Out for a Kill: Tong Tattoos - Das Tor zur Hölle

Seagal is back, more monotonous than ever and with even less personality than usual. Unfortunately, that's only the beginning of all the problems with this so called 'movie'. Now, I'm a big fan of cheap, mindless action, but even I have limits. 'Out for a Kill' is beyond all hope.

Seagal plays Robert Burns, a Professor of Chinese History, and Killing People. Naturally, he has a secret past that he keeps hidden when he is framed by a Triad family. He is obviously innocent, but for the sake of keeping the movie going, and thereby torturing the mind of anyone watching , the lead cop decides he must be guilty, and he is thrown into a Chinese prison. Naturally, the DEA decides that if they release Burns, he'll do their job for them and take out the Triads, and so Burns is free to on a global stroll of death.

Sometimes laughably bad, but generally very cringe-worthy, 'Out for a Kill' is easily one of the worst movies I've seen. Right from the start when we are treated to poorly done CGI bullet-time, followed by a massive break from action clichés when bullets actually penetrate a car and kill a good guy. Some clichés we can do without, but action movies need the bullet-proof cars. Bullet-proof cars are an essential part of action movies, and one element you just don't mess with.

I still haven't scratched the surface, because after Oblowitz (the director) spits in the face of action-movie values, we get treated to a plot, a very poor plot. Now, I don't think anyone anywhere has ever watched a Seagal movie expecting a good story, but when there is not enough action to distract us, we will start paying attention to such things. In this case, Seagal swears he will get vengeance, but to do so, he must follow a series of clues which are - get this - conveniently tattooed on the arms of every bad guy Seagal kills. Bravo. It would have been much easier for everyone if the Triad boss just invited Seagal over for a game of mahjong. Throw in a pair of useless and annoying cops who follow Seagal everywhere and many pointless scenes, and you may start to get an idea of how bad this movie really is.

There are a few action sequences in the movie, but maybe only two that are of any real worth. Sadly, the best bit of this movie is a scene in which Seagal takes on a monkey-boxer who can defy gravity. Well, there goes Seagal's unique style of using Aikido in action movies. A few more movies like this, and Seagal flicks are going to be nothing more than 3rd rate clones of Hong Kong action movies, mark my word. Most of the fights are poorly choreographed and poorly edited, all based around trying to make Seagal look like an action hero while trying to hide the fact that he is still out of shape. It worked in 'Half Past Dead', but not here.

Onto even more bad news: Here Seagal tries to act a lot, and his character is just boring. I never thought a boring action hero could exist, but here you are. He is more monotonous than usual, his character rarely says or does anything amusing (there is only one scene where his character does or says something cool) and just lacks personality. As for the bad guy, the movie returns to his office every few minute just so he can repeat what he has been saying for the whole movie, which is something like: "The professor is giving us trouble, we must get rid of him". I actually felt tempted to barrack for the bad guy, had he not been so repetitive and annoying.

Some final complaints: The special effects are pretty bad. Apart from the once-off terrible use of bullet-time, the fake backgrounds stand off as being laughable. Would filming in daylight have been that hard? As for Seagal speaking Chinese: it sounds worse than his use of Italian in 'Out for Justice'.

'Out for a Kill' is a terrible movie. Well deserving of its place in IMDb's worst 100 movies (it could probably take a higher spot...). I would not recommend it to fans of Seagal, but anyone willing to see something so bad it offends that it will offend good conscience should have a quick look - 1/10

Men have a place in their brains called the macho cortex (MC) buried in the limbic system which, when sufficiently stimulated, turns us into drooling morons with only two desires; survival and sex, not necessarily in that order. Most action flicks are designed to stimulate the MC by flooding our senses with big, ugly dudes who are bad (we don't care why) and we want to see killed or luscious babes who are good (all babes are good, even bad ones) and we want to...well, you know. This parses as Big, ugly = bad, Babe = good. All we need is some kind of Rambo-like hero with whom we can identify and, presto, we're there, vicariously getting off as we watch the hero (us) waste the bad guys while the babes swoon.

