There is very little time left until the premiere of the first film from Steven Seagal in 2017. It will be an action movie "Chinese Seller", which will hit theaters in China on May 26th. Well, Stephen, you got off to a bit of a slow start this year. But over the past year there have been plenty of films with Steven Seagal. Therefore, as I promised, I continue to review films of 2016, where the once famous Niko played the main or accompanying role.
If you missed the first part of the review, then you are welcome here here. So, go ahead!
Code of Honor Dir. Michael Winnick
The film tells us the story of former special forces colonel Robert, who, upon returning to his hometown, sees injustice, banditry, drug dealers and other criminal evil all around him. He sees... and decides that it would be better for him to deal with this injustice himself, bypassing all legal methods of influencing criminals.
Seagal plays a central role this time, being also the producer of the film. This is probably why old Niko is exactly the same here as everywhere else: tinted glasses (orange here), a goatee, an arafat cap, a bandana or a capar. Steven’s acting efforts are also imperceptible here, but we are already accustomed to this. Let's see if there is anything in the "Code of Honor"?
The action movie begins with one of the most mediocre shootout scenes in cinema history. It’s even difficult to describe - just take my word for it. We are introduced to the main anti-hero, those guys who are forced to catch him, as well as the drug cartel. All this should somehow tie up the plot, but the screenwriter is completely out of his hands. The plot is simply not interesting to follow: something happens, Seagal’s character appears, kills random dudes, something else happens, new characters are introduced, Seagal kills random dudes again, and so on almost until the end of the film. And at the end there is a plot twist with a split personality, which leaves no stone unturned in this already leaky plot. The second main character of the film performed by Craig Shaffer looks even slower and more clumsy on screen than Seagal, both in terms of plot and action scenes.
Speaking of them. Everything is bad. The editing is disgusting, the blood drawn is so lousy that it’s simply impossible to take all these murders seriously. From hand-to-hand combat there are only short skirmishes, which you can’t look at without tears, and the final showdown between the heroes Seagal and Shaffer, which is also better to forget about. I will discreetly remain silent about the shootings.
Alas, “Code of Honor” is a very bad movie in all respects and parameters. One.
The Perfect Weapon Dir. Matthias Par
Perhaps, out of the entire cohort of films with Steven Seagal in 2016, this was the film I was waiting for. Of course, I didn’t have any hopes for it, but the trailer seemed to me much more interesting than any of old Steve’s creations in 2016. But, of course, a miracle did not happen.
Before us is the near future, a totalitarian state that controls everything in an oppressed society, including the enemies of the regime. Special agents are sent after their souls and are brainwashed. The best of them, Agent Condor (Johnny Messner), at some point fails to cope with the task, and now he is being pursued by the regime's watchdogs, and he, in turn, seeks to find the rebels and join them.
The film is a futuristic action movie, and in the first 15 minutes of the running time I even liked what was happening on the screen. Designers "The Perfect Weapon" clearly inspired by films such as "Blade Runner" и "Johnny Mnemonic", and it's noticeable. In general, the setting, albeit cheap, but cyberpunk pleased me. Okay, I thought, I can give the film a chance. Moreover, he is bald on the screen Johnny Messner, trying hard to pass for Agent 47 from a well-known game franchise, has already killed extras unfamiliar to us left and right.
The charm of a cheap sci-fi thriller dissipated somewhere around the twentieth minute of the film, when the main character decided to escape from a government building, crushing everyone into cabbage along the way (blood and dismembered parts were brought here). That's when you realize that you're watching trash. You don’t even immediately understand what Seagal is doing here. And here he makes an extremely serious pug (in orange glasses and a goatee, yes), gropes Asian girls, drinks sake and philosophizes with pretentious phrases. And yes, he plays the main villain here.
