Mission à haut risque

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.

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.

Without any spoilers as a direct to DVD film this is one of Seagal better efforts. Please don't listen to the critic's Technically it's a well executed film. Seagal and Mann make a great team together and whilst Vinnie Jones is not in the film a great deal he's a very believable bad guy because quite frankly playing psychos is what Vinnie does best.

I rated It an 8 as an action film because the story and pace and action kept me entertained.

I do recommend this to fans of Seagal.

Please view for yourself and decide.

"John Alexander" (Steven Seagal) is an assassin who has been very successful with what he does for a living. So capable in fact, that he now believes that he needs to atone for the many bad things he has done over the course of his life. He gets this opportunity following a successful contract hit in Ukraine when he finds himself caught up in the middle of a situation involving a prostitute named "Nadia" (Adina Stetcu) and a murderous, sexual pervert with enormous influence who goes by the title of "the Boss" (Vinnie Jones). However, what he doesn't fully appreciate is just how influential "the Boss" actually is and because of that he becomes a target himself. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this movie actually started off pretty good. Unfortunately, it proceeded to get more and more unrealistic as the film progressed with several scenes involving both John Alexander and his friend "Chi" (Byron Mann) willingly throwing down their firearms in order to defeat their fully-armed opponents using only their martial arts skills. Naturally, I could understand this scenario if they were caught off-guard or if they had exhausted all of their ammunition while exchanging gunfire. But professionals don't go to a gunfight armed with just a knife or their bare knuckles. It just doesn't happen. That said, those who enjoy martial arts action for its own sake might really like this movie. But those who want a semblance of reality might be a bit disappointed. In any case, while it wasn't necessarily a bad film, it could have been better and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Average.