El Reto de la Muerte

Steven Seagal's final line in this Movie is..."it's not over till we're dead". Possibly a shout-out to his relentless critics that endlessly tell him to retire or at the very least to lose some weight. In this Movie he seems to be trying to end the laziness. He is not dubbed here and manages to find just enough breath to make his lines understandable. He is not doubled here and actually does his own Martial Arts scenes.

So that is the upside. Steve Austin on the other hand makes the other Steve look like a thoroughbred Thespian. Seriously, does this guy have ANY expressions or changes of tone to his voice. He has got be the worst Action Hero Actor ever, bar none. But hey, he is an imposing physical presence and that is the minimum requirement to convince.

This is a darkly lit, endless trek down corridors and around corners. Stiff and long scenes in front of consoles and computer keyboards. It jumps and pulls the frame once in a while to try a bit of styling but no go. Anyway there is quite a bit of gunfire and a goodly amount of hand to hand and enough Characters to allow for a large body count, so if this is for you, have at it, and for the curious to see if maybe Segal is on a self-imposed comeback.

Several years ago I essentially stopped watching Steven Seagal's new movies, because they had become unbelievably bad. However, this new film of his intrigued me because he was being paired up with Steve Austin, so I decided to give it a look. After watching it, I swear once again I will not rent any future Steven Seagal movies. Austin is not a great actor, but he does seem to be trying - certainly a lot better than Seagal, who is awful. Seagal has gained so much weight that he waddles instead of walks, and his martial art sequences are so rapidly edited that it's clear he can't pull off multiple moves like he did with his earlier films. Though plenty of blame has to fall on the shoulders of director Keoni Waxman, who films the action sequences (both martial art and gun battles) in the dullest way possible, and lenses everything in unattractive and murky colors. By the way, though the DVD box seems to suggest that Seagal and Austin fight side by side, in actual fact their characters have almost no time together.

"If you listen to me and do what I say I'll kill them before they kill you." Former black-ops agents Tom Steele (Segal) and Manning (Austin) are assigned to decommission an old prison, as well as deal with the arrival of two new female prisoners. When a team of mercenaries decides to crash the party and the identities of the women come out it becomes much bigger of a job then expected. This is pretty much what you would expect from a movie like this. Steven Segal and Steve Austin in the same movie. There is a lot of action, but Segal is a little older now so the fighting scenes aren't as exciting as they could be, but the gun fighting scenes are still worth watching. Steve Austin is pretty decent but he isn't in this as much as Segal is (in case your wondering). To be fair this isn't really my kind of movie. I know a ton of people will be all over this but I just have never really been a fan of Steven Segal so read this review with that in your head. I will admit this is one of his better movies though. Overall, if you are a fan of Segal and Austin this you will love this movie. I am not. I give it a C-.

Review: Finally a decent movie from Seagal! I quite enjoyed this intense, action packed, movie about a prison which has been taken over by an elite force because they want to get a highly valuable chip which has been implanted into one of the inmates. They thought that it was going to be an easy task, but when they come up against Stone Cold Steve Austin and the fast hitting Steven Seagal, there task becomes a steep hill to climb. I really liked the intensity throughout the movie and I liked the chemistry between Austin and Seagal. The military action scenes, seemed quite real along with the acting which wasn't that bad. You can tell that the director didn't have a massive budget to play with but they done a good job with what they had. I must admit, it is the quietest prison that I have ever seen and I don't understand why Seagal didn't call for some help to take down the intruders but thats just me being picky. Anyway, it's full of mindless action with a half decent storyline so I can honestly say that it's worth a watch. Watchable!

Round-Up: I hope they make more movies with Seagal and Austin because they really worked well together. There wasn't that many scenes with them together in this movie but there raw action skills and non-trash talking styles, compliment each other. It still makes me laugh how these characters try there best to get close to Seagal in the action scenes and he ends up taking them down with one severe blow, no matter how much weight he has put on. His acting isn't that great and he isn't the best person to show true emotion but I like his cool style which makes all of the baddies in his movies seem stupid. Although his movies, along with Austins movies, don't make that much money, you'll always no what to expect from there films and this one doesn't disappoint. 

I recommend this movie to people who are into their action movies about an elite force who try to take over a prison to get a highly valuable chip which has been implanted into an inmate. 5/10

I had even expectations for this film. On one hand, this was not only one of the rare filmic team-ups between Steven Seagal and a fellow action hero of similar caliber, but it was also the longest time the former had taken to make a movie in almost ten years - something I hoped was the result of more effort being made in the production. On the other hand, it was directed by Keoni Waxman, the filmmaker who's now officially worked with Steven Seagal more times than any other but whose vehicles are among my least favorite of Seagal's filmography. Then again, I liked Waxman's outing with Steve Austin well enough, so I considered that perhaps MAXIMUM CONVICTION here could achieve some kind of acceptable balance. I was right: the movie is acceptable, but far from great. It doesn't make all it could have of the collaboration between Seagal and Austin, but is still an okay-enough DTV action outing.

The story: two private security contractors (Seagal and Austin) are caught up in a deadly situation when the two prisoners they had delivered to a secret prison are targeted by a lethal team of mercenaries led by an ex-CIA mastermind (Michael Pare).

It needs to be said: however good they may look on paper, Steven Seagal and Steve Austin do not make very exciting partners. Of course, one factor is the limited screen time they share, but even when they're both in the same scene, they seem relatively apathetic to each other and don't display any discernible chemistry. On their own, they do alright, with Austin as definitely the more charismatic of the two but Seagal getting more fight scenes. They have equal amounts of screen time. The co-stars do fine but are sort of wasted: B-movie staple performer Michael Pare clomps his way through a boring role, and even though Steph Song - one of the aforementioned prisoners - has a good deal of award nominations to her name, she's given no strong acting scenes and her role could've been played by most anybody. The script by TRUE JUSTICE-regular Richard Beattie is pretty passive, highlighted only by a couple particularly mean-spirited deaths and the occasional funny line by Austin.

The action is predominantly composed of shootouts, but there's nothing special to these. Seagal's stunt doubles are hidden relatively well, but at the expense of the editing, which is once again pretty choppy during his fight scenes - not as much as it has been in the past, but it's still pretty annoying. With that said, Seagal still gets the occasional cool move in, and the final brawl - though painfully one-sided - is fun to watch in a guilty way. Steve Austin only has one real fight, but prior to this he gets entertainingly innovative in the prison kitchen, turning a gas tank into a missile and attacking a mercenary with a pot of boiling water. The best fight in the movie doesn't belong to either of them, though: despite being stifled by the same editing present in Seagal's fights, Bren Foster brings an energy to his single brawl that the other encounters were sorely lacking. Overall, I deem the action content on the low side of passable.

That also counts as my synopsis for the movie in general. Amateurish post-production inserts can be found here and there but are otherwise restrained, and Steven Seagal is doing his own voiceovers again, but these plus points are deflated a bit by the lackluster story and ho-hum pacing of the film. While it's a good deal better than the previous BORN TO RAISE HELL and therefore a general step up for Seagal (I'm not as well-versed in Austin's output, so I can't speak for him), it's not nearly all I was hoping for during the year-and-a-half spent waiting for it. Consider it a rental.