Contract to Kill - Zwischen den Fronten

Another year, another Seagal movie...

...but wait, haven't we seen this before? Seagal as a former government-super-secret-special-something-something taking on the entire world by his merry lonesome? Yep. And haven't we seen that since the 1980's? Indeed we have! "Contract to Kill" offers nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing to the genre, and nothing that Steven Seagal haven't already done to the brink of pointlessness in one of the endless heap of movies similar to this one that he has notched on his black belt.

It used to be fun to watch Steven Seagal back in the 1980's and 1990's, but it has progressively just become more and more tiresome to watch his movies, as they are all exactly the same, year after year. It is time to branch out and try a new approach.

However, it was sort of embarrassing to witness Seagal in this movie, as he seemed like a beached whale fighting to survive as he waddled his way through scripted fighting and stuttering dialogue.

I managed to survive for about 50 minutes into "Contract to Kill", before I just simply lost the will to go on. I got up and just gave up on the movie. It offered nothing new to the genre, nor nothing new to the Seagal repertoire.

If you have seen any single one of the myriad of Steven Seagal movies in the past, then you have essentially already seen this movie as well. Trust me.

The characters in the movie were so generic that it was just amazing. They could be cut out of this movie and pasted directly into any other Seagal movie and they would fit right in. So don't get your hopes up for anything that even remotely resembles character development and progression.

This was nowhere near being anywhere near the usual entertainment, albeit its overwhelming generic entertainment, that Seagal usually delivers, and I have no intention of returning to finish the rest of the movie, because I already know exactly what will happen.

"Contract to Kill" was a wide swing and a wide miss, even for the teddy bear of action movies Steven Seagal.

Continuing my plan to watch every Steven Seagal movie in order, I just watched Contract To Kill (2016)

This is my second of Seagals 6 movies, yes 6 movies released in 2016. All released in the May & September of 2016.

This is another one that sucked, It's plot of you can call it that, was insanely hard to follow. Why is this story so complicated? I have no idea. I eventually lost interest before I started looking at my phone.

The only other thing I have to say about this movie is, I think it's time Seagal stops having sex scenes in his movies. Watching him fondle a much younger hot babe is about as awful as it gets, and his sex scene with Dallender is just vomit inducing. The scene might have worked if Dallender and Seagal had actual sexual chemistry (Like Eastwood and Russo in In The Line Of Fire) but since they don't the whole thing is just horrible to watch and at this point I turned it off.

This movie is a waste of electricity.

Sounds like Steven Seagal read his lines with the help of a bottle of booze. Movies like this keep REDBOX filled with fresh titles, not so fresh acting or directing and writing. My advice save yourself the hassle and the $1.50. At 65 I guess his ass kicking days are over, to cheap to bring in stunt doubles to spice up scenes. Steven please retire and let your legacy stand the test of time, (or not)....

An American action thriller; A story about a CIA/DEA enforcer investigating a plot to bring deadly weapons and terrorist organisation leaders into the USA over its border with Mexico. To prevent an attack on American soil, he must turn two savage forces against each other. The chase and surveillance sequences play out well even if the plot is a bit protracted and exposition is heavy-handed. The dialogue is a bit of a letdown, full of expletives for reasons that will mystify. Seagal has a good presence as a man cool under pressure, his demeanour laid back and enigmatic when not ruthless. His fighting scenes are less impressive, though, in close-up camera angles, because Seagal is not limber enough for the athletic character he purports to be. Finally, the production quality: CGI rendering is below par, and sound falters early on with some of Seagal's spoken dialogue.

So in Contract to Kill Stephen Seagal travels to Turkey to take on some terrorist drug dealers, which I thought was interesting as I can't remember when the last time Istanbul was in the movie as the center for espionage and trafficking (No Wait it was Taken 2), but as it turns out, the Mexicans are still the drug traffickers and the Arabs are still the terrorist. Oh well, so much for something different. At least it's a different setting I guess.

Seagal plays...I don't know the character's name and let's be honest, it doesn't really matter, cause I can't remember the last time he did not play a retired CIA agent living in(Insert any foreign country) who was brought back into the game because his fat tired ass is somehow that good at stopping the crappy enemy he's going after.

I should have known where the movie was going, as Seagal's introduction included Steven spending 20 mins being interviewed by a CIA agent who's trying to convince Steven (And the rest of us) that only the big man with the keg can save the world or something. Then as an extra added bonus Steven sees two gringos who can't keep their hands off some waitress and goes over and some how beats them both while sitting on his ass, then he turns around and puts his hands all over the waitress who could be his granddaughter.

Seagal puts together a team that features dude from Vanishing Son, Russel Wong, who looks like he could have been more impressive in this film if he did not have to tone it down to make Seagal look better.

The third man on the team is some eye candy whose role as a covert black bag agent makes no sense instead for being eye candy. Seagal treats her like she's been in the game as long as him but she doesn't even look like she's past 30. Her one purpose is to make old fat Seagal look like he's still got it. There's one part where Seagal has a small love scene with this chick. Normally I'm a fan of needless nudity from hot girls, but it just puts more focus on the fact that Seagal is just an old man who wants the world to believe that he can still get the girl. Not only that but this "experience capable agent" gets kidnapped, so that Seagal can rescue her.

Some Seagal style action, but not much with Seagal repeating the same moves over and over and using multi angles and fast cuts to try to make it more exciting. It's starting to get lame now that it's 30 or so years in the action movie biz. Seagal has never come up to an opponent as skilled as him in Aikido to at least be able to make him stumble. Not bleed or fall down just push him Back a little, that's all. Yes, Seagal is a very big menacing dude, he still is, but come on.

This may not have been such a problem, but for the most part, fat Seagal spends a lot of time sitting down in the movie. I mean literally sitting in a car, sitting at a desk, and sitting while doing some of the fight scenes. It tells me something about how lazy the filmmakers are putting this together.

Man, there was so much talking, and it was all though guy talk, too. By the good guys, by the bad guys. I think Seagal, I think action and in an action film tough guy talk should be minimal to one liners, not these over glorified speeches about how awesome they are. I'll give credit that one speech that Seagal himself had with one of the bad guys that was pretty good, but it was only one in a sea of really really bad ones, so it did nothing to make the film better.

Half way through you realize it's an espionage movie. Not really Seagal's cup of tea and not what I came to the movies to watch him do, and unfortunately for Seagal, he did nothing to change my mind.

Overall Contract to Kill feels like it's screaming Steven should retire. I don't think any one loves Seagal so much, you are cool wasting 90 mins watching him sit and talk with the enemy than go for it. They're better Fat Seagal action movies than this one. Find that one over Contract to Kill.