The Mercenary: Absolution

With a trend of increasingly faster and more brutal action choreography in recent years, there's not much space for Seagal's large frame, no matter how many wrists he snaps. For an action movie, the action scenes themselves are far from believable, a lot of choppy editing and excessive use of doubles make it laughably bad. At least the trademark of Seagal's movie is still here; his near superhuman portrayal, perfect accuracy and untouchable in fight, even though what he does is just randomly waves his hand.

Seagal is tasked to wrap up a potential terrorist by his handler. After an unfortunate event he finds himself protecting a random girl. This is truly an absurd script, the girl literally falls on his laps and then Seagal laments about his existent in his usual erratic mumbling. None of the scenes involving him are convincing, either it's the action or acting. It's just awkward like seeing a grandpa flirt with a girl or a veteran operative waltz in a room and not getting shot because he's wearing plot armor.

Byron Mann and Vinnie Jones are also present, both of them are decent. Byron Mann performs much better despite being a sidekick character. Vinnie Jones is looking grim as always, even though his appearance is relatively short in the movie. The rest of the cast are stiff. At some points the supporting characters sound like they are reading or even spelling the script. Needless to say, the screenplay of elaborate syndicate is nowhere near engaging.

Action is brutally weak. Seagal would do some gestures that probably resemble fighting and the camera cut off to stuntman flying across the room. Majority of the scenes are also played by doubles, it's quite apparent when the shot cuts to their back that not all of the actors are involved in the stunts. It's even worse when Seagal does this transparent excuse of action choreography in a movie where he's supposed to lead.

One must wonder how much longer can Seagal relies only on his fading name because story and choreography are flimsy even by standard of ten years ago.

I don't get how this got to theaters.

Last year, Jean-Claude Van Damme had two movies in theaters, Welcome to the Jungle and Enemies Closer, which were pretty decent, mostly because the muscles from Brussels stepped (slightly) out of his element to give us something different than his signature kicks and it worked to make a good movie.

I was expecting the same thing from this Seagal movie (after all, when was the last time this guy had something that did not premiere on Netflix?), but as soon as the movie open with a stupid narration about Seagal being a bad man who does bad things and he's looking to redeem himself with one good deed, I knew this was not that movie.

If any of you are aware of the old fat Seagal era on DVD, than you have herd Steve do this speech in every straight-to-video flick he's ever made. This movie could not be more formulated to the old fat saga, (takes place in Eastern Europe, he plays blues guitar, etc…). The only exception was that the strippers in the film were not naked. Maybe this is how the movie got into theaters?

Don't get me wrong, it's a fine action movie, especially if you at least like Seagal, but I was hoping since this was the first Seagal movie I've seen in years in a movie house, that he would do something different or that it was a return to Seagal back when he was thinner and ran like a girl, but it was neither.

A sequel to A Good Man, 'Absolution' is a routine action film, that has some absorbing moments. The storytelling is very 1980's, although some of the action bits are sharp.

'Absolution' Synopsis: John Alexander (Steven Seagal) is a contract killer. After encountering a girl on the run from a mob boss (Vinnie Jones) with powerful political connections, he is torn between protecting the girl and remaining loyal to the government agency that hired him for a mission.

'Absolution' clearly lacks an innovative script, but all said and done, some of it works. Especially the second-hour, where there is good scope for some hardcore, bloody action. Keoni Waxman's Direction is decent. Cinematography is standard. Editing is okay.

Performance-Wise: Steven Seagal is as usual, but he looks completely out of shape. Byron Mann does some terrific action here & is also the scene-stealer. Vinnie Jones is reduced into a loud villain. Adina Stetcu is average.

On the whole, 'Absolution' is, at best, a passable watch.

I enjoyed watching the Steven Seagal movies back in the day, but sort of stopped watching his movies around the mid 2000s or so, and then just occasionally sat down every now and again when I stumbled upon a movie of his.

So it was with the 2015 movie "Absolution", of which I had never heard about before now in 2022 as I stumbled upon it by random chance. And yeah, I found the time to sit down and watch this movie from writers Richard Beattie and Keoni Waxman, but truth be told then I wasn't really harboring much of any expectations.

The storyline in "Absolution" is pretty straight forward, and it definitely felt like an archetypical Steven Seagal movie, for better or worse. And on that account you know what you are getting here. Sure, they guy is older and heavier now, but he still does make fair action sequences.

If you've seen one Steven Seagal movie, then you've essentially seen them all. But isn't that part of the charm of this former great action star?

"Absolution" was an adequate movie. It made for an okay watchable movie, where you just lean back in the seat, munch on whatever snack is at hand and enjoy the action. This isn't exactly a movie that requires your brain to be in overdrive; but then again, were any of his movies ever that?

However, now that I have seen "Absolution", from director Keoni Waxman, I can honestly say that it is not a movie that I will be returning to watch a second time.

My rating of "Absolution" lands on a generic five out of ten stars.

Without any spoilers as a direct to DVD film this is one of Seagal better efforts. Please don't listen to the critic's Technically it's a well executed film. Seagal and Mann make a great team together and whilst Vinnie Jones is not in the film a great deal he's a very believable bad guy because quite frankly playing psychos is what Vinnie does best.

I rated It an 8 as an action film because the story and pace and action kept me entertained.

I do recommend this to fans of Seagal.

Please view for yourself and decide.