Kill Switch

An American action thriller; A story about a homicide detective with a reputation for violent street-justice methods who partners with another detective and a coroner to track a psychopathic killer leaving cryptic clues. Murders are being perpetrated by a serial killer who leaves cryptic clues. King goes on a brutal rampage with the assistance of his partner. Next stop Memphis for Steven Seagal. With plenty of action and fighting sequences of arresting brutality, the film keeps the viewer diverted but there is also plenty of distraction from its poor production values. Looped action replays of key pieces of action are used for emphasis, jump editing and fast intercutting gives it a jittery feel. Also, Seagal is often body-doubled without much effort for disguise. All in all, it's a well=paced procedural but it's hard to recommend for the overwrought storyline, poor acting performances, poor editing and direction.

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.)

Steven Seagal's previous film, "Pistol Whipped", was a pretty solid little low-budget action thriller, and it looked as if Seagal was finally starting to learn from his mistakes and improve upon them. "Kill Switch" makes "Pistol Whipped" look like a fluke. Does he honestly expect people to like this movie? For starters, the fight scenes are a joke. They're hardly even fight scenes - mostly just Seagal beating up people. Or should I say, his frequently obvious stunt double beating up people. They are edited very annoyingly, with lots of dropped frames, repeated shots, and close-ups of frantically waving arms. Seagal adopts a ridiculous (I think it was meant to be Southern - "Y'all", "Lord Have Mercy", "Sho Nuff", etc.) accent, has a love interest at least 20 years younger than him, whom he completely ignores, because that's what all supercool detectives like him do, and is joined in his latest investigation by a rookie female FBI agent, whom he's a complete jerk to, because, again, that's what all supercool detectives like him do. Did I mention that "he's a genius" and that "he doesn't follow protocol"? And what's with the film's fascination with torture, sadism, close-ups of corpses....blergh. Is Seagal making a play for the "SAW" market? And let's not even mention the completely nonsensical ending. The only semi-redeeming features of "Kill Switch" are some unintentional laughs, and the presence of Holly Dingard and Isaac Hayes (in one of his last roles). *1/2 out of 4.

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.

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.