exactly filled my quota, so to speak, but I’ve at least got a cheesy but good one here to tell you guys about, and hopefully I’ll get another one done before taking in Sly’s newest Action extravaganza this Thursday at Midnight.

Special Forces is the first Action/Martial Arts collaboration from Israeli DTV auteur Isaac Florentine, and ass-kicker Scott Adkins. The film actually stars Marshall Teague (Armageddon, some episodes of “Walker, Texas Ranger”) and his merry band of Army Special Forces (!) soldiers, assigned to missions involving the infiltration/elimination of enemy targets and whatnot. The team is first introduced mid-mission by the old freeze frame on their face while the character’s name is plastered on-screen beneath them. In this first encounter, they offer an impressive display of silenced-shootings mixed with a quick martial arts move here and there and this is basically the form of combat they stick with for the remainder of the film. I also must say that regardless of a serious lack of character depth and/or development, they come across as a very tight-knit group of military bros.

The main story revolves around a power-mad Russian military guy who decides to take a female journalist hostage after she and her photographer witness the slaughter of a few dozen peasant villagers. After a video tape is sent to the American government, demanding a ransom for her life, the Special Forces team is dispatched to Russia in order to rescue the girl. While there, they must rendezvous with the surviving member of a British SAS team that had been sent into the country on a previous mission. Scott Adkins (with native accent for once) plays the sole survivor as a charismatic loner who is willing to help out the SF team when needed, but is primarily interested in exacting his revenge against the evildoers responsible for the slaughter of his unit.

Adkins, of course, really steals the show from the Americans. Because like, you know, they are well trained and kick a lot of ass and everything, but it doesn’t really matter, because he’s Scott Adkins. Whenever the film goes back to the SF members fighting after watching him do his thing, it just doesn’t compare. Adkins is always impressive, but here he seems faster than ever since it was before he bulked up a little more as to not look scrawny in comparison to Michael Jai White in Undisputed II. I mean he’s a very muscular guy anyways, but Jai White is just fucking large. Adkins’ acting in his native voice is overall pretty decent. You can tell he’s more relaxed than in his stiffer American roles, but maybe not having as much fun as in his aggressive Russian ones. You can tell he’s more comfortable fighting than in the dialogue scenes, probably because: A) He was only 26 and less experienced at the time, and B) the actual dialogue isn’t exactly what I’d call “rich”. I also found it kind of funny how the script had him calling people “chaps” and “blokes” and stuff a non-British writer would probably think he would say, but none of that shit sounds natural coming out of his mouth for some reason, so I thought that was pretty funny.

The requisite evil Russian in this movie is played by Eli Danker, who went on the play the mystical, wheelchair-bound inmate who helps out Michael Jai White in Undisputed II. In that movie his character was a grumpy, but sad-eyed old man, whose subplot added some heart to the film’s third act. Here he plays the typical evil foreign military bad guy; but he’s a solid actor, so he makes a memorable role out of one that would have otherwise been cliché and forgettable. Marshall Teague, as our main heroic type, does a solid job playing the uber-patriotic squad leader who is still scarred from a devastating previous encounter with Danker’s character. He has the utmost respect for the men under his command, but doesn’t baby them when they’re feeling less than optimistic about the mission. You know; tough love and all that…

The highlight of the film was during the final battle(s), which consisted of a fight between Teague and Danker shown parallel with a fight between Adkins and Danker’s right-hand man, who it seems was the one responsible for the assassination of Adkins’ team. The juxtaposition between the two encounters works well because of the different fighting styles being used. Teague and Danker duke it out in more of a clumsy brawl; punching, kicking, and utilizing improvised weaponry whenever possible. Meanwhile Adkins and the other dude (couldn’t figure out the guy’s name from the movie’s IMDB page) go at it in a highly-stylized and excellently choreographed martial arts battle of epic proportions. It is seriously fucking awesome. I absolutely did not want it to end and I should’ve been counting the times I let out an exclamation of “Whoa!” in addition to tracking the film’s impressively high body count. I’ve enjoyed immensely the fights worked out in the Undisputed sequels, but when the fighters actually get to perform in an outside-the-ring capacity, able to utilize and react to objects around them in inspiring ways, it is even more captivating.

