Review: Maximum Conviction

‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin and Steven Seagal play a couple of tough guy security contractors (and former CIA guys) overseeing the impending closure of a SuperMax military prison. It was supposed to be an easy gig, but the arrival of a couple of female prisoners (Aliyah O’Brien and Steph Song) for a temporary stay puts a spanner or two in the works. Along come a bunch of heavily armed mercenaries led by supposed Marshal Michael Paré who aren’t quite on the level and are in need of something Song is apparently in possession of. He holds the cowardly warden (Ian Robison) hostage, and has absolutely no problems murdering the fuck out of anyone who gets in his way. By the way, the mercenaries get smuggled in a truck hilariously labelled ‘Troy Disposal Services’. Yeah, I see what you did there. Whilst Austin is stuck somewhere inside the prison to fend for himself, Seagal and his other co-workers (including Bren Foster) had left to go drinking, and arrive back to see that the fit has hit the shan. Once Seagal and his team are reunited with Austin, they attempt to take the bad guys down. Oh, then there’s the prisoners…yeah, you just know the two female prisoners are gonna be targeted by the male inmates at some point.

 

Directed by Keoni Waxman (Seagal’s not-bad “The Keeper” and Steve Austin’s “Hunt to Kill”), this 2012 action/thriller suffers greatly from one of its stars being so fat and lazy that almost everyone else involved in the film has to work overtime to compensate. Yeah, I’m calling Steven Seagal out, and it’s not for the first time, but this is clearly the most egregious example of Seagal’s lack of giveashit in his work. He’s not the only one slumming here, but he’s the biggest by far, and not just in girth. Since Seagal can no longer do all of the things he was once able to do, and because he’s also seemingly unwilling to even try his best, he’s not really in the film very much despite sharing the lead with wrestling legend ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin. It results in Seagal delegating a lot to other actors, but even when he does involve himself in the action scenes, said action scenes are full of ADHD editing, lots of incoherent close-ups, and the occasional shaky-cam. While it looks like Seagal doesn’t employ body doubles this time (or at least not as often), the way the fights are filmed you kinda have to take it on good faith that Seagal has beaten someone up. It’s a mixture of impressionism and Seagal’s prior reputation rather than anything you genuinely see with your own eyes. Mr. Austin, on the other hand proves with a single punch to be more convincing in a fight, without the need for fancy editing or obscuring camera angles. Yes, Austin is used to making the unreal (but usually still with some impact) ‘sport’ of professional wrestling look somewhat real, but c’mon, Seagal’s a legit Aikido expert in real-life, right? It just ain’t right. He needs to do either one of two things; 1) Start to give an actual shit about acting, or 2) Lose some goddamn pounds already! And no, retirement isn’t a third option, dude’s gotta earn a living and he sure as shit isn’t gonna make bread as a country and western singer.

 

Take out Seagal and replace him with the perfectly capable Bren Foster (An English-born Aussie with a martial arts background who sadly doesn’t get much of a chance to display his martial arts skills, but certainly appears to possess them), and the film is significantly improved. As is, it’s a bit underwhelming, if far from Seagal’s worst. Austin will never be accused of being an actor (nor a great technical wrestler, if we’re being honest), but he does convince as an ornery sonofabitch who can beat people up, and since that’s mostly what is required of him here (especially the former) he’s quite enjoyable. When something more than ‘ornery guy who takes no shit and gives no fucks’ is required of him as an actor, such as his comradery with Seagal, he’s on far less sure footing. In fact, not only do he and Seagal not have much chemistry, Seagal comes off slightly less forced in those scenes together than Austin.

 

The film itself is fairly standard terrorist-thriller stuff, albeit a bit slower-moving than most because the plot has lots of moving parts that need to be put into place. Even “Die Hard”, the classic model for this sort of thing, needed time to set everything up and wasn’t any lesser for it. This isn’t “Die Hard” in terms of quality, though. That film had energy and a certain snap to it that this film, made by lesser hands simply can’t provide. Composer Michael Richard Plowman does try his best, though, to liven things up with a fine music score. Getting back to the acting, it’s a shame that in a film starring two virtual non-actors who mostly get by on some level of presence/charisma/reputation the chief villain they face off against is played by Michael Paré, who has more acting talent than either Seagal or Austin but is every bit as lazy as the former. He managed to get by on his rugged good looks and a small percentage of charisma in Walter Hill’s excellent “Streets of Fire”, which appropriately cast him as a kind of 50s-era rebel turned comic book figure. Ever since then, he’s failed to give even a hint of a shit about his work, from all on-screen evidence. Here I think it’s a mistake to put one of the more wooden leading men of the 1980s against the likes of Seagal and Austin. I actually think it’s the lesser known actors in the cast (or at least some of them) who offer up the more impressive work, Foster in particular might just have a future ahead of him if he turns the right heads (He’s also appeared in “The Last Ship” and TV’s long-running “Days of Our Lives”, but I think action movies are where his potential mostly lies). Here he doesn’t get to spin kick the fuck out of someone until about ten minutes to go, which is unfortunate. Pair him with Austin, send Seagal to a personal trainer, and you’ve got yourself a better film for sure. Scripted by Richard Beattie (“Absolution” with Seagal, and several instalments of his “True Justice” series), the main reason the film ends up (barely) watchable is because the basic plot will almost always be somewhat watchable, even if this is far from the best of its type. 

 

Rating: C+