Born To Raise Hell - Reviews
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BarbaraAnn101
Well-Known Member
IT COMES OUT TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT.....I AM BEYOND READY
BarbaraAnn101
Well-Known Member
OK....Ok...OK.....I just watched Born to Raise Hell.
The movie is written by Steven Seagal.....Produced by Steven Seagal.....so.....
IT SHOULD BE HIS VOICE I AM HEARING WHEN HIS CHARACTER IS SPEAKING, NO?!?!?!?!?
Again....a great storyline/plot.......and it is COMPLETELY distorted by these awful, dubbed in voice-overs.....
Steven, your voice is too unique...and I don't know who convinces you to allow this in your movies....but Born to Raise Hell OPENS with a voice-over.
You are far too talented and creative for your films to be affected by something that...in this age of technology...there really is no reason for.
Maybe it is because I was a film student, but, I am sorry......whoever is handling your projects and telling you this voice-over "thing" is ok.....
FIRE THEM.....
The movie is written by Steven Seagal.....Produced by Steven Seagal.....so.....
IT SHOULD BE HIS VOICE I AM HEARING WHEN HIS CHARACTER IS SPEAKING, NO?!?!?!?!?
Again....a great storyline/plot.......and it is COMPLETELY distorted by these awful, dubbed in voice-overs.....
Steven, your voice is too unique...and I don't know who convinces you to allow this in your movies....but Born to Raise Hell OPENS with a voice-over.
You are far too talented and creative for your films to be affected by something that...in this age of technology...there really is no reason for.
Maybe it is because I was a film student, but, I am sorry......whoever is handling your projects and telling you this voice-over "thing" is ok.....
FIRE THEM.....
Clement3000
aka The Phoenix
I highly doubt anyone tells him that voice overs are the way to go. He does his own audio for everything, he leaves, moves onto the next project and they need additional audio because maybe it was distorted or they've decide to change parts of the story and need to add in additional dialogue, so they just hire someone else to replace Seagal...
I personally didn't really find the voice over that hard to handle in this movie, worst part of the movie for me was seeing how big seagal was, he actually looked sick in this one, IMHO
I personally didn't really find the voice over that hard to handle in this movie, worst part of the movie for me was seeing how big seagal was, he actually looked sick in this one, IMHO
Another review : http://blogcritics.org/video/article/blu-ray-review-born-to-raise/
Reposted from my IMDB review:
Contrary to lazy stereotypes, Seagal's recent output (excluding Machete, post-2002's Half Past Dead, which I believe was his last in theater release) has been mixed, leaning towards bad and really bad. Still, there were some standouts in that context (I'm thinking of 2007's Pistol Whipped, but I haven't watched most of his movies since 2002), and to be blunt, a lot of his movies before that weren't really much good either (Glimmer Man in particular was godawful and objectively worse than Born to Raise Hell). Also worth noting is that according to IMDb, this film cost about $10 million while Half Past Dead had a budget of only $13 million, which considering it was filmed in California, as opposed to Romania, is surely not that much more. I'm all for gratuitous ridicule of Seagal, but if you're even considering watching this movie you bear some responsibility for his output.
BTRH was actually better than I expected. The "avid fart" camera-work mentioned by an earlier reviewer is in full effect and somewhat annoying but you get used to it pretty quickly. The film quality itself is surprisingly high for a recent Seagal film, it's not overly dark and the visuals are crisp. Seagal is given credit for writing the script and his girlfriend is young enough to be his granddaughter (don't worry, Seagal doesn't take off his shirt), and there are a few cringe-inducing lines praising himself that are showing off Steven Seagal's personal insecurities. Even so, the dialogue is generally not bad (except with his girlfriend, where it's off the charts unbelievably bad). There's even one character who's intentionally funny. The acting in general is also of a quality one would expect from a decent movie, although as an earlier reviewer pointed out, Seagal is hardly acting at all. Indeed, he's the single weakest link in the whole movie; not because he's a terrible actor but because his character was basically unnecessary in the first place. He could have been replaced with anyone or no one. Without spoiling anything, the ending, and Seagal's role in it, is also jaw-droppingly terrible, although since the plot is very uneven throughout this doesn't affect the film as much as it should.
All this leads up to an interesting conclusion: Seagal is not making the same movie over and over again, not really. What he (accidentally?) wrote was a movie that could potentially have raised a lot of interesting questions about a visceral response to torture, stereotypes of a Gypsy criminal in Romania (the worst criminal is a Gypsy), and the US's international drug war. Instead he's tried to fit this film, complete by itself, into the straitjacket of a Seagal beatdown film and it's disappointing (to the film's credit, Seagal is not constantly on screen and this allows other characters to develop, though I suspect this was more the result of poor pacing on the writer's part than good writing). What this movie needed most was an editor for the script.