Isaac Florentine, as usual, demonstrates some of his patented directorial flair. Lots of energetic camera movements and “whoosh” sound effects whenever something is swung, thrown, etc. The editing again is stylish and fast-paced, but never convulsive or disorientating. The film’s weaker moments reside mostly in the scripting department. The dialogue is nothing special, and often very cliché, except for a few golden nuggets sprinkled throughout. The look of the film exhibits its lack of a big budget. For example, even though this film came out three years after Proof of Life, it looks like it was shot ten years prior. A lot of the acting of course fails to reach the heights of Brando, Pacino, and at times even a young Seagal, but I’ve seen a hell of a lot worse too. Another thing that might bother some people is the balls out sense of American pride on display here. The SF guys are so gung-ho and stereotypical that it might turn some people off, but I thought it was all just corny enough to work. Plus none of them talk too much so I wouldn’t let any of that stop you from seeing this thing. Also, there is more than enough action on hand to help you overlook these detractions.

Next up is probably Florentine’s U.S. Seal’s II. No Adkins in that one, but oh well. You can’t have it all.


Body Count – 175! (Not including the lives lost in the peasant village massacre, since there were, sadly, just too many to count)

One Man's Justice (1996) - By Mark Oswald

Ex-football star, Brian “The Boz” Bosworth is back! Well I guess he WAS back…in 1996. You’d probably only be familiar with The Boz’s acting if you’ve seen Stone Cold, the ridiculous biker gang-related Action movie that came out a few years prior to this one. That movie is a true blast of over-the-top entertainment; with none other than the great Lance Henriksen as the villain in charge of an evil biker gang from HELL (not literally). I have a rule. Well, more of a guideline; that if you go to watch an Action movie and Lance Henriksen is playing the bad guy, then you’re probably in good hands. Don’t believe me? Well go find out for yourself. I’ve got a date with a man and his justice…I mean…um, let’s begin!

One Man’s Justice (aka – One Tough Bastard) is about model divorced dad and Army Drill Instructor, John North (solid Action movie name, there), played by Bosworth of course. His ex-wife and daughter are killed during an illegal arms deal at a convenience store where M. C. Gainey (Tom Friendly from “LOST”) is working behind the counter, but is somehow not a bad guy. Boz just happens to come across the scene on his way home from work and naturally tries to intervene, with negative results. After he recovers from the incident, he tries to get on with his life; coping with his losses via the Catholic church and charity work. OK, not really. He immediately tries to track down the sonofawitch that caused him pain by remembering the tattoo the dude had on his neck, even though his ex-wife was the one who noticed it. He wasn’t even there yet, and now she’s dead, but somehow, through the power of the psychic world, combined with the ever-popular use of the slow-motion flashback, he is able to pick it out of a sample book at a tattoo shop and he’s off on his quest for the titular justice.

Don't forget the kickstand, Boz

The Director of this piece is Kurt Wimmer, who some of you may know from his work on the futuristic shoot-em-up, Equilibrium, starring Christian Bale. Well this film is nothing like that one. It’s got none of the Gunkata flare and probably about a third of the budget. One thing it does have, though, is a very weird vibe permeating throughout that I really couldn’t quite get a fix on. It’s tough to explain, but I feel like whatever it was, was throwing off the flow of the movie a little bit. That’s not to say I didn’t end up enjoying it as a whole, it’s just weird. I don’t think it had quite as much action as Stone Cold, but there’s still a decent amount. However there were a few different shots during some of the shoot-outs that cut right after a gun had been fired, but didn’t show anyone being hit, which made the Body Count tracking a tad difficult at times, but I was able to adapt and overcome regardless.

Bosworth does surprisingly well during the hand-to-hand combat scenes, especially near the beginning when he’s at work training military recruits. I’m not sure if he had completed some kind of training in the past, and I don’t remember him using such fancy moves in Stone Cold, but he’s very convincing here. He also looks a helluva lot more presentable in this than in Stone Cold. In that movie he had a long blond mullet and looked more like an 80’s wrestler than a cop, or whatever he played in that movie. Actually he looked a lot like the bad guy of this one! Here he’s got his hair cut short like a beefed-up, Ghost-era Patrick Swayze. So he’s looking good, but his acting has noticeably improved as well. He wasn’t the worst in Stone Cold, but I do remember him being pretty stiff. Here he does a surprisingly good job of emoting in a convincing manner. I doubt he got nominated for anything, but he still did a pretty good job.

