TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

Michael Ledo This is a fairly straight forward Seagal film which opens with his Marlon Brando godfather character giving us his standard "I am a bad man " speech. Even though he kills bad guys, he needs to kill one more bad guy for "absolution" for killing all those other bad guys. It isn't hard to figure out 5 minutes into the film (or if you look at the cast) who the bad guy he has to kill.Seagal revives his character Alexander (I think) from "A Good Man." There are flashback scenes to his wife who died, which were not part of any previous film. Seagal is joined by Chi played by Bryon Mann. To add to the confusion, he also plays Savon in the Seagal "True Justice" TV series, but there is no connection....I think. The most confusing thing about a Seagal film is keeping them separate in your mind.Filmed in Bucharest, Romania Seagal and Chi take out a rich westernized Afghan who was going to deal stealth technology to the Iran. The subplot consists of The Boss (Vinnie Jones not Springsteen) abusing women on film. One woman escapes (Adina Stetcu) and lands in Seagal's lap with the expected Seagal film results.Fighting consisted of slo-mo and speed up action to make Seagal look limber. It is comical to watch the lumbering Seagal go into stealth mode, moving around going "unseen". If you miss the Seagal, "I am a bad man" speech in the beginning, fear not, he loved it so much he gives it a second time. Plenty of bad acting.Guide: F-bomb. No sex or nudity. Woman dressed scantily and abused. Some blood splatter. Minor grindhouse effects.8 stars on the Seagal scale.

marciama I have to admit I only watched it for the first 30 to 40 minutes, so I'm not gonna comment on the movie itself, it's as bad as it can be any way. The point is, they can't even find a cameraman with steady hands, most of the shots/filming, especially those when they were just talking and/or fighting, were too close and very shaky, as if it's a hand held personal camera bring you with me type youtube amateur made video, (most of the youtube videos nowadays have better filming qualities and techniques than this), the camera just wouldn't stay still, this alone makes me feel dizzy and nauseous. I've never seen a worse camera filming in Hollywood made movies, or most main stream movies in any market.

Comeuppance Reviews A man known only as The Boss (Jones) is some sort of crime lord but also has a kill room where he tortures and murders the captive victims of his insane rages. When one girl, Nadia (Stetcu) escapes The Boss, she ends up crossing paths with a hired Killer - said to be "the only guy who can do the job" - named John (Seagal). John, a rotund man of girth, teams up with an actual Martial Artist named Chi (Mann) so they can both fight the baddies that are after them - some for political reasons, some for personal ones. After a lot of violence and bloodshed, the final confrontation occurs: The Boss vs. John. Who will feel the ABSOLUTION? Absolution is proof that they are indeed still making Steven Seagal movies. Maybe it's not that difficult to head off to Romania for a while and, armed with a computer that can do CGI bullet hits and editing software that can speed up fights and take away frames, come back with something that you can release to DVD. Presumably Seagal himself doesn't have to appear that long on the set, as he has other people do his ADR, his stuntwork, and even his dialogue scenes, as stand-ins, well, stand in for him. Many times this is very obvious that Seagal is not actually there listening to the dialogue said by other people. Usually his stand-ins look like Hollywood producer Robert Evans or Roy Orbison. So now you'll know what to look for. It's possible some of the stand-ins even have glasses or blonde hair, that's how little they care to make it match. (That's a joke, but very close to the truth).Just exactly why Seagal doesn't do these fundamentals of filmmaking remains unexplained. Is he some sort of Hollywood royalty that thinks he is above doing these things? Better question: what does this free up time for him to actually DO? What is so important to him that he can't really even appear in his own movies, but for a bare minimum? When did he get so lazy? Why is he running away from himself? (Stay tuned until the last paragraph for a potential answer).We're not really sure who is watching these Seagal movies (besides us, obviously, but we have a website about direct-to-video action movies - what's everyone else's excuse?) - and, if people are watching them, are they taking them seriously? Are they meant to be taken seriously in the first place? Judging by Seagal's narration about him being a bad man in search of absolution, whatever that may mean, we think the answer may be yes, interestingly. Maybe the foreign markets eat these things up, we don't know. Thankfully, when Seagal is talking (and not someone else talking for him), he doesn't lapse into a random Cajun accent too much, but you never know when it will strike. It's like a cobra. A Cajun cobra.Smartly, the filmmakers brought a solid actor and quite good Martial Artist named Byron Mann to pick up Seagal's considerable slack. The movie could have starred Mann and been perfectly fine, if a bit junky. However, the two of them walk away slowly from an explosion, so, maybe there was some bonding there. Fan favorite Vinnie Jones as the uncreatively named "The Boss" (Seagal's name is "John" in the movie so the writers get zero points for creativity in naming the characters) is really at his worst here. Not him, per se, it's not his fault, but the role is weak. But the guy likes to keep working, so, lord bless him. But as a pseudo-Saw-type monster/crime boss, Jones doesn't shine like he should. It could've been anyone wearing that apron in that green-tinted room.Seagal is a victim of his own choices in life. He is where he is because of no one but himself. He wanted to place more emphasis on being some sort of blues-playing Buddha than on doing what he does best. He should consider being less lazy and arrogant and instead put some energy into what he puts out there with his name on it. If he were to reverse course and do that, we might really have something going forward. But as it stands, this is pretty much standard Seagal muck.

freddiewit Apart from his superhuman (untouchable) nature in most movies (even against the best of opponents), I like Segal's movies and this is not an exception. If anything, this is better than many of his past movies and I could not believe the low rating on here.For the benefit of those that are not that picky and just want some reasonable action, read my brief review below.FOR:I am giving it 8/10 because of:The suspense (was good enough) - The action (not the best choreography but enjoyable)AGAINST:The main thing I have against this movie is the bad acting of some of the actors/actresses especially the non-Americans.