Killing Point

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.

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.

Well after reading all the reviews on here, I went out and rented it expecting a good laugh and a horrid film, and to my surprise I ended up finding it pretty entertaining. I will say this, I am very upset he would make such a poor film after making 2 very good films: Pistol Whipped, and Urban Justice.

HOWEVER with that aside even knowing there was the classic stunt double in most of the scenes there was still quite a bit of action and yes the editing and showing every punch a billion times got annoying, but for some reason I was able to sit through it and laugh and a lot of the scenes and actually found the stunt double to be very good at what he did.... And surprisingly the scenes where Seagal actually did fight (the end) he looked pretty good himself....

Maybe some need to watch it again knowing what to expect this time haha.... If your looking for a classic Seagal movie like Our for Justice, or Hard to Kill this is not the one for you... but if your like me and have seen his straight to video movies as of late I would say go out and rent it.... what do you have to lose.

By the way Black Dawn, Shadow Man, and Flight of Fury were all way worse in my opinion. So its not like its the absolute worst yet, but compared to Pistold Whipped, and Urban Justice I am very displeased.

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.

This could possibly be the worst Seagal flick ever. Where do I begin? The fight scenes are laughably phony and are a throwback to the "Dolemite" movies of the 70's. Yes, that bad and then some. Seagal's face is shown close up while a stuntman does all the work. It's comical to see the ill-fitting wig on the back of the stuntman. The fight sequences constantly use instant replay and this adds to the hilarity.

Seagal himself looks like he is literally dying from some undisclosed illness. His skin is red as raw meat and just as slimy. His face is full of weird pockmarks and it shines from the sweat. The man looks like he should be on some sort of life support. It's funny to see the actresses in the film have to pretend they want to jump his bones every time they look at him. Seagal once again uses his fake southern drawl as he's done in the last three films.

The gunfight was awful - he kept punching in clip after clip and must have shot off 40 rounds without hitting anything. Ditto the three bad guys. After that, my brain disengaged and I fell asleep.