I guess one of the hindrances I saw preventing this movie from becoming another instant classic was the shifting tone between Bosworth’s more realistic character dealing with the legitimate grief he felt over the loss of his family, and the over-the-top, cartoonish-looking villains. The main baddie is an FBI agent, but has long blond hair and nose rings and acts like he’s possessed or something. Or at least like he should be in a different movie where he can awkwardly recite his dialogue without getting in The Boz’s way. At first I thought he had some funny lines and was kind of amusing, but as the movie went on, he started to get on my nerves a little. Aside from that, there was this ongoing theme of the morality of vengeance, and even though I commend them for trying, I really didn’t think this flick was high-brow enough to pull it off. I just kept wanting Bosworth to put an end to these jackasses. But oh well, what are you gonna do? It’s no Stone Cold, but I’ll bestow credit where it’s due. Give this flick a shot and you probably won’t regret it.

Oh and before I forget, I wanted to mention that M.C. Hammer has a role in this as a drug kingpin or something. I’m assuming this was during his attempted foray into gangster rap, and was probably thinking that a role like this would help in building that harder image. He’s also simply credited as “Hammer” (no M.C.), which I believe is what he shortened his name to in order to sound tougher. Cuz “M.C.” is for pussies, I guess.


Body Count - 38

Undisputed III: Redemption (2009) - By Mark Oswald

Well the wait is over. I’ve certainly mentioned it enough times in my other reviews, but Undisputed III: Redemption is finally here; and it is, in a word, awesome. In Undisputed II: Last Man Standing, Michael Jai White played George Chambers, an American boxer who is framed and placed in a Russian prison in order to take on the reigning champion of its one-on-one prison battles, which are televised and subsequently bet on by shady underworld figures. The champion that Chambers had to defeat in order to gain his freedom was Uri Boyka (Scott Adkins), a badass Russian dude who fancied himself “the most complete fighter in the world”. In this movie, Boyka has become the main focus point and relegated as our hero. Though I’m sure if he heard anyone call him a “hero”, he’d tear their arms off.

After his humbling defeat in the previous film, the master fighter has been relegated to cleaning up toilets. He limps around the concrete bowels of the penitentiary, mop in hand, thanks to the knee injury he sustained from his previous bout. He’s still got the urge to butt heads, though, so he trains himself the best he can and manages to get himself a spot in the biggest prison fighting tournament in the land, with competitors from all over the world flown in to participate. The winner is supposedly given their freedom, while the losers are sent back where they came from… again, supposedly.

That’s basically all the setup you need going into this movie. In fact, you probably don’t even have to see the second one (though you definitely should) since all you need to know about it, they show in a few quick flashbacks. The fights, once again, are nothing short of spectacular. Seriously some of the best I’ve ever seen. What’s best is that Director Isaac Florentine continues to show his love for the martial arts through long, fluent cuts, shot to maximize awesomeness. No shaky-cam, over-edited garbage here. The fisticuffs are coordinated in a manner that is high on style, but not so over the top as to seem ridiculous.

A very hands-on Director

Returning as Boyka, Adkins obviously gets more to do this time around, other than simply look menacing and intimidate people. Still not much for words, he forms an unlikely bond with an American fighter, who, in essence, actually forces him to exert more dialogue. It’s great to see how differently Adkins plays his characters from film to film. He’s virtually unrecognizable in appearance and sound in the Undisputed films when compared to his look in Ninja or The Shepherd: Boarder Patrol. Even in The Tournament, his Russian character looks completely different than Boyka. I think he was even using a different type of Russian accent as well, so points to him for that! He’s also a lot more charismatic playing Russians than Americans, as I mentioned he came off a little stiff at times in Ninja. I’m still waiting to see how he fairs in his native voice, though. In this movie, they do a good job of making his character more sympathetic than before, but I liked how they didn’t just automatically make him likable either. He’s still kind of a grumpy asshole, but it’s his determination to be the best combined with his stubbornness and hardcore since of honor that make you root for him.

