Flight Of Fury (2007)

There's a popular term used when people try to repeat some success that they've had or simply rehash their previous work. It's the one about going to the well one too many times. Well, let me tell you, in the case of Steven Seagal he's not only gone to the well too many times but he's also drained every drop of moisture from the air around him, creating an atmospher as dry and harsh and uncomfortable as any major desert area.

This time around, Seagal is John Sands, some ex-soldier type who is called in to help when a new aircraft is stolen and put into the hands of the enemy. It's a bit like Broken Arrow meets Stealth only, according to everyone, it's actually just a blatant remake of Black Thunder (a 1998 movie starring Michael Dudikoff that I've not yet seen). Oh well, you might say, at least they can blame someone else for the lame plot and poor script this time around. Nope, Steven Seagal and Joe Halpin take the writing credit. Perhaps Seagal has turned his career into a long-running joke by now and most of us are just too ignorant to appreciate his genius. Or, more likely, he started down a slippery slope and may never recover.

Michael Keusch is back in the director's chair and, considering how bad his previous effort was, this fact didn't fill me with joy. I was right to be apprehensive, the movie is just plain bad on almost every level. The acting is, as you'd probably expect by now, pretty dire. The sets and scenery seem to have been leased from The Asylum (e.g. a number of plain environments in which to have action sequences and a number of interior shots featuring machines that go ping!), the editing is often painfully bad and there's even footage cribbed from other movies to save cash. Oh dear, oh dear.

Seagal is even worse than usual and the only cast member I actually didn't mind watching onscreen was the lovely Ciera Payton as the woman inexplicably fond of Sands. Yet another one to avoid.

3/10

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Attack Force (2006)

Barely, and I do mean just BARELY, ahead of Ticker, this Steven Seagal movie was a pain to sit through and seemed to drag on forever and ever. It has almost no redeeming qualities and is one of the very worst in his entire filmography, which is really saying something.


But, before going any further, I shall be fair to the film and share this titbit from IMDb trivia - "Screenwriter 'Joe Halpin' is quoted in the book "Seagalogy: The Ass Kicking Films of Steven Seagal" as saying that Attack Force had originally been written and filmed as "Harvester," a sci-fi/horror movie with Seagal and his men battling an invading force of vampire space aliens. After Seagal, Halpin and director Michael Keusch had delivered the finished sci-fi film, the production and distribution company decided to eliminate the sci-fi space-alien elements and replace them with another plot having about a super-addictive drug that turns its users into superhuman killers. They called back a few of the lower-paid actors for re-shoots, re-dubbed the majority of Seagal's dialog via ADR, totally re-edited the film and changed it into the Attack Force we know today. Seagal and Halpin were not involved."

That means that the blame for this pile of drivel cannot be entirely placed on the shoulders of Seagal (who co-wrote as well as starred in the thing), director Michael Keusch or Joe Halpin (who came up with the story idea and co-wrote the screenplay with Seagal). There is a lot of terrible dubbing throughout, the plot is a dull and meandering mess and there isn't any great action to keep fans happy.

But the guys named above can still share some of the blame because, surely, a lot of the scenes that they created are still in the movie and none of them are any good. At all.

Lisa Lovbrand, David Kennedy, Matthew Chambers, Danny Webb and a number of other people embarrass themselves onscreen in this nonsense about Seagal and his pals taking on a bunch of super-soldiers. My attention was only ever held when the lovely Ileana Lazariuc was onscreen (and if she'd had more screentime the film may have managed to almost double up to a 3/10 rating).

Sadly, despite the troubled background of the film, audiences can only judge events onscreen by what they're given and, at the risk of repeating myself, all that is on show here is terrible dubbing, a dull and nonsensical plot and a distinct lack of action to even keep undemanding action fans happy.

An absolute, indefensible stinker.

2/10

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Shadow Man (2006)

First of all, a quick note to any more observant readers of my ongoing Seagal quest. Due to a bit of a chronological cock-up (to use the technical term) I ended up seeing this movie by mistake and WILL be playing catch up over the next few weeks with the films I should have already seen before viewing this one. With that out of the way, let's get on with the review.

You may be surprised to know that this Steven Seagal movie sees our main man as an ex-special ops intelligence superspy ninja type of guy. You may be even more surprised to learn that he has a young daughter who is whisked away and put in some danger, giving Seagal a personal reason to slap lots of people around. Everything is connected to some formula for a new biological weapon that Seagal is, unwittingly, in possession. Okay, so if you've seen other Seagal movies then none of this will surprise you.

At this stage in his career, you'll also already suspect that the movie contains the following: bad acting, low production values, a number of limp action sequences and plenty of nonsense that serves to show off Seagal as the cross between Buddha and MacGyver he clearly thinks he is.

The genuine surprise comes from the cast. Imelda Staunton tries on an American accent and hopefully never lets anyone else in on the fact that she starred in a Seagal movie. Eva Pope and Alex Ferns represent, respectively, Coronation Street and Eastenders. Surely, any number of decent TV projects would have been a better choice for these ex-soap stars but they decide, instead, to embarrass themselves for the sake of action movie glory (please read that sentence with as sarcastic a tone as possible).

Michael Keusch directs and shows why his name is still relatively unknown for someone who has worked on over 50 different projects. I'm sure that he managed to keep Seagal happy but he doesn't please anyone else, though undemanding fans who have damaged their minds already with the worst from their hero may find this at least tolerable.

The story is, unsurprisingly, from Seagal (co-written by Steve Collins and Joe Halpin) and that explains most of the failings. There's nobody else worth bothering about in a movie that doesn't even provide a hero worthy of rooting for. But, to damn the film with faint praise, it's still a notch or two above the worst that the Steven Seagal has appeared in.

4/10

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