Mercenary For Justice
Steven Seagal came into Hollywood with a great fury and abandon, having been a “martial arts instructor to the stars” before being signed to a multi picture deal. Even better was the belief that he had an alleged CIA background which gave him that extra aura which would ensure a steady fanbase for his action filled cinematic offerings. Oddly enough, Seagal would negotiate for (and receive) a clause in his contract which allowed him both story and script input on the films he was making and right from his first movie (1987’s Above The Law), it quickly became apparent that his objective was to demonize The CIA in every possible way through his films, painting any operative characters as being more like self serving criminals rather than anything resembling supposed patriots, even going so far as using metaphoric storylines (such as in his best movie, Hard To Kill) when using direct references constantly would be a bit much. Eventually, Hollywood would tire of Seagal and his perceived agenda, running him out thanks to a flimsy scandal connecting him to the Mafia and relegating him to continue his film career overseas, an opportunity he relished as his mere name and presence alone would boost the film industries in places such as Eastern Europe and even South Africa, the primary location for this 2006 release which would continue to exploit his anti-CIA stance, but albeit at the expense of having a coherent script or story with plenty of loose ends hanging all over the place like so many strands of chicken fat (whereas Hard To Kill had one of the tightest and most focused action scripts ever). Worse, Seagal’s head alone looks about 10 pounds heavier than it did during his heyday, with most of his dialogue consisting of one line non sequiturs while the rest of the cast does most of the talking and exposition. Seagal plays a CIA mercenary for hire for whom it is said that he was “the most decorated soldier in The First Gulf War” who now finds himself in the middle of a conflict between two CIA head honchos (Roger Guenveur Smith and Luke Goss) who are first seen negotiating over which mercs are available to assist in a civil war situation where they both have vested interests. The problem is that Seagal has been partnered with two ruthless South African Afrikanos (translation: White Africans) whom in the middle of the conflict decide to run off and kidnap an Ambassador and his family to use as human shields before blowing them all to smithereens (cue the sight of mannequin arms and legs flying everywhere), a situation that disgusts Seagal and several of the other mercs (including a female member first seen sneaking onto the front lines while masquerading as a TV reporter and then after her cameraman is shot dead, she proceeds to verbally berate Seagal all while the bullets fly around them). Unfortunately, an even bigger mission has come up: a wealthy and utterly corrupt military leader has seen his son imprisoned and thus is offering very big money to have him busted out, a mission Seagal wants nothing to do with but when the CIA honchos kidnap the widow and son of his old war buddy (whom he had promised to look after), Seagal is persuaded to play ball which includes working with the two ruthless White Africans in order to spring a basically worthless rich guy’s son. There’s some more to all of this but nothing really of much merit as the more modern action formula films seem to rely on having a lot going on in order to cover for the fact that there’s not much of an actual story. However, the film might be even more well known for its notorious production history which saw Seagal sue producer Avi Lerner over lack of payment (and led to Seagal turning down a role in The Expendables franchise which Lerner was a producer on) and Seagal’s own infamous on set behavior which resulted in him nearly having a brawl with Guenveur Smith and finally in the most insane development, a literal food shortage on the Cape Town set which resulted in the extras and lower level crew members being driven to starvation before they actually started rioting, making a beeline for Seagal (who obviously as the star was never wanting for anything) who then had to be airlifted to safety as the majority of the sets were burned. But then again, this is a film where an unarmed blonde bimbo is sent into an embassy as a decoy, only for her to kill all of the armed guards in hand to hand combat so that the other mercs are free to move in and Seagal himself is assigned a non talking henchman chaperone who suddenly opens up (in a South African accent) when Seagal correctly ascertains him as being from Detroit, leading to this same henchman turning on his own bosses in order to do everything that Seagal tells him. Much of this is just gimmicky bad writing in order to justify some less than thrilling action setpieces where Seagal can at least earn a payday (or maybe not)…
4/10