Ticker (2001)

A Steven Seagal movie that ranks at the very bottom of the pile, if this isn’t his worst film then I despair at the depths he has reached.

Seagal plays a bomb disposal expert, Frank Glass, who teams up with a detective (Tom Sizemore) to try and save the city from the schemes of a mad bomber (Dennis Hopper). Jaime Pressly plays a young woman caught up in the midst of things while Peter Greene is the antagonistic detective who only serves to keep rubbing Sizemore up the wrong way.

Pretty appalling in almost every single way, Ticker is almost worth watching for the laughs it can provide but all involved should be embarrassed by the final product.

The script by Paul B. Margolis wouldn’t be out of place in any “McBain” segment of The Simpsons while director Albert Pyun fills out the movie with footage from other films, constantly makes careless mistakes and puts himself forward as an untalented hack for hire. It seems that his career best will remain the lesser Van Damme movie, Cyborg.

Seagal finally gets some action in the last 10 minutes or so but, overall, this is an unsatisfying watch for fans of his fight moves. Sizemore does okay but is hampered by ridiculously clichéd characterisation and motivation (including an enduring memory of lost loved ones that shows them turning and waving to him about half a dozen times, with love glistening in their eyes and radiating from every pore, before getting killed). And I could watch Jaime Pressly if she was showing me paint dry. Dennis Hopper, however, goes completely over the top and drags things down further with an accent that veers between American and Irish, depending on how he seems to feel at the time. The fact that the soundtrack is often full of lilting, Celtic music in the background whenever the bombers are onscreen is just another reason to dislike the movie – if I were easily offended then this movie would have hit the spot. Kevin Gage, Nas, Joe Spano, Romany Malco and many others step onscreen to take part in this debacle. There’s even a fleeting, and completely unnecessary, role for Ice-T.

Destined for a future that includes bargain bins, repeated showing on channels aimed squarely at undemanding males and inclusion in cheaply-priced “explosive” action boxsets, Ticker deserves to be seen by as few people as possible. 
2/10. 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ticker-DVD-Tom-Sizemore/dp/B0000695KG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317730819&sr=8-1