Kill Switch

When I started to watch this movie and saw that Seagal wrote it I got the feeling that this wasn't going to be a good movie. First of all Seagal is his usual self showing of his awesome acting skills. To support him in this movie Isaac Hayes has the role of the forensic doctor and he is awful.

The way this movie i cut in its action scenes is very annoying, every punch is seen 2-4 times and every so often you get a close-up at Seagal looking grim. The choreography in the fight is also bad, since there basically isn't any to be found. The fights are mostly Seagal holding a guy and punching him in the face repeatedly. The gun fights are just as bad and you start to wonder how Seagals character ever made it into the police force, because he can't hit anything at all.

All in all, this movie sucks

There, now that I've stated my favorite part of the film, let's talk about the rest. "Kill Switch" is a terrible film that tries to copy the ideas from the 2007 masterpiece "Zodiac", but fails miserably in a very laughable way. The editing is an absolute joke, the fight scenes make "Fatal Deviation" look Oscar-worthy, and Seagal speaks in a terrible accent that supposedly sounds Southern, but I'm really not sure. The only good thing is that it is riffable for its content, and that Isaac Hayes made his peniultimate cameo on the silver screen. Oh, and one more thing to note: ze clown joke is a no.

The name 'Steven Seagal' may not put the fear of God into many people these days, but when it is preceded by the two little words 'written by' it is something to strike fear in the hearts of stronger men than me. Summoning that peculiar kind of bravery possessed by a masochist equipped with a dozen clothes pegs and a wet shoelace I girded my loins and pressed the 'forward' button on my remote. There was no going back now, like one of Seagal's on screen sparring partners I was to be exposed to every sweaty punch and chop the big (big) man chose to throw in my direction.

I can get back the precious 8% of available recording time KillSwitch occupied on my Sky box, and the 90 minutes I lost watching the film are, in the grand scheme of things, only a minimal fraction of my intended lifespan, but my faith in the movie-making business may never be the same after watching this unholy mess.

The story is rubbish – that was to be expected after we learned who the screenwriter was – but the direction and editing in this film are surely something to be amazed by. The direction varies from pedestrian to excruciatingly bad – we see one bad guy crashing through a window half-a-dozen times, another bad guy collapse onto a table three times, etc. The editor keeps cutting away from the fights to the same headshot of Seagal in which he looks like a mildly interested bystander. In one fight scene, his opponent's bloody scars keeping appearing and disappearing. Another fight seems to go on forever, with all participants seeming to possess super-heroic stamina levels, and you end up watching in stupefaction, not quite able to believe that a movie fight scene is actually boring you.

Seagal plays a Southern cop with issues. It seems he witnessed the murder of his brother when he was a kid. What bearing this has on his present-day pursuit of a serial killer is never really explained. Neither is the identity or motive of the murderer. In fact the incident just seems to have been added to fill out the running time, give the director (whoever he is – I really can't be bothered to check) a chance to show off all the flashy tricks he learned while balancing on top of a dustbin to peer through the window of the local film studies classroom, and to give Seagal the opportunity to come over all broody every now and then.

Seagal was never sylph-like but, judging by the way we are treated to a lot of head-and-shoulder shots but hardly any full-lengths shots of him, his girth has expanded considerably since the 90s. In fact, he doesn't even move when he fights: he just parries his opponents' blow and waits for them to stray close enough for him to fell them with his meaty paw.

I have to give Steven Seagal the credit he deserves, he is an excellent Aikido master, and I am always keen to watch his films, not least because I also train in Aikido, His early films were a breath of fresh air, however of late the films he has made have had bad story line and limited action. Kill Switch is no exception.. Seagal need to go back to his roots, and portray characters that are closer to his own personality.

Kill Switch was a let down, poor editing and the use( or rather over use) of a fight double, inter cut with library footage of Seagal giving a mean face..... for hardened martial artist I would give this a miss. Unfortunately Seagals action films are being surpassed, by the truly excellent Bourne Identity trilogy, The superb Forbidden kingdom and recently Liam Neesom in the also excellent Taken.

Mr Seagal, go back to what you do best.. Aikido action film with a good story line ( please don't continue with the eastern European locations doubling as US/UK locations.

I hope the next film has more substance and Seagl at his fighting best ( think Under Siege/Nico etc.)

Well after reading all the reviews on here, I went out and rented it expecting a good laugh and a horrid film, and to my surprise I ended up finding it pretty entertaining. I will say this, I am very upset he would make such a poor film after making 2 very good films: Pistol Whipped, and Urban Justice.

HOWEVER with that aside even knowing there was the classic stunt double in most of the scenes there was still quite a bit of action and yes the editing and showing every punch a billion times got annoying, but for some reason I was able to sit through it and laugh and a lot of the scenes and actually found the stunt double to be very good at what he did.... And surprisingly the scenes where Seagal actually did fight (the end) he looked pretty good himself....

Maybe some need to watch it again knowing what to expect this time haha.... If your looking for a classic Seagal movie like Our for Justice, or Hard to Kill this is not the one for you... but if your like me and have seen his straight to video movies as of late I would say go out and rent it.... what do you have to lose.

By the way Black Dawn, Shadow Man, and Flight of Fury were all way worse in my opinion. So its not like its the absolute worst yet, but compared to Pistold Whipped, and Urban Justice I am very displeased.