The film has exactly one sex scene, several poorly filmed shootouts and small-town hand-to-hand combat with our favorite jerky camera and ragged editing. The meeting between Seagal and Messner's characters tries to remind us that Stephen is an aikido master, but the cameraman and editor try to hide it by hook or by crook. There, by the way, another plot twist occurs, but the story is structured in such a way that you simply don’t give a damn about it. Well, yes, there can only be two Steven Seagals worse than one Steven Seagal. Consider this a spoiler.
As a result, having started quite well, the film slipped into the same place where the once popular action star is now vegetating. At the same time, you can see something good in “The Ultimate Weapon”: the general atmosphere, the design, the attempt to stage something hand-to-hand... But alas, all this is done by the wrong people. And not for what movies are usually made. Three with a minus.
End of a Gun (End of a Gun) Dir. Keoni Waxman
In this film, the title of which would be perfect for some kind of porn parody, the resilient Keoni Waxman tries to take us back to the era of the 90s, when cool B-action films were made about equally cool cops in expensive suits and driving expensive cars. Seagal plays an American policeman serving in France, who, while saving a girl from being beaten, accidentally (not really) kills her boyfriend, for which he is kicked out of work. A girl offers an unemployed cop to take 2 million bucks from the trunk of her ex-boyfriend's car, but then the European mafia gets involved...
Once again, the Seagal/Waxman duo is making a frankly cheap movie with actors working for food for someone unknown. The director and screenwriter are of course trying to play on the strings of nostalgia, but they clearly lack the qualifications for this. At least I’m grateful that the characters’ motivations in this film are more or less in order. Seagal's hero turns out to be not such a good guy, agreeing to steal money, at the same time inducing the heroine into sex scenes Jade Even. By the way, Seagal’s stunt double takes part in the sex scenes. Alas, grandpa can’t even lie down nicely with his film partner. What kind of fight scenes do you want with him after this? There is also a character in the film Florina Piersica Jr., who plays a mafia cleaner. And his character is the only one not made of cardboard in this film. And Piersik is not lacking in acting talent.
In general, the film is disgustingly boring for an action movie. The first shootout begins here only at the fiftieth minute of timing. Before that, at a couple of points we were shown “aikido from Steven Seagal” and that’s it. The rest of the time is spent talking and beautiful views of Paris. The final shootout and showdown with knives certainly takes place, but it was filmed crookedly “in Waxman’s style.”
Watch only for hardcore fans of Comrade Seagal who want to feel nostalgic. Two.
Contract to Kill Dir. Keoni Waxman
Have we really reached the end of this long list of Steven Seagal films from the past year? Wow! And again a film from Bolik and Lyolik. It seems to me that Waxman and Segal produce their films even in their sleep. Otherwise it is difficult to explain such a number of them.
This time, Seagal plays CIA special agent John Harmon, who, along with his team, must prevent an alliance between Islamic terrorists and Mexican drug traffickers, which is set to take place in Romania.
It seems that we are already accustomed to cheap pictures, monotonous Seagal, shaky camera and poor editing. And still, every time you think: couldn’t we have worked a little better here? In general, I won’t tell you anything new about the technical characteristics of this movie. In the end, we are interested in action, which should take place within the framework of a somewhat digestible plot. By the way, the plot here is not entirely a mess. And thanks for that.
In essence, this is a slow-paced spy thriller. A sort of classic of the genre within the framework of low-budget cinema with all sorts of bugs, conspiracies, persecutions, etc. You shouldn’t take such a picture seriously, but it’s clear that the creators this time were at least somehow interested in working on the film.
The action focuses not only on Seagal’s hero, who, still with a blank face, defeats his rivals without a shadow of resistance. Grandfather's team was assigned to a cool girl performing Gemma Dallender and very old Russell Wong (remember Jet Li's main rival in "Romeo Must Die"?). So both actors were given a fight. All this, of course, looks in the best traditions of Waxman’s filmmaking, but what can one do? Thank you at least for the fact that the main showdown ends with hand-to-hand combat, in which all the actors take part. And their doubles, of course.