Zaror examines his competition

Chilean Martial Artist Marko Zaror plays the bad guy this time around. I’ve heard his name mentioned before in reviews of Mandrill and Mirage Man, but never actually seen him in action until now. He plays a Columbian fighter who is the prison’s current champion. He gets a lot of perks that the other combatants do not. He sits in a lawn chair under a tarp, drinking tropical beverages and watching from upon high while the other guys do hard labor, breaking rocks all day (and this is BEFORE they’re allowed their daily hour of training). Zaror’s fighting style is very free-form and loose, and he makes a lot of goofy faces to fuck with his opponents while in the ring. Outside the ring he gives just as many, so I’m not sure if he’s fucking with us, the viewer, as well, or if that’s just the character. Like Boyka in the previous film, Zaror doesn’t get a ton of dialogue either, but he still manages to stick in your head thanks to his man-childish looks and weirdo charisma; a completely different kind of villain from the last film, which is admirable.

I’m still having a hard time figuring out which Undisputed sequel I like better. Both have excellent fight scenes, memorable villains, and a heart-on-their-sleeve sincerity. Neither gets weighed down with unnecessarily complicated plots either, unlike a lot of Direct to Video Action films these days. They keep it simple; real simple; like absolutely no excess baggage at all. This may be a deterrent to film-snobby people looking for some high-art cinema, but just because these films are uncomplicated, doesn’t mean they aren’t artistic. It’s a different kind of talent on display.

So in closing, Undisputed III may not be Citizen Kane, but it could very well be the Citizen Kane of modern fight films; and boy, how’s that for an endorsement?

Body Count – 13

Heads Busted – 14

Mopping Scenes – 5

The Tournament (2009) - By Mark Oswald

24 hours, 30 assassins, and 346 explosions (rough estimate); sadly this is not what my upcoming weekend has in store for me, but rather it’s a loose rundown of a newish Direct-to-Video gem called The Tournament. This is another instant DTV action classic that, like Blood and Bone and Undisputed II, caught my attention via the Internet. Man, what an invention the Internet is; did you know you can find information on just about every movie ever made on this thing? It’s wild, I’m telling you. God Bless Al Gore! Creator of the Internet and savior of our planet!

If ever there were a film to singularly exemplify the term, “non-stop action”, it could be this one. While I’m not ready to give it said title just yet, it’s definitely a contender. The premise is that every seven years a competition (The Tournament) is held in a random city, wherein 30 of the world’s top assassins proceed to kill each other off until there is only one standing. The winner is then given a large cash prize and declared “World’s Greatest Assassin”, at least for seven years. Then they’ll have to compete again in order retain their title. Each player has a tracking device surgically implanted in them before they begin so that they can all be tracked by each other on the iphone-like devices that have been provided for them. For us at home, it’s basically like watching a full-scale multiplayer videogame, with real people instead of animated characters.

The Devil's got his sights on you, Father...

At the beginning of The Tournament, the head honcho, Powers, who is in charge of everything gives an ultra cheesy speech to the underworld slime balls who will be making bets on which assassins they think will win. He only highlights 5 of the 30, so you don’t have to think too hard about, “Oh I wonder which ones will be the last ones standing! I mean he only showed us these five, but there could always be a wild card contestant who could come from behind and win it all, right?” Wrong. I wonder what the non-highlighted contestants would think about not being mentioned like this. Do you think they would just realize, “Ahh fuck, they didn’t show any footage of my past assassinations, caught on tape because this organization obviously has thousands of secret video cameras all over the world, so I must not have a chance”, or would they try to defy the odds? Well this movie isn’t that deep, so I won’t even pretend to tell you that they thought of anything like that.

Who you callin' eye candy?

The main stars of the film are veteran screen tough guy Ving Rhames, the winner of the previous Tournament, back again because he heard one of this year’s players killed his pregnant wife; Martial artist/actor Kelly Hu (X2, The Scorpion King), who wants to win enough money to get out of the killing business for good; and Robert Carlyle (Trainspotting, Ravenous) as an alcoholic priest/non-assassin who accidentally ingests one of the tracking bugs that another player cut out of them and threw into a coffee pot. He and Hu team up when she realizes what happened to him and takes pity because of how fucked up his situation is. So that’s the main crew, but there’s also appearances from former LOST star, Ian Somerhalder, playing a psychotic Texan killer as opposed to the pretty boy he played on the aforementioned TV show; Sebastien Foucan, the free-running bad guy from the beginning of Casino Royale, and one of the creators of Parkour; and last but certainly not least, my boy Scott Adkins (Undisputed II, The Shepherd) makes an appearance as well, albeit a shorter one. This guy is from England but for some reason i've only seen him play Russians or Americans. I think it'd be great if he could use his native accent in a movie because in real life he sounds so proper and dignified, like he would invite you over for some tea, but then kick your ass for spilling it on his new rug.

