Today You Die

Almost as if there was an unexpected explosion in whatever department is supposed to handle plot and character development you can almost see bits of "what might have been" scatter all over the place. Bit like the fairly realistic blood spatters from (mostly) shoulder wounds in one shoot out.

Seagal always manages to get interesting co-stars. In this case I nominate Mari Morrow.

And it gets a bit sentimental at the end. Quite touching, especially after such a spectacular explosion in the final warehouse the whole damn county would have been declared a disaster zone. All good fun.

But you can't deny you keep watching them, and part of the fun is that Seagal seems to insist on doing exactly what he feels is right. And even if it goes directly to video, how many stations carry his films?. Dammit I watched a 2005 film tonight on an Irish channel. It all means royalties.

So lets all get crazy!.

I may sound biased, but I don't like Steven Seagal(except for Under Siege and a couple of others) and most of the direct-to-video releases he's done. Today You Die is a pretty poor movie, however with stuff like Submerged and particularly Out for a Kill, Seagal has done worse. The photography and editing aren't as slipshod or as dull as they can be, Nick Mancuso is good and the final explosion is spectacular. Even Seagal is better than usual, however that doesn't necessarily mean he was good, in fact it was still a lazy performance but at least the lines were intelligible. The action didn't do much for me, because of the sluggish pace in general of the film, it felt unexciting, while the plot is derivative with too many plot holes to push a delivery truck through, Treech is very irritating, the script is really quite dumb in places and the soundtrack was not to my taste, too loud and overdone. All in all, a poor film but not among Seagal's worst. 3/10 Bethany Cox

Poor action films are the graveyards for aging martial art stars. In such films they struggle to maintain that dangerous demeanor that made their early work successful, but they all end in failure. Seagal is too old for this type of role but he wont let go...no matter how silly he looks. Some hope his current work will somehow bring back the magic, but there is no magic left. The late '80s and early '90s belonged to Steven Seagal and his work made me a fan. I could see him fit nicely in a slot on The Sopranos where his overweight body, jowly features and sullen attitude could have found a home. I wonder what the return is on his run of direct to video films?! Since he produces them I'm assuming the $$$ is more than satisfactory. If this is the deal we will be subjected to poorly done Seagal action films well into his late 60s and 70s.....

Today You Die was the 4th Seagal movie in a mini marathon I just held. Wow, I don't know where to start. He seems to mumble his lines more and more as time goes on, and the scenes between Seagal and Treach where they seem to improv are embarrassing. And what did his girlfriend's dreams have to do with anything else in the plot? I can't recommend this to anyone but the most die hard Seagal fan, and even then you are better off with his earlier work. Of the 4 films in my marathon (Submerged, Into the Sun, Foreigner and Today You Die) Today was the worst. A previous reviewer mentioned this but the usage of stock footage was quite obvious.

Steven Seagal does it again. Another daft and dull… well for most part straight-to-DVD action vehicle with him whispering his lines, providing intellectual discussions (about dreams and their meanings; "I had an awful dream.") and whooping some ass… well maybe not so as the director does a really good job hiding Seagal's face during many of the fight sequences. Quick combat we get a good look, but the extended scenes not so. Thanks stunt-man. Quick and flashy editing helps, which has Seagal always walking away from an encounter with his back facing the camera. Seagal is a thief (a Robin Hood of sorts) who decides to go straight, but a job he takes on as an armour guard truck driver turns out to be a set-up. He finds himself spending time in prison, but he happens to be the only one who knows where the stolen 20 million dollars was hidden. The criminals who set him up want their money, but Seagal wants revenge when he breaks out (in a rather unconvincing manner) with a hommie. "Today You Die" actually started off promising (with an explosively barnstorming car chase sequence), but when it hit's the prison yard and from then onwards it rapidly becomes uninterestingly old-hat with its heavy-handed plot devices (betrayal, corruption), try-hard attitude and flimsy characters. Well at least it provides hilarity. Just listen to the lame dialogues. "He's evil. Something beyond this earth." Throw in one wannabe gangsta known as Ice Kool (Anthony "Treach" Criss), talking all tough and the jovial banter between the two is embarrassingly bad. Watching Seagal going around handing out his own sort of punishment simply was mind-numbing… since Seagal is invincible. Not even a scratch. Must be that politeness and muddled intentions. Good for a laugh, but not much else.

"You want to dance with the devil. Lets dance."