Le Prix du sang

Not been able to see a preview before I saw this made me a little worried, but I thought, what the hell? Seagal rules. I was pleasantly surprised with this movie. The only flaw was that at times I couldn't understand Seagal. It also appeared as if he did most/all of his fighting and that was nice. It was a pretty good story. It's was your standard revenge flick. It's nice to see Seagal go after bad guys that messed with his family. It was like Urban Justice in a way. I was glad it wasn't that European package crap or conspiracy from the early 90's or 2000's. This was way better than Kill Switch and of course that vampire crap. But not as good as Pistol Whipped.

"Driven to Kill" (originally, and more appropriately, titled "Ruslan") is one of the best Steven Seagal flicks in a long time. Now, after total crap like "Kill Switch" and "Against the Dark," almost anything in focus would seem good. But D2K actually has a lot to recommend it--it has a strong, engaged bada$$ performance by Seagal, one with no obvious body/stunt doubles or voice dubbing, a straightforward story, and the kind of action you'd expect. The direction, while not splashy, is competent (a rarity for recent Seagal flicks).

Now, to be honest, it would take a few more million dollars, a lot of retakes, some recasting of supporting roles, and a car chase or two to make this into a theatrical action-exploitation flick along the lines of "Taken." But for a DTV movie Driven to Kill is actually quite exceptional. And for a Seagal DTV this is up there near the top of the heap with Urban Justice and better than Pistol Whipped. It reminds me of a Charles Bronson low budget mid-80s movie like Murphy's Law. However, the shortcomings that affect all direct to video movies with their short shooting schedules and low budgets also brings D2K down a bit as well. The biggest problem is that about half of the supporting performances are embarrassingly lame--the female police officer and the oily lawyer in particular. And there were also some really strange choices made for the film's score. Upbeat Russian folk music during dramatic and violent beatdowns? Seems odd to me. In fact, sometimes the music behind the action is so ill-fitting that it seems like we're listening to a placeholder score that the filmmakers intended to replace. They might as well have said "hey, get that old polka album--we'll use that music for the part where Ruslan cracks the guy's neck!"

But, despite these flaws, I really enjoyed D2K. It has a small scale old school action vibe that I could get into and little to none of the unintentionally comedic incompetence we have come to expect from Seagal's output over the past decade.

Former Russian diplomat and assassin Ruslan (Steven Seagal) is forced to reimmerse himself in the gang culture he thought he left behind when his family is attacked by his old cohorts at his daughter's wedding.

One of the first scenes of the film finds Steven Seagal seated across a table from a gorgeous babe (of course). Babe asks Steven to close his eyes. It's not as if you'd be able to tell, Seagal's face is constantly in a contorted squint. He doesn't seem to ever actually pronounce a line, just whisper his way through the film. Perhaps he thinks a Russian accent is a whisper?

"Driven to Kill" is not a driven film. For instance, why that title? Is Ruslan driven? It doesn't seem so. No one in the film seems to know exactly what it going on, not excepting the star. It is an uninspired, lackadaisical, but certainly not lazy film that makes an bizarre addition to the revenge genre.

All of the characters confuse themselves for each other until the film starts to resemble particularly runny porridge. Seagal's ex-wife and his daughter look the exact same age. The villains are all similar and none too smart but at least aren't all named "Ivan". The detectives are excruciatingly bad actors that make Steven Seagal look like Marlon Brando.

The cinematography is surprisingly decent. Overall the film doesn't outwardly look like a low-budget flick. It was surely filmed on the cheap in Canada and made to look like the United States. The action and fighting isn't terrible and kept me interested to see how our aging hero would take down the next baddie.

"Driven to Kill" is the epitome of a low-budget, fairly intriguing action movie ideal for late night viewing and late night reviewing. If you're a fan of Seagal or a fan of cheese, add it to your queue.

After some very mediocre work in features and STV crap I wasn't expecting anything but horror from this flick. It turns out that there is nothing like a good old violent revenge movie to get some life out of Steven Segal. This is not an amazing movie as it still has a very low budget and Segal still can't act, but at least in this one it seems as it's actually him throwing the punches and shooting the guns, which is a step up from some of his previous work. Not amazing but an entertaining ride for Segal fans.

Yes, this is another boring Steven Seagal film, with another dumb revenge plot, weak characters and other typical things in these straight to DVD films. Seagal is typical himself... with bad performance, slow, no emotions and other things. What is interesting here (in negative sense), Seagal plays a Russian. Wow! A Russian! Are you sure that you can trust Seagal to play a Russian. He didn't even sound like a Russian, he was just himself, but there was nothing that looks even closely Russian on him, he spoke Russian in some scenes, but he didn't even try to pronounce the Russian words more precisely, and when I remember... that Schwarzenegger put some effort in "Read Heat" and he sounded pretty good while speaking Russian, and he even tried as much as he can to have a Russian accent. And that's what I appreciate... But, Arnie is no actor too. Now, back to Ruslan... the fight scenes in this film are the only thing that justify everything else, meaning, the fight scenes were good and they are the only thing worth watching here, well on moments they looked funny, and they were filled with this Russian balalaika music, and that made scenes even more funny, I expected Seagal to stood up and dance to this music, having a good dancing rhythm, but not fighting rhythm. And it's also good that Seagal is using Aikido again... properly.