Mercenary

"Mercenary for Justice" has one heck of an opening. It starts on a war-torn battlefield with Seagal and a group of mercenaries fighting a legion of French soldiers after having kidnapped and killed the French ambassador. Director Don E. FauntLeRoy, who did the so-so "Today You Die" with Seagal, proves his worth with this sequence as the action is fluid and crisp and looks like it cost way more than the reported $15 million it actually did. It's clear with this film's opening: Seagal is hearing the fan's pleas for better films, and he's going to start trying better. Another thankful gesture to his loyal fans in this film is Seagal actually does his own fighting, and while the fight scenes are less impressive, at least it's him doing it. The plot is ridiculous and silly and most of it doesn't make a lick of sense, but since when did it have to in a Seagal movie? What matters is that the film looks good and makes Seagal look good. Having been a Seagal fan for a while, I must say I was pleased by this film.

Steven Seagal might be getting old and he also might not have the same shape he had 20 years ago but he certainly still can make a movie great just by being in it.

Actually, this movie itself is pretty good. A lot of money has been spent on making it realistic and entertaining. Reminds you of the good old days when Van Damme and Seagal were backed by big budgets.

Mercenary for Justice is a colorful film filled with explosive action scenes, great dialogues and one-liners, fight scenes in which Seagal actually takes part. It had been a while since I really saw him perform anything close to his Aikido moves. The balance between realism and utter irrealism is just perfect.

You got to remind yourself that action movies are a genre in themselves. Lots of folks try to bring them down for various reasons...they just don't get the point. Just like romantic comedies and politic thrillers all follow some basic rules, action movies are also lead by a set of pre-requisites that you just expect to be there. Villains you can hate, a hero you can love, a beautiful girl, guns roaring...

The production is good. Direction sometimes reminded me of "24 esquire" hand held camera. Little part of scenes are sometime fast-forwarded to get a feeling of speed. Well... this still is a direct to video release, I guess they have to include some cheesy stuff.

The only downside to this picture is the story. It's pretty hard to follow but it does keep the characters on the move.

...he wouldn't have to keep grinding out quota dross like this.

Look, we all know the plot by now. Bad People with Foreign Accents plan to do Bad Things to Good People with Domestic Accents. Seagal is the only man standing between blah and blah and blah de blah blah. OK, we know. We know. Let's just enjoy the ride.

The problem is that the "plot" of this movie jumps around so much that it's impossible to keep track of who is doing what to who and why. Really, I couldn't keep track of Good People and the Bad People, or when they switches sides or why, or which side Black Tech Guy is on from minute to minute.

On the plus sides, Seagal does his own "fight" scenes, but they're just sad now. His leathery skin clearly makes him invulnerable to conventional weapons, and while he does his usual twist/lock work, he's also forced to do some strikes that are simply pathetic. The guy can barely punch past his own belly these days.

The highlights are the supporting cast. Jacqueline Lord is surprisingly competent, and looks like she should have been in a lot more productions than her resume suggests. She clearly missed out on her big break a decade or so ago, but does well as mature totty.

Matt... uh, sorry, Luke Goss owns the few scenes that he's in, but there's just not enough of them to save this movie, and they're irrelevant anyway since Seagal is playing his usual immortal Myrmidon Let's give Goss the last word though: "This is unbelievable," he opines, and there's not much to disabuse that notion here.

I liked Seagal.... In his prime. A long time ago, (Okay, 1989) Steven Seagal was the master of the martial arts, A man who speaks little, but makes up for it in kicking ass... and he was lean and mean. Nowadays, he's fat, he can barely talk above a whisper, and he just doesn't care. But he keeps churnin' out the junk.

And I keep falling victim to it. For Seagal DTV standards, (does that even make sense?) it isn't as bad as "Submerged" , but it's not as good as "Belly Of The Beast".

The plot: John Seeger (you know who...) is an ex-mercenary, CIA, FBI dude, who has to break into a prison, while orchestrating a bank robbery. Then Seeger shoots lots of people. That's about it.

What's with the three word titles? Enough already. I guess people don't think it's a Seagal flick without a three word title. The title doesn't even make sense. A mercenary works for money and he has no soul, he doesn't do it for justice.

The only actors good in this is Roger Guenveur Smith as the villain Mr. Chapel and Luke Goss as Dresham. But even they were coasting.

If you want a good Seagal flick, go with "Out For Justice" instead.

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If you've kept up with Seagal's direct-to-video career (as I diligently have) "Mercenary for Justice" is certainly a step in the right direction. No, it's not great movie, but it's a whole lot better than most of his previous direct-to-video efforts. First and foremost the cinematography is really well done. This movie looks great and feels "bigger" than most of Seagal's previous direct to video movies. Second, although there's more gun-play than Aikido, Seagal performs in all his own action sequences (no stunt/body doubles) and the fight choreography is relatively classic Seagal (arm and wrist twisting / body tossing). Third, Seagal's voice doesn't appear to be dubbed at any point during the movie (as it's been in several of his other releases). What's bad is the usual: muddled story, poor supporting cast, some of the dialogue. The first 20 minutes of the movie lack a real cohesive setup / story (in fact, beside a brief freeze frame / still, Seagal doesn't appear for the first 11 minutes or so). The opening also suffers from the classic low budget, "shooting a stunt from multiple angles – then intermittently cutting those different shots of the same stunt into the movie trying to sell it as a new event each time" trick. Oh well. Bottom line: If you've kept up with Seagal this far in his career you won't be disappointed with "Mercenary for Justice." Favorite Seagal theatrical release: Out For Justice / Favorite Seagal direct-to-video release (as of 04/19/06): Belly of the Beast