Terror em São Francisco

The thought of seeing three actors that i like made me watch this film. Of them (Seagal, Hopper, Sizemore) only Seagal i feel puts a performance in. It is a very poorly directed film. The action scenes are extremely bad. I feel the actors were just cashing in on the movie. Overall its one to forget.

Ticker is a perfect example of sloppy film making at its best. Continuity errors, scenes from other movies edited into this movie, poor acting, sloppy editing, and an even worse story. Tom Sizemore, Dennis Hopper and Steven Seagal should be ashamed of themselves for participating in such a terrible movie.

Basically Ticker centers around a police officer Ray Nettles (Tom Sizemore) who must team up with bomb squad leader Glass (Steven Seagal) to pursue an Irish terrorist Swann (Dennis Hopper in a very poor man's version of his famous role in Speed) who is detonating bombs around San Francisco (you could tell very little of it was filmed in San Francisco and was filmed elsewhere on the cheap). Very derivative, lazy and uninteresting story. The only reason I thought I would check this out was for Tom Sizemore (who was an excellent actor that appeared in Heat, Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down) and plus Steven Seagal when he had box office appeal. I thought Steven Seagal's role would be identical to his role in Executive Decision but its not. Here in Ticker, he was just going through the motions with very minimal effort so he could get his paycheck. Dennis Hopper was very uninspiring as the villain. He was great as the villain in Blue Velvet and Speed, but here is is just sleepwalking though his role.

Apparently director Albert Pyun hated the completed version of this movie and I don't blame him in the slightest. I would disown this movie too.

If you are a fan of Tom Sizemore, Dennis Hopper or Steven Seagal by all means check it out, but you will be very, very disappointed at how bad this movie is. Everybody else I highly recommend you avoid this bomb at all costs.

1/10.

STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs

Not a single other decent review for this film seems to have appeared yet.And this isn't going to be the first one.The cliche ridden,tedium inducing script and flat,uninteresting dialogue are the first of many noticeably bad factors to the film.And as for the casting,to have Dennis Hopper (complete with what sounds like a laughable Irish accent) as the mad bomber villain just shows the extent of it's lazyness.Meanwhile,Tom Sizemore and Steven Seagal turn in styflingly standard performances as the cop-on-the-edge and zen-aided bomb disposal expert.The story is a jumbled mess,confusing and disjointed,and the film also has a really tatty,cheap feel,especially in the action sequences.Somewhere in the film,Seagal says 'When you've hit rock bottom,the only way you can go is up'.Hopefully,the same can be said about his career.*

Tom Sizemore is the tormented cop with something to prove. Steven Seagal is the "Zen Master" (yet again) of the bomb squad. Dennis Hopper is the mad bomber who looks like he dropped straight in from filming "Speed". Jaime Pressly is the eye candy. This movie has many illogical and ridiculous gaffes that, if you bother to take 2 seconds to think about, will leave you stunned and wondering "What the *..*?" There is no rhyme or reason to this non sequitur. However, with a beer or two, a light-hearted attitude, and a few irreverent buddies to yuk it up, you could actually enjoy laughing at. I know I laughed at this movie from beginning to end, even without the beer. But trust me, you'll want the beer.

Despite it going straight to video, you might be thinking, "Well, it has Steven Seagal, so it at least must have a good amount of action." Think again. Seagal doesn't do anything until near the end, and his martial arts sequences are so rapidly-edited and close-up with the camera, someone with no martial arts sequences could have taken his place and had the same effect. In fact, most of the movie shows Seagal sitting down and/or shot from the chest up (probably to mask his weight gain in recent years.) He hardly does a thing! And there's hardly any other action in the rest of the movie - this is one BORING movie, and I couldn't wait for it to end.

If you do rent the DVD, you might find it interesting to hear the director/producer commentary (despite minutes on end going by without a comment). Not only did it confirm my suspicion that A LOT of stock footage was used, but that it was shot in a short time - just twelve days! Seagal was only used for six days, and Hopper did all his scenes in just one day!