Well, a new year, a new beginning, and unfortunately – a new Steven Seagal flick. However, before you start letting off fireworks and popping the bubbly, you don’t want to get your hopes up too high, as this latest epic is yet another nail in his once excellent action career. Coming off a number of dreadful direct to video productions, Seagals’ recent productions actually started to improve and get back on track with the likes of ‘Urban Justice’, ‘Pistol Whipped’, ‘Into The Sun’ and the ludicrous but fun ‘Kill Switch’ – but, alas that upside was just a minor blip as this new release is simply another hard to follow nightmare littered with uneven direction, a story that seemed to be made up as they went along and the usual incoherent mumbling and bad acting that now seems to be the norm.

The story has Seagal playing Shane Daniels (a past his sell by date hard man who has exceptional luck with the ladies — hang on…). After serving many years for a crime he didn’t commit, Shane is released from jail with an apology in the form of an offer for a hefty amount of cash to apologise for his wrongful imprisonment, which he subsequently refuses in an amusingly over the top scene. Within hours of his freedom, he has literally beaten two punks to a pulp who accidently picked a fight with him and he bears witness to an illegal deal that quickly goes wrong – well, I say he witnesses it. For all intents and purposes, he is just standing there for no apparent reason – except that the director told him to as his character has no reason to be anywhere near the place, but ho hum…

From then on, its mafia this, chinese drug lords that, body doubles here, bad dubbing there, boring exposition all over the place and another hot mid twenties girl (a staple of all recent Seagal flicks) with a bag of money that you just know he will fight all and sundry to protect… even though, you forget why, and due to his strange mumbling – cannot really understand anyway… it really is one of those movies. Even the usually reliable Byron Mann (great as Seagals’ sidekick in Belly of the Beast), simply phones in his performance as if miffed by the whole affair.

Keoni Waxman encores from ‘The Keeper’ and seems to lose the plot and lets the film run away from them… which is a shame, as ‘The Keeper’ although quite dull, had a nice feel to it and hinted at a step in the right direction for Seagal, but here the direction and writing are all over the shop and characters just come in and out for no reason at all, except to maybe bump the running time past 70 minutes so it warrants a release as a feature. Granted, the film is professionally made, but the dark lighting and uneven pacing make this one more akin to a low budget TV movie than say, something along the lines of ‘Out For Justice’ for example.

On the back of the DVD cover, it clearly states that Seagals’ character is a ‘righteous, moral man’, yet when you see the movie all you are given is somebody who literally mashes people to a pulp if they do as much as look at him the wrong way. Its all quite weird and overtly violent in a dark way and nothing like the heroic movies of the 90s like ‘Under Siege’ and their ilk… its as if Seagal wants to to subvert his personna into this crazy, thug like character. However, for me (a long time fan, dammit!) I miss the old guy, the heroic martial arts master from the older movies… not this angry, potty mouthed loon who can pull chicks three quarters his age and literally destroy bad guys faces with the butt of his gun just because they look at him funny. Sheesh, I really hope somebody gives Seagal another chance at the big leagues and we see a little more humanity and that these dull, dark and depressing movies aren’t the last things we see of him… now, that would be a shame.

The presentation is a movie only affair with good picture quality and decent audio. Rental recommended, but if you are a fan (like myself) you will most probably purchase, then approach thinking it won’t be the next ‘Exit Wounds’.

Despite a rash of very poorly made direct to video efforts in recent years (though I have to admit I did like “Flight of Fury” (2007) in a strictly B-movie kind of way) full of corny props and bad voice overs and obvious stunt doubles, for some reason I keep on watching. I think it’s because there is that occasional Seagull (no I didn’t misspell it, that’s my moniker for him now) movie that for some reason I like. The aforementioned “Flight of Fury” and I liked “Pistol Whipped” (2008) as well. “The Keeper” (2009) and “Driven to Kill” (2009) were pretty well-made movies, but I personally didn’t care for them. The bad news for this film is that it is even worse than those others. I had high hopes at the outset of the film – the camera work looked pretty nice and though the story set-up was your usual cliche that Seagull was wrongly accused and incarcerated and now he’s back out of prison to, to do what exactly? Well, we don’t know because the story didn’t tell us what he’s doing now. I guess he’s a former good guy that is now hardened by his prison experience, how original.

I thought the film was much more brutal than any of his other movies. Not as dark as “Against the Dark” (2009) but that was a horror film, so it was expected. As another reviewer said, this film was more like Seagull was a punk, brutally beating people with little rhyme or reason. And there was just too much obvious stunt double work, and dubbed voice overs and mumbling. Plus, what is it with this Russian mobster theme as of late – it’s getting tired real fast. I guess he has a lot of fans in that part of the world. Plus they missed a real opportunity here to have his cute 20-something rescuee get naked. That would have helped a pretty lame and unoriginal story – bad cops, Russian mobsters, Chinese mobsters, e…i…e…i…O

And that final scene which was all of about 30 seconds with him in some mansion estate in some foreign land with his hot 20-something girlie girl – well, it made me laugh so it wasn’t all bad. But it wasn’t a comedy, was it?

But what the heck, rent it so we can keep watching these train wrecks and talking about them, and finding the occasional B-movie gem.

Final Grade: C

Steven Seagal has had quite a rebirth in 2009-2010. His reality show has become a huge hit, and his two latest films, “The Keeper” and “A Dangerous Man” have found him using less stunt doubles and going back to his famous brand of wrist and neck snapping karate.

While “The Keeper” was by far his best DTV film, this one is better. For one thing, the cast is much better, and there are no spots in the film that drag. The plot is a familiar one….Seagal is a former special-ops who is down and out after serving 6 years in prison for a crime in which he was not guilty. After he is released, he witnesses a kidnapping/robbery that has connections not only to the Chinese and Russian mobs but also there is corruption deep within the police department. Since Seagal cannot go to the police, he actually befriends the Russians and wages an all-out war in an attempt to rescue a young woman and stop the Chinese from delivering their goods.

There are quite a few explosions, and Seagal does a lot of hand-to-hand combat, much of it in very close quarters. The production and filming is of better quality, so you can actually SEE the entire fight scenes, and the dialogue and characters all make sense and have a purpose in this film. There is still some dubbing of Seagal’s voice at times, but it is forgiveable given the amount of action this film offers.

At this stage, Seagal may not make another film that rivals his box office topping glory days. But he doesn’t have to. He just has to give the fans what they want, which is a huge amount of revenge-styled fighting and no-holds-barred action….and this film is loaded with it. The only thing missing in this one is his occasional humor….and perhaps that is intentional. Seagal has not been this focused or intent on delivering a quality product in quite some time. 4.5 stars.