Sniper Special Ops

Yet another non-action movie featuring fat Seagal in a minor role.

After a decent opening scene, things go flat for almost the entire remaining runtime where the plot involves a group of soldiers and an annoying reporter trying to rescue Steven Seagal and his sweaty wounded friend. As other reviews mention, Seagal basically sits in a chair for most of his brief runtime. The soldier group cast is believable and likable, but the endless scenes of them talking or arguing with the reporter get stale.

Sleaze director Fred Olen Ray has almost exclusively done quickie lifetime Christmas movies in the past years and seemingly decided to shoot this on a desert movie ranch during a free week.

Featuring only three shootout scenes and a lot of talking, Sniper: Special Ops is doomed to simply be a slot-filler on daytime tv. Only for the die hard Seagal fans (do any really exist?!)

I've never knowingly watched a Steven Seagal movie before and I came into this one 5-10 mins after the start on late-night TV, so I didn't recognize him in the dark glasses and - as somebody else has pointed out here - expanded waistline. I quickly became mesmerized by it, simply because I couldn't believe that anybody really makes movies this bad any more. I thought I must be tripping.

For a start off, as we all know, according to that Paul Hardcastle song, the average age of the combat soldier in Vietnam was 19. According to Sniper: Special Ops, the average age of the combat soldier in Afghanistan appears to be about 59. The commanding officer in particular, played by actor Dale Dye who is in his 70s, looked monstrously miscast.

Then the guy in the dark glasses - presumably the sniper of the title and as I later discovered, played by Seagal - has to get up and get some water. He's behind enemy lines, there are potential snipers behind every wall, IUDs etc, and yes, I know he's hard and frightened of nothing, but wouldn't he have displayed just a little caution in walking around, instead of looking like he's strolling down to the neighborhood 7-11? I found myself yelling at the TV "you're an actor! Why don't you ACT?" Then I found out it was that famous and popular actor with the dozens of movies to his name, Steven Seagal. Wow.

That's 84 minutes of my life I will never get back. Though I must admit I did get a bit of a giggle out of it.

Sensei Segeal why are you still trying to do movies? I mean your character has never changed one bit in the last 35 years. Its the same thing every time... please stop. please stop making this crap. Its embarrassing. Go back to the bayou and take your fake accent with you. You probably are a much better cop than you are at acting. Movie was so bad it doesnt even quality to be put on VHS cassette.

This movie involved Steven Seagal sitting in the chair for basically the entire movie. Random nobody's complete with a typical female reporter who suddenly knows how to run firearms. It's a giant suckfest but without the fun of a movie that knows that it sucks. Also Steven Seagal weighs 400 pounds.

Top billed Seagal who is so fat, he can only sit and stand, while his words are meant to sound tough only come across as out of breath from doing nothing. Movie is slow paced with lots of gunfire.