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A Dangerous Man
Mother Time has not been kind to Steven
Seagal. His leathery skin, wizened visage, barrel-sized paunch and
stapled-on hair have, for the past 15 years, put him in stark contrast
to his 80s action movie ilk such as Van Damme, Stallone and
Swarzennegger, who despite their perceived shortcomings as thespians
were never shy about keeping themselves in shape.
Not so Seagal. These days he lumbers
around, still putting the hurtin’ on a series of bad guys who have
wronged him in some usually terrible way, though with plenty of choppy
camera work to his disguise his lack of fitness and a series of body
doubles employed whenever one of his ham hock legs is required to move
more than a few inches off the ground.
These aren’t complaints by the way – I
think his movies are fantastic. Sometimes they’re pretty terrible, but
even the instantly forgettable fare like Attack Force or Black
Dawn is good in a I-can’t-believe-how-bad-this-is kind of way, and
several of his later efforts such as the aptly named Belly of the
Beast or 2009s Ruslan were highly enjoyable and fairly
competent, at least by his standards. A role in Robert Rodriguez’
excellent homage to B-movie exploitation Machete appears not to
have provided too much of a shot in the arm to the aging Seagal’s
career, however, and these days he’s back to doing what he does best:
pumping out low budget straight-to-DVD action for his surprisingly
sizable and ever-loyal fanbase.
A Dangerous Man, filmed in 2009 and
released last year, will keep said fans happy without finding Seagal any
new ones. The plot is predictably farfetched; imprisoned for a crime he
didn’t commit, upon release ex-Special Forces soldier Shane Daniels (Seagal)
becomes embroiled in a bizarre series of events involving a car thief, a
kidnapped girl, a murderous Chinese villain and a duffel bag full of
cash. Oh and he also has to beat up lots of people and win back the
love of his wife (Aidan Dee, who is several decades Seagal’s junior and
in a couple of bizarre and highly un-erotic flashback sequences gyrates
naked against her fully-clothed, mountainous beau).
The film boast all the Seagal hallmarks;
the ludicrous dialogue delivered without so much as a hint of
conviction, an largely obscure but mostly excellent supporting cast who
continually act rings around their bloated cash cow and lots of bad guys
being beaten bloody for foolishly choosing to live life afoul of the
law. This is one of his better STV outings, and with several highly
attractive female leads and plenty of explosions and broken bones Segal
fans will not be disappointed.
Special Features
As usual special features are rather light
on the ground. For someone whose bread and butter are DVD-only
releases, Seagal’s films sure are light on incentives. Even Black
Dawn had a self-aggrandizing interview and ‘making of’ featurette.
Here all that’s on offer is a trailer for the film. |
