Critique: Film> Reviews.

Steven Seagal is off to take the Senator to the bank... The blood bank *DUM DUM DUMDUMDUM*. After hired assassins left in him in a coma for seven years, he's fighting fit and ready to avenge the death of his family. Viewers, you better be drunk and/or free from snobbery, otherwise you needn't bother watching.

As far as cheesy movies that entertain go, Hard To Kill is in the Premier Division, chasing the league championship with the likes of Commando, Cobra and Road House. But as far as decent movies go, it's definitely non-league. It's bad, in all semantics of the word.

Seagal stars as police officer Mason Storm (how's that for an action hero name?). He gets shot by the mob after uncovering some dirty information about the city's Senator (William Sadler, Die Hard 2). Caught up in the mess, also, are his family: His wife is killed after several shotgun blasts, and his son is chased down (he manages to escape, just barely). The Senator thinks that business has been taken care of, but Storm is secretly kept alive by the hospital and his reliable partner (Frederick Coffin), 'til he eventually wakes up and begins training for war, Karate Kid style.

You can't possibly take all this shit seriously. Seagal, for one, is a middle-aged man with a greasy ponytail and runs like some demented Duracell Bunny when he's chasing down the bad guys. As an actor, he's bloody awful: There's a scene where he's doing his routine Aikido training and his new love interest (Kelly LeBrock, who is equally as bad) comes in, makes the excuse she was just passing, and offers him a flower. Seagal fucks her and afterwards sits around, alone, twiddling his wedding ring, attempting to look sad in the face. He misses his wife and is feeling a little guilty about jousting this other bird. We're supposed to feel sorry for him.

There are a lot of hilarious moments like this in Hard To Kill. Most aren't intentional, but they are entertaining to a certain degree. I can't remember the last time I laughed so much at an action film.

Other entertaining moments come when Seagal is unleashing his martial art skills on the enemy. Rather than routinely shoot someone, Seagal gets down on his knees and taunts people, telling them to "Come get some!" Needless to say, he ends up victorious, but some of the moves he uses to beat the scum of the streets are brilliant: His trademark limb snaps, pool cues through the neck, headlocks 'til they choke (to name just a few).

I am yet to witness an action hero as invincible as Steven Seagal. Even Schwarzenegger and Stallone took a few knocks from time to time, but the Aikido star never seems to have any competition -- it's a sharp contrast to his roles as a clairvoyant and a healer in real life. His action movies can be entertaining in spurts, but there's other times that I just wish someone would seriously give him a beating to test his true nature as a character. The good guys always win, but it's the battle that takes 'em there that we love.

Hard To Kill is pretty routine stuff for Seagal. If you fancy venturing beneath the action heavyweights for an evening into B-Movie territory, then you might get some enjoyment out of it. Just don't take it too seriously (it's Steven Seagal -- would you anyway?)

(C) Andy Carrington, 2009.