Review: Seized

Set in Mexico, Scott Adkins stars as a widowed former special forces op and parent to a moody teenage son (played Matthew Garbacz). After being drugged with a poison dart or some such, Adkins awakens to find his son has been kidnapped and a drug cartel boss (Mario Van Peebles, wearing a black cowboy hat) wants him to do some special favours to get the kid back. Basically, he wants Adkins to wipe out his competition. Karlee Perez plays Van Peebles’ main squeeze.

 

Director Isaac Florentine and star Scott Adkins are usually a good pairing (“Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” in particular is outstanding), and that trend pretty much continues with this 2020 action movie. It’s not their best offering but it’s certainly better than the first “Ninja” movie, their only dud to date that I’ve seen. Scripted by Richard Lowry (a writer-director-editor who made something called “President Evil” about a deranged killer in a hybrid Trump and Michael Myers costume), the plot is high concept action stuff, combining two familiar ideas into one: The innocent person tasked with performing misdeeds to get their kidnapped loved one back, and secondly the drug baron trying to wipe out his competition. The combination of the two is at least a bit more fresh, and Adkins is certainly more appealing in the lead than Ruby Rose was in the similar but dreadfully dull “Vanquish”.

 

Adkins is a widower with a kid again, this time a smart arse teen son. It’s neither his best nor worst performance, and he’s much better here in action mode. It takes about 20 minutes to get there, but once it does, Florentine and Adkins give us a blend of gunfire and martial arts. Holy crap Adkins sure is still a bad arse to behold here. He doesn’t fuck around and at times seems “John Wick” levels of unstoppable. It’s quite violent, though Florentine’s visual flourishes occasionally mask the bloodshed a bit. Florentine probably didn’t need to indulge in first-person shooter gimmickry, but it’s kinda fun for a moment or two. I was more interested in Adkins spin-kicking the fuck out of people while hand-cuffed. That’s a helluva thing. The issue is that there’s not quite enough action. As for the rest of the cast, it’s interesting to see former NXT/WWE performer Karlee Perez, but she’s basically given a nothing role. Amusing himself greatly is Mario Van Peebles as essentially the main villain here. Sporting a bad Hispanic accent for much of the film – is his character even meant to be Hispanic? I have no clue – it’s pretty much the furthest thing from a good performance (I’ve rarely seen him give a good performance), but amusing he certainly is.

 

Quite enjoyable on the B level, though with perhaps not quite enough action to elevate it higher. This is the film “Vanquish” wishes it were, but could never be.

 

Rating: B-

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chil...
Read more

Review: Cinderella (1950)

The story of poor young Cinderella (voiced by Ilene Woods), treated as a servant by her nasty stepmother (voiced by Eleanor Audley), and dismissed by her thoroughly rotten, ugly stepsisters. Her only friends are a group of mice, who are forever being menaced by a cat named Lucifer (or as I call him, Grumpy Cheshire Cat). The King (hoping to find a wife for his charming son) is throwing a ball and every available young woman is invited to attend, and Cinderella is most excited to go. However, her stepmother and stepsisters do all they can to prevent this from happening. But with help from the mice and one fairy godmother (voiced by Verna Felton) later, and Cinderella looks set to attend the ball. You know the rest, folks.   Lovely 1950 Disney animated movie from directors Clyde Geronimi ( “Peter Pan” , “Lady and the Tramp” ), Wilfred Jackson ( “Fantasia” , “Alice in Wonderland” , “Peter Pan” ) & Hamilton Luske ( “Pinocchio” , “Fantasia” , “Peter Pan” ), that is a bit t...
Read more

Review: Jinnah

The story of Mohammed Ali Jinnah (Sir Christopher Lee) the politically moderate founder of Pakistan. A Muslim lawyer, Jinnah fought to form a separate nation from India for the Muslim minority, whilst Mahatma Gandhi (Sam Dastor) wished for India to stay united and proposed Jinnah as the new PM as a compromise. James Fox plays British viceroy Lord Mountbatten, Indira Varma plays Jinnah’s wife, and veteran bit player Vernon Dobtcheff plays a British dignitary.   Although Christopher Lee’s title performance received some critical notice and the actor himself was very proud of the work, this modestly budgeted 1998 biopic from director Jamil Dehlavi ( “Immaculate Conception” with Melissa Leo) and co-writer Farrukh Dhondy ( “Red Mercury” with Stockard Channing and Ron Silver) was largely ignored at the time and still very little-known today. Part of that is probably due to the poor marketing of the film, and difficulty in finding a distributor. It’s hard to get people to talk abo...
Read more