Review: Mercenary for Justice


Mercenary Steven Seagal has just returned from a botched mission that saw his buddy killed (thanks mostly to Luke Goss, the spook who set him up), when he is coerced by his shady boss (uber-oily Roger Guenveur Smith) to help bust out from prison the son of an infamous gun runner. That’s not even the half of it, but it’s just about the only part of the story I could easily follow. Jacqueline Lord plays a sexy member of Seagal’s posse-for-hire.



Tolerable 2005 Don E. FauntLeRoy vehicle for now direct-to-DVD mainstay Seagal is slightly lesser than say “Into the Sun”, “Ruslan”, and even the director’s “Today You Die”. There seems to be a genuine attempt at something credible here, unlike many of Seagal’s latter day efforts (“The Foreigner” and “Out for a Kill” immediately spring to mind), but it doesn’t make a lick of sense, either. I mean, I can’t even tell you who or what Seagal’s character was supposed to be, really, let alone everyone else in the film, and there’s enough story ideas here for at least three films, that surely would’ve been more coherent than the one film we get here.



The bizarro bad guy turn by Roger Guenveur Smith (as Seagal’s boss) sure is something, though…not sure what that ‘something’ is, but something is better than nothing. Incoherent or not, it’s really kinda watchable, even while you struggle to make heads or tails of what it is you are watching. This isn’t good, but the glory days of “Hard to Kill” are way over as it is. It could always be worse. The impenetrable screenplay is by Steven Collins, who wrote the slightly more coherent Seagal vehicle “Shadow Man”, released the same year.



Rating: C

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 chilly t
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 too s
Read more

Review: Eugenie de Sade

Eugenie (Soledad Miranda) makes a deathbed confession to author/biographer (Jesus ‘Jess’ Franco himself), recounting the tale of how her depraved stepfather (Paul Muller) groomed her into a life of depravity, debauchery, and murder.   Not to be confused with the similarly titled “Eugenie…The Story of Her Journey into Perversion” (by the same director) or “Justine de Sade” (which is not to be confused with Franco’s own “Justine” for that matter), this 1973 Marquis de Sade adaptation from writer-director Jesus Franco ( “99 Women” , “A Virgin Among the Living Dead” ) is perhaps the perfect marriage of Franco, sleazy material, and actors. Basically this is what Franco’s “She Killed in Ecstasy” might’ve been like if it were based on a Marquis de Sade work. There’s a few slow spots here and there, but overall I actually think this is Franco’s best film. Yes, even better than my previous choice “Vampyros Lesbos” , and better than his more ‘respectable’ films like “Count Dracula” (a
Read more