Who's callin' Boone a pussy?!?!

As you can tell from above, the movie was able to put together a pretty solid cast, and even better than that is fact that it was able to secure itself a surprisingly big budget for a DTV action movie. It’s because of the budget that the movie works so well. It looks a lot better than the average DTV production and the action/gore does not hold back whatsoever. Without the money that was thrown into this thing, it might not have worked so well. You see, this may be an action-packed movie, but it sure as hell isn’t the brightest one. There are several oversights in logic that you’ll need to just go with in order to enjoy this thing. Like, why would any assassin actually take part in The Tournament anyways? Odds are they’re not going to make it out alive, so why don’t they just stay out of it altogether and continue to be a high-paid killer, as well as a living one? I mean they have to be making some serious dough in their normal line of work, so why would any of them partake in this nightmare if money was the only motivator? There had better be a damn good reason if you ask me; more than just the arrogance of wanting to be the best.

When the hell do I get to play an English character??

Well all that aside, this movie still kicks a lot of ass and if you’re willing to look past those little leaps in logic, odds are you’ll be having a great time taking in all the mayhem. Especially since there are so many “Oh Shit” moments sprinkled throughout that you’ll likely forget what you were questioning in the first place.


Body Count – 42 + 1 dog

Times one assassin is about to kill another but is interrupted at the last second – 9

Times someone says, “The Tournament” – Sadly, only 4

C'mon Poster, you know it's every SEVEN years...

Today You Die (2005)

There is a fine truck stop off the highway in Connecticut just before you enter Massachusetts where you can find everything you could ever want, as long as you only want bad action movies and Wolf T-shirts. This magical place is where I came across the DVD "Today You Die" starring the pony tailed prince of action films, Steven Seagal and his newest hip-hop pal Treach of Naughty By Nature. (Seagal has also starred alongside DMX, Ja Rule and Nas.) I had my choice of many Seagal straight to video releases, but what attracted me to this particular film was the tag line "What Seagal Does in Vegas, Nearly Destroys It". Sounds promising, right?

Seagal plays Harlan Banks, who after giving up his life as a cat burglar who robs from scumbags and gives to the helpless, decides to go straight and get himself a real job.  He and his girlfriend Jada go to Las Vegas where Harlan is hired by the over-the-top Max to drive an armored car. Max is played by Kevin Tighe and better known as John Locke's dad on "Lost" (I'm pretty sure he's playing John Locke's dad in this too).  During a routine money pick up, Harlan's partner Bruno shoots some armed guards and then holds a gun to Harlan's head, forcing him to drive through the streets of Vegas while being chased by the police. Three cops are killed in the process. He's able to knock Bruno out with some bad driving, but injures himself in the process and has just enough time to stash the money ($20 million) before he is caught by the police. Even though they never show him taking the money and he is caught almost immediately.

This gets him sent straight to prison, no trial needed. While there, he makes friends with fellow convict, Ice Kool (Anthony 'Treach' Criss) by informing Ice that someone is out to shank him. (shanks are easy to come by in this place as we see at least three of them within ten minutes). Having gained Ice's trust, Harlan agrees to cut him in on a piece of the $20 million. Now all they need to do is get out of jail.

Well, the getting out of jail part is easy. Apparently all you need to do is take footage from the Wesley Snipes movie "Undisputed". Understanding what's going on in the rest of the movie? That's where it gets hard. There are a lot of characters here, most of them could go, including Harlan's girlfriend. The movie actually starts with her having Tarrot cards read and about five poorly timed freeze frames of the cards, usually when a hand is covering most of them. From then on, she has dreams of Harlan dying and a bunch of other crap that is completely meaningless and never comes into play. The relationship between the two is more like a brother and sister. A brother and a sister who have never met each other.

