Mission à haut risque

I enjoyed watching the Steven Seagal movies back in the day, but sort of stopped watching his movies around the mid 2000s or so, and then just occasionally sat down every now and again when I stumbled upon a movie of his.

So it was with the 2015 movie "Absolution", of which I had never heard about before now in 2022 as I stumbled upon it by random chance. And yeah, I found the time to sit down and watch this movie from writers Richard Beattie and Keoni Waxman, but truth be told then I wasn't really harboring much of any expectations.

The storyline in "Absolution" is pretty straight forward, and it definitely felt like an archetypical Steven Seagal movie, for better or worse. And on that account you know what you are getting here. Sure, they guy is older and heavier now, but he still does make fair action sequences.

If you've seen one Steven Seagal movie, then you've essentially seen them all. But isn't that part of the charm of this former great action star?

"Absolution" was an adequate movie. It made for an okay watchable movie, where you just lean back in the seat, munch on whatever snack is at hand and enjoy the action. This isn't exactly a movie that requires your brain to be in overdrive; but then again, were any of his movies ever that?

However, now that I have seen "Absolution", from director Keoni Waxman, I can honestly say that it is not a movie that I will be returning to watch a second time.

My rating of "Absolution" lands on a generic five out of ten stars.

I don't get how this got to theaters.

Last year, Jean-Claude Van Damme had two movies in theaters, Welcome to the Jungle and Enemies Closer, which were pretty decent, mostly because the muscles from Brussels stepped (slightly) out of his element to give us something different than his signature kicks and it worked to make a good movie.

I was expecting the same thing from this Seagal movie (after all, when was the last time this guy had something that did not premiere on Netflix?), but as soon as the movie open with a stupid narration about Seagal being a bad man who does bad things and he's looking to redeem himself with one good deed, I knew this was not that movie.

If any of you are aware of the old fat Seagal era on DVD, than you have herd Steve do this speech in every straight-to-video flick he's ever made. This movie could not be more formulated to the old fat saga, (takes place in Eastern Europe, he plays blues guitar, etc…). The only exception was that the strippers in the film were not naked. Maybe this is how the movie got into theaters?

Don't get me wrong, it's a fine action movie, especially if you at least like Seagal, but I was hoping since this was the first Seagal movie I've seen in years in a movie house, that he would do something different or that it was a return to Seagal back when he was thinner and ran like a girl, but it was neither.

After watching so many cheesy, make-a-buck movies from Steven Seagal this one is almost better than his earlier make-a-buck flicks.

Maybe it's not entirely his fault that the last succession of movies he's put out were pure money-grabbers; I guess you could blame that on the producers and directors (forgive me if I don't know if he produced or directed them himself).

However, I personally liked this one and would recommend it as a decent watch. I've been a fan since the 80's and will continue to follow his attempts of good film making.

He seems to be an OK guy and his movies don't suck too much. I like them all, even the poor ones.

Apart from his superhuman (untouchable) nature in most movies (even against the best of opponents), I like Segal's movies and this is not an exception. If anything, this is better than many of his past movies and I could not believe the low rating on here.

For the benefit of those that are not that picky and just want some reasonable action, read my brief review below.

FOR:

I am giving it 8/10 because of:

• The suspense (was good enough) - The action (not the best choreography but enjoyable)

AGAINST:

The main thing I have against this movie is the bad acting of some of the actors/actresses especially the non-Americans.

This starts with a man called John Alexander undergoing contemplative brooding introspection:

"I've been a bad man my whole life . If I can do only one good thing in life then that would give me absolution"

Considering John is played by Steven Seagal a more honest appraisal might be:

"I've been an abysmally bad actor my entire life . If I could only make one half decent movie then that would be absolution for the audience"

Unfortunately ABSOLUTION is not that film and seeing the physical appearance of Seagal tells us that it's never going to happen either . It's something of a shock the way Seagal looks nowadays . Try and imagine Marlon Brando in APOCALYPSE NOW with too much artificial hair and that gives you a vague idea of what happens if you're an action movie star who doesn't visit the gym very often . You do wonder how SS is going to kick some ass in his present condition . This is easily explained - he shoots bad guys and leaves any jumping and kicking to his cohort , or failing that a stunt double with his back to camera . It's not absolution that is required but lots of salad and exercise

The film starts with SS being given a mission to eliminate "This Afghan national working for the Iranians and with ties to Pakistan" It's at this very early point alarm bells start ringing that the geo-politics here might be wrong since the Persians and Pakistanis have never really been allies . That said this Afghan national isn't really the main villain , it's a character played by Vinnie Jones and when you're watching a film where Jones gives the most impressive performance that might explain why ABSOLUTION has gone straight to DVD