In general, the film can be watched if you perceive it as a spy B-action film with a minimum of action scenes. In this film, he was almost entirely located at the end. Solid three!
Well, so we looked at all the films in which the elderly Niko starred in 2016. As you can see, Seagal, alas, does not produce a good product. At least where he himself is a producer. Maybe if other people are at the helm, things won’t be so bad? Or will nothing save old Steve? You can discuss this in the comments.
Author: Danil Chupakhin
Especially for fight-films.info
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Tags: Code of honor, Contract to Kill, End of a gun, The Perfect Weapon, Gemma Dallender, Johnny Messner, Keoni Waxman, Craig Shaffer, Michael Winnick, Matthias Par, Russell Wong, Steven Seagal, Florin Piersik Jr.
Tags: Code of honor, Contract to Kill, End of a gun, The Perfect Weapon, Gemma Dallender, Johnny Messner, Keoni Waxman, Craig Shaffer, Michael Winnick, Matthias Par, Russell Wong, Steven Seagal, Florin Piersik Jr.
Gentlemen, since our community on VK communicates with Stephen, I can say that it is not his fault that such films are released. Filming of “Exhaustion” is planned for this year, where Stephen is the director. On May 17, “The Chinese Salesman” will be released in China. the scenes are staged there by Stephen. In US dollars, the budget is about 74 million. Stephen plays the main character's bodyguard.
Denis Sokolov,
It is very, very difficult to believe that Seagal is not to blame for these “films”. More precisely, he most likely just doesn’t give a damn about anything, and he takes off automatically. It seems because it is necessary. He is an actor after all.
I've always wondered how Seagal's character lives? I can imagine John McClane's life. I can understand what Asia Hawk does in his free time... But what does Seagal's character (any of the latter) do? This is such a character torn from life and anti-art that it is creepy. We can assume that he meditates for 20 hours straight, and the remaining 4 wears orange glasses and kills evil spirits. Does he sleep at all? If so, what does he sleep in, those same black kimono jackets? Who cuts his shitty beard? What kind of child was this when she was a virgin? I am afraid that it would have been a disgusting fat child with an astrakhan hairstyle, whom everyone was afraid of.
Can his character even joke? Can he joke? Does he have a favorite TV show? Is he even human?
Ravenside,
You ask good questions, but here we must take into account that we are talking about Seagal. Seagal's characters are himself (in his own eyes, of course). So, his characters...they exist in real life. =)
PS Presented a picture. Seagal gets up in the morning. In shorts, with such a decent belly below the waist, his bones ache a little in the morning, and he casually goes to the toilet. He lives in a nice apartment, in his bed is a girl whose name he doesn’t remember, lying naked, and on his phone there are messages with an offer to star in an advertisement/film. In general, life is good. =)
Celpaso,
Yeah, that’s roughly what I imagined, saying that this is not a movie))) Seagal just walks around the pavilions, and they film him, as they say, “as is”)
WOOOOOO! This means that he still has some kind of life, that means something is still simmering. At least some processes are taking place in it. Or... maybe they were never the same with her at all? Or is it even inflatable?
Ravenside,
Taking into account the fact that he is filming with half-naked girls who are old enough to be his granddaughters without stunt doubles, the girl is not inflatable. =)
Ravenside,
That's right. The questions are very good. And it is very noticeable that the creators of these films are in no hurry to answer them. It seems to me that when developing the concept and then the script, they don’t even think about these questions. They simply sculpt them at random, without imagining how the viewer will feel when watching these films.
Danil Chupakhin,
The leisurely Seagal walks from pavilion to pavilion, and they take him off, then they put a machine gun in his hand, then a sword, then a stripper, then a broken off limb of the enemy. This is just a parody. Seagal is a parody of himself. Nobody thinks about anything. It’s just that the budget obviously doesn’t pay off from DVD sales. Or are the movies just money laundering?
Ravenside,
It's actually like money laundering.
Excellent article, I read it with interest.