Don't look at me.

However, the relationship between Harlan and his new pal Ice is remarkable. After just one day in prison, Harlan is speaking jive and has not only Ice's trust, but his complete respect. They even kind of look alike...

You know, I almost bought the brown one

The "plot" with Max is never made clear. In fact, for some reason everyone thinks that Max is dead, but the viewer is never lead to believe that. This storyline comes to a conclusion that is maybe the least climactic part of the whole movie. I think that Jada discovering a Mandala on the floor when she wakes up is more exciting than that whole part of the movie. Someone either came into her room and painted that Mandala, or that girl is so psychic that she just makes things happen. Either way, it means NOTHING!

There is another sub plot with DEA agents. This just adds more names and faces to an already overcrowded cast. Agent Rachel Knowles is on Harlan's side and wants to help him find the money. Her shady boss, Agent Saunders (played by Nick Mancuso), may not be. Throw everyone in a warehouse and add in an Asian gang and see what happens.

There is a great deal of stock footage used throughout the movie and plenty of repeated shots. They use the same two close-ups of Seagal about twenty times during all the fight scenes. I don't know where these shots came from, but they are not from this movie. He's not even wearing the right clothes or in the right atmosphere. All stunts are performed by other people, including the very dangerous "walking past a fence at night" stunt. This may be because Seagal is very overweight and they do a poor job of trying to hide his stomach by placing things in front of him, putting him in giant coats, and rarely using  full body shots.

One of the nicer touches to this film is Harlan's devotion to people in need. In the beginning of the film while driving into Vegas, he passes a Children's hospital that is...going out of business? We see a sick little girl in a wheelchair being pushed by a Nun. He never stops at this hospital, but somehow makes a psychic connection with the girl because he comes back at the end of the film just to give her a hug. That's two psychic connections with little girls in two separate movies (see Mark's review for "Out of Reach")

Half off our already low prices!

All that said, is it a good move? Definitely not, but it is somewhat entertaining and I'll probably watch it a few more times in this lifetime. 

Body Count : 29

Freeze Frames: at least 10

Today you live

-By Ben Stumpf

Out of Reach (2004) - by Mark Oswald

In Out of Reach, Steven Seagal plays Ex-CSA, and apparently psychic animal rescuer, William Lansing (more on that psychic part later). For what must be some time, he has been corresponding back and forth with a European orphan girl named Irena Morawska. He sends her Indian friendship bracelets and puzzles and tells her of his days wandering through the woods in leather trench coats, looking for injured wildlife. She tells him all about living in an orphanage. They are Pen Pals…and very close ones at that.

Alright, I have to preface something here before I go on. I truly am a Seagal fan and have enjoyed his older films since I was a kid, but I’ve never had any interest in checking out his later films beyond Fire Down Below (1997). What changed this was the authoring of a little book entitled, “Seagalogy: A Study of the Ass-Kicking Films of Steven Seagal” by Aint it Cool News contributor and self-styled “Outlaw Film Critic”, Vern. There was just something very appealing about a person dedicating a lengthy amount of time to the works of the often-mocked Steven Seagal. I do understand the criticism of Seagal’s films and I have often been a part of it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate what the guy has to offer. I even think that in his earlier films, his acting was somewhat dynamic; Especially when he utilized an absurdly over-the-top Brooklyn accent in Out for Justice. Sure it was ridiculous, but I definitely think it added something to the picture beyond pure silliness. So anyway, since I bought a copy of Seagalogy, I’ve been making sure to watch all of the films I’d never seen before reading their respective chapters in the book. It’s certainly been rough sitting through some of the later pictures, but following them up with the chapters has been the light at the end of the tunnel.

One such viewing was of Out of Reach and I have to say it’s one of the more incompetent Seagal pictures I’ve seen lately. Towards the beginning, a former associate of Seagal’s, Agent Shepherd, shows up while he is eating lunch at a local establishment. According to Shepherd, Seagal has saved his life more than once in the past, but it seems something happened since then because Seagal is reluctant to talk much to him or accept a new assignment. Shepherd and other government goons “surprise” Seagal at his home, where they proceed to get their asses handed to them in typical Seagalian fashion.

