Acima da Lei

First, Steven Seagal has gotten fat. He does not look healthy--much less fit. This movie is dark...in more ways than one. Not only is it done in gritty inner-city areas but its subject and characters are almost all negative creatures of darkness. Seagal appears in only one fight scene--if you can call it that. He whispers, which is hard to hear and irritating. He has this vague Southern accent, which seems put-on. Worse still, he isn't the hero. I've been a fan of Seagal for many years, and have a collection of perhaps all of his videos. This one may well be the last.

Didn't they pay Steven Seagal for this film? What was he doing there? Wasted 1.30 hours for this trash.

Should one expect good acting from a sub B movie? Perhaps not. How about an actual plot that isn't a rehash of every other revenge film? How about Mr Seagal without that fake New Orleans accent?

Time lost never to be recouped

The answer is no... they would've done a better job. Two writers - amateur Johnny Martin Walters in his first ever writing credit, I can cut some slack, but there is no excuse for seasoned writer Chad Law to allow such an atrociously dialogued screenplay make it to the cameras. Then there was the plot-hole riddled convoluted and infantile story. There was more smoking cigarettes and cigars than action, you'd think this film was financed by Marlboro.

Casting Seagal is what you'd expect in his performance, only less and less action from him the more films he's in. I really wish he'd stop that annoying whispered dialogue thinking it makes him more "hey boss" mobster-ish. And enough with the hair color and hair plugs already, it's getting hard to take him serious anymore. All other casting and performances were decent, with Johnny Messner being the stand-out.

Directing by James Cullen Bressack was adequate, some decent camera work, but also bad choppy action {of what little there was} scenes. Cinematography was decent, and the score bearable - it was annoying, out of place and overbearing in some parts of the film.

Even if you're a fan of Seagals, don't expect to see him much in this film, let alone any more than 1 min total of him in action. The rest of the film he's drinking, smoking stogies, and whispering. It's a generous 4/10 from me.

Good script. Johnny is a decent/good actor. He carries the movie as far as it can go with Steven also in the film. The movie is good, until Segal comes onscreen. And after he disappears, it gets good again. They could probably cut the Segal scenes and it would be a good watch. Even DMX (RIP) is decent.

I laugh evert time Segal is onscreen, as his acting in this film is bad. Lets face it; his acting has been bad for awhile now.