The problems with the formula in Seagal's formula action outing "Out for a Kill" are manifold. First, the hero, Seagal, doesn't fit the strong, silent type paradigm because he looks like a porky zombie on ludes. Second, the hero is married and then quickly widowed. So, now we're stuck with a porky zombie on ludes who is in mourning. Yuck! Thirdly, as Seagal trucks through a plot flatter than a saltine, there are no babes watching or waiting to drop their skivvies at the end. So, where's the prize? No respectable action hero would go to so much trouble with no hotties watching and waiting. Hottie cop Goh is waiting at the end but she's a platonic thing because she can't jump the hero since he's in mourning. Duh! Therefore, all the killing is a needless, senseless waste of time, the MC never gets engaged, and we, the men, are left with no reason to drool so boredom sets in and that's a bad thing. (C-)

Michael Oblowitz must have been stoned out of his mind and I will be avoiding movies made by him in the future. Watching this movie must be like a bad trip. The perspective is zooming in and out all the time and jumps from one location to an other so often it will make you dizzy watching. Though Seagal never was more than a martial art action hero, good OLD Seagal became a cartoon of himself trying to hide his fatness in a big leather coat, which hardly ever comes off. I think I saw him getting dressed in it when he woke up and went out of bed. Excuse me for not wanting to look at it again to make sure. Probably he became so slow that every fight scene was edited in slow motion with lots of smoke and flashes to make it look like a fight scene. He meets hoods in several parts of the world that are in a smoke filled room in the U.S.A. the next moment and back in Europe the next. At least the few women were pretty nice although they couldn't really act either.

I haven't seen The Foreigner but if it's the same director Michael Oblowitz, then avoid it and this film like the plague. Talk about directing/editing basics, this man has no idea of either when it comes to action films. I've liked most of Seagal's films but this is lower than the pits.

Oblowitz has no idea how to edit or direct an action film, he should go back to film school and start again. In fact Oblowitz don't bother.

A disaster for Seagal, the biggest bore of a film I've seen for a long time, to give it 1 out of 10 is being too kind.

Real Shyte.

Either Steven Seagal has absolutely NO self-respect or the Mob were just too damn scary for him when it came to signing the contract for this total pile of crap.

They couldn't even be bothered to come up with an good title. Instead they took Hard to Kill and Out for Justice and combined them (Hard to Justice?). But don't even think for one minute that this film is up to the standards of Seagal's golden years. You'll NEVER see anything worse than this. Well, Son of the Mask maybe.

Seagal plays an archaeologist (well, it's a change from Cop or ex- CIA) who's precious Chinese artifacts and pots are seized by the Tong (the non-threatening Chinese Syndicate baddies) and stuffed with brown sugar (or cocaine, I don't know). Big Steve stumbles upon this dastardly deed and takes off for the Uzbekistan border. A hundred baddies come out of nowhere and start firing at him.

Big Steve is promptly framed and sent to jail, where he meets a character introduced as his new sidekick but is quickly forgotten about and never seen or heard from again. What the hell was the point in this? It turns out that Steve used to be in the CIA (oh for the love of crumb cake) and was their best ghost thief (huh?) and the DEA release him for some reason and he goes home to his quiet American suburb, where the Tong blow up his wife and house.

Steve goes on a killing spree. But what helps is that every Chinaman who's neck he breaks has a one-word tattoo on his arm that when added up makes an ancient Chinese proverb that provides the right order of tiles to push in case of fire in the Tong bosses office. What? Don't look at me! I didn't write this! The bad guys don't do anything apart from sit at a long table in a poorly-lit and cold-looking room and smoke cigars while looking evil. The boss isn't even Chinese but an Ian Hislop-lookalike with bushy eyebrows. Every 10 minutes the film will jump to them (subtitles list their hobbies and interests for some strange reason!) and the boss goes 'We have to stop him, he knows too much'.

The fight scenes are horrible. What is the deal with the kung-fu monkey barber? Seriously! What is the deal with that? The computer- generated effects are the worst ever (second to Son of the Mask, nothing will beat that in terms of terribleness). I've seen more convincing stuff on a ZX Spectrum.

Seagal puts NO effort into this film. He looks incredibly bored through-out and looks like he'd rather be praying to Budda. However, you can almost see Frankie Fingers from The Mob loitering off- camera, pointing a gun at his head. I know I wouldn't show enthusiasm if that were the case.

Out for a Kill is directed by Mike Oblonglowiscz, the same amateur responsible for the equally as horrible The Foreigner. The man has NO idea how to make films and should never be allowed near a camera again. He desperately tries to mime Michael Bay (a dubious choice of inspiration) with his pointless stutter-cuts and incoherent editing which only makes the film look worse, turning it into an avalanche on top of another avalanche. It's quite possibly one of the ugliest-looking film you'll ever see. Considering some of the high-profile and veteran production members it's phenomenal they made a film so indescribably bad.

Eternal, everlasting shame on all those involved with making this trash. Utter crap of the lowest order.

The DVD is in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, showing off the ugly photography and poorly planned camera angles in all their rubbishy glory. The Dolby 5.1 soundtrack also turns the films unbelievably bad sound design into pure torture for the ears. The cover also features 2 exploding helicopters. There are no helicopters in the entire film, never mind exploding ones.