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« on: December 27, 2005, 03:56:16 AM » |
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Out for a Kill (2003)
About two weeks ago, I happened upon a display of $1.88 VHS tapes at Wal-mart. Out of those I found four Steven Seagal movies. My attitude toward Steven Seagal films is that they provide a fair amount of entertainment for those times you really don't want to stress your brain. Yes, he has had a few films with more complicated plots in the past, but his more recent films are pretty much...aw hell...all of his films are pretty much formulaic.
Let me lay out a Steven Seagal plot:
A bad guy, group of bad guys, has killed somebody important to Steven's character, who has a mysterious past, and he revenges all over their asses.
Let me lay out the plot for Out for a Kill:
A bad guy, group of bad guys, has killed somebody important to Steven's character, who has a mysterious past, and he revenges all over their asses.
Out for a Kill has Steven playing archaeologist (actually misspelled on the video sleeve) Robert Burns, who is involved in a dig in China. A meeting is taking place in Paris between the heads of Chinese crime families to form a merger. One of these crime bosses is smuggling narcotics, and uses Burns, unknowingly, to smuggle drugs hidden in artifacts, which, during a chase sequence, ends up getting Burns arrested and his assistant killed.
Alas, however, Burns is released, under the watchful eye of two DEA agents, to use him as bait to pull out the crime bosses. The crime bosses should have stayed home.
Out for a Kill tries to marry a film noir style with an action movie and only partly succeeds. It uses narration by the female DEA agent and certainly pumps some atmosphere into many scenes. What hurts is its choppy editing, to match a choppy plot, which all to often detracts from the film having a consistent flow. Inconsistencies in its locations does not help much either (Didn't I see that Connecticutt restaurant in a scene in China? Dang, Paris looks just like Bulgaria.) The characters in this film move around from place to place with such rapidity that it is confusing at times to remember where they are.
The lack of depth to any of the characters really does not detract from the story as it is an action movie first. Seagal generally walks through his role with a casual attitude not vesting much into it. Quite frankly, he walks through things too easily and does not leave much, if any, room for suspense and if someone were not familiar with a Steven Seagal movie, they would not have much of an idea of who his character is after having seen this film.
What this film does offer is quite a few action scenes sprinkled throughout a basic and formulaic plot. Seagal does not put much emotion into his character, but he does deliver his usual tough guy role we expect. Despite Seagal's character not really being in jeopardy at any point in the film, it is still fun watching him wipe up the floor with the bad guys.
There are quite a few bits of humor in the film as well, intentional and not intentional. It is quite humorous to see the centerpiece of the crime families constantly addressing a shrinking audience as the chairs around the board table are progressively becoming empty. The barbershop fight, however, is absolutely silly and belongs in Wayne's World more than it does a Seagal film.
Overall I did enjoy the movie. If, however, someone has seen a lot of Seagal films, then they have seen this before, and done better. If you want to see Seagal kick more butt, you do get that, but not too much more.
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