Now these men aren’t the villains of the picture, although they do join up with the main bad guy later on for reasons I honestly don’t believe were ever explained. Hmm…yeah I guess that does make them villains. I just wouldn’t refer to them as main. The actual main a-hole here is a familiar face if you are an action movie aficionado like myself. His name is Matt Schulze and played the central baddie in The Transporter, apparently named Wall Street. I always referred to him as The Creep, since he was, but whatever. Schulze plays Faisal essentially the same way in this movie accept now he is sporting slicked-back blonde hair, looking more like a young Don Johnson/George Michael half-breed than anything else.
His main offence in the film is trafficking young girls via the Internet. It’s never fully explained what they are specifically being trafficked for, but we must assume it’s something bad. Not that trafficking humans can ever be good, but…yeah. He of course gets his most recent batch of little ladies from you guessed it, the orphanage where Seagal’s star-crossed puzzle-whiz is staying. Now I said I’d explain the whole possibly psychic aspect of Seagal’s character, and so here we go. The reason I make this assumption is that in his most recent letter from Irena, she tells him how she will soon be too old to stay at the orphanage anymore. Shortly after this he goes to the post office to pick up his mail, dressed in a fur coat and sporting a 5 o’clock shadow while referring to himself as “Mr. De la Croix”. You see he’s got a lot of aliases in this movie, which is fine and all but why would he use a semi-disguise like this to pick up his mail that is clearly addressed to “William Lansing” and not “Mr. De la Croix”, and the post master has no problem handing it over. Sorry for rambling, but come on. So ok, Seagal gets this response letter from the school saying that Irena can no longer be reached there. Now wouldn’t most people assume that her previously saying that she wouldn’t be staying there much longer, and then her not being reachable there mean that she probably just moved out? Well maybe, but as you’re all well aware, Steven Seagal is not most people.

Other instances of psychic activity include a voice over by Irena which indicated that she is somewhere without writing utilities, being cared for by men she is suspicious of. This is all played over a shot of Seagal riding in a car, nodding along as if he is hearing every word. It might explain how he always knows where to go and where to look for her, but other than being a bizarre plot device, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

It seems our requisite villain, Faisal, has psychic powers too, albeit not as impressive as Seagal’s, but still admirable. He somehow knows that the person who is causing him heaps of trouble in his operation is an American Ex-CSA animal enthusiast, even though he isn’t ever given any specific reason to jump to such a ballsy conclusion. Both characters may even have some sort of psychic link to each other. After all, they do share another possible link in their frequent over-dubbing. Now this may be a bold claim, but I swear to Christ that the voice-work for both characters is done by THE SAME PERSON!!! Now whoever it is does a pretty decent job on Faisal, but he in no way, shape, or form sounds anything like Seagal! This is an immediate distraction in the film because all of Seagal’s letters to Irena are spoken in voice-over. So there you are in the very beginning of the film watching montages of Seagal walking around and writing letters, while hearing a blatantly non-Seagal voice read them aloud. Now the big guy has had some bad voice-over work done for him in his past couple movies, but it’s never been quite this laughable. An extra bit of icing on this cheese-cake is toward the end of the film when Seagal’s yelling is over-dubbed during a gun fight by what I swear was a totally different person than before. This new guy sounds more like someone’s drunk southern uncle and even less like Seagal than the guy who had done the previous dubbing.

Another little oddity in the picture is Seagal using a stunt double for the highly dangerous execution of a somersault. I mean how much effort does it really take to do a somersault? Seagal even did one in his previous film, Belly of the Beast, where the camera was specifically positioned so that the viewer knew it was him doing it. He clearly had a lot more to prove in 2003 than he did in 2004.

All in all, Out of Reach was fairly entertaining for the reasons specified above, but for those unfamiliar to what Seagal is all about, I would definitely recommend his earlier pictures like Above the Law, Marked for Death, or Out for Justice. And yes, most Steven Seagal films have three words and/or syllables.

There’s a lot more I could go into, but this review is long enough already. If you want more insight, check out Vern’s book. While I do consider myself a practicing Seagalogist, that man is the Professor. I would definitely recommend watching the films before reading the chapters, but I understand if you are not up to the task.

Body Count: 12 (kind of low for most action movies)

Broken Limbs: 1 (very low for most Seagal movies)