As far as Seagal's actual beatdowns, they're fairly good, if a little overly one-sided even for Seagal. Stunt doubles are employed for a lot of neck-down shots of Seagal fight scenes, but that's all the more disappointing because despite Seagal's weight and age, he is also shown to be personally capable of credible aikido moves. Seagal is definitely overweight but not the walking corpse he was in some recent films, so there's that.
Finally, there's the matter of language. The film is virtually entirely in English. I have never been to Romania but I'm pretty sure Romanians don't speak English to each other in their own homes. Considering every actor portraying a Romanian was Romanian with one exception, it would have made sense, and added to the believability, if they just spoke Romanian to each other and used subtitles. Seagal (who's spending so much time in that country anyway he might as well learn the language himself) could just have the good fortune of only encountering people who also speak English.
BTRH is not a good film, but neither is it a complete crapfest. If you're a fan of Seagal, don't miss it.
Contrary to lazy stereotypes, Seagal's recent output (excluding Machete, post-2002's Half Past Dead, which I believe was his last in theater release) has been mixed, leaning towards bad and really bad. Still, there were some standouts in that context (I'm thinking of 2007's Pistol Whipped, but I haven't watched most of his movies since 2002), and to be blunt, a lot of his movies before that weren't really much good either (Glimmer Man in particular was godawful and objectively worse than Born to Raise Hell). Also worth noting is that according to IMDb, this film cost about $10 million while Half Past Dead had a budget of only $13 million, which considering it was filmed in California, as opposed to Romania, is surely not that much more. I'm all for gratuitous ridicule of Seagal, but if you're even considering watching this movie you bear some responsibility for his output.
BTRH was actually better than I expected. The "avid fart" camera-work mentioned by an earlier reviewer is in full effect and somewhat annoying but you get used to it pretty quickly. The film quality itself is surprisingly high for a recent Seagal film, it's not overly dark and the visuals are crisp. Seagal is given credit for writing the script and his girlfriend is young enough to be his granddaughter (don't worry, Seagal doesn't take off his shirt), and there are a few cringe-inducing lines praising himself that are showing off Steven Seagal's personal insecurities. Even so, the dialogue is generally not bad (except with his girlfriend, where it's off the charts unbelievably bad). There's even one character who's intentionally funny. The acting in general is also of a quality one would expect from a decent movie, although as an earlier reviewer pointed out, Seagal is hardly acting at all. Indeed, he's the single weakest link in the whole movie; not because he's a terrible actor but because his character was basically unnecessary in the first place. He could have been replaced with anyone or no one. Without spoiling anything, the ending, and Seagal's role in it, is also jaw-droppingly terrible, although since the plot is very uneven throughout this doesn't affect the film as much as it should.
All this leads up to an interesting conclusion: Seagal is not making the same movie over and over again, not really. What he (accidentally?) wrote was a movie that could potentially have raised a lot of interesting questions about a visceral response to torture, stereotypes of a Gypsy criminal in Romania (the worst criminal is a Gypsy), and the US's international drug war. Instead he's tried to fit this film, complete by itself, into the straitjacket of a Seagal beatdown film and it's disappointing (to the film's credit, Seagal is not constantly on screen and this allows other characters to develop, though I suspect this was more the result of poor pacing on the writer's part than good writing). What this movie needed most was an editor for the script.
As far as Seagal's actual beatdowns, they're fairly good, if a little overly one-sided even for Seagal. Stunt doubles are employed for a lot of neck-down shots of Seagal fight scenes, but that's all the more disappointing because despite Seagal's weight and age, he is also shown to be personally capable of credible aikido moves. Seagal is definitely overweight but not the walking corpse he was in some recent films, so there's that.
Finally, there's the matter of language. The film is virtually entirely in English. I have never been to Romania but I'm pretty sure Romanians don't speak English to each other in their own homes. Considering every actor portraying a Romanian was Romanian with one exception, it would have made sense, and added to the believability, if they just spoke Romanian to each other and used subtitles. Seagal (who's spending so much time in that country anyway he might as well learn the language himself) could just have the good fortune of only encountering people who also speak English.
BTRH is not a good film, but neither is it a complete crapfest. If you're a fan of Seagal, don't miss it.
knucklesandwich
Member
Hey Guys, I find it odd that the SAME exact line in the beginning of the youtube trailer below is different in the actual movie!! Now either it was dubbed by someone else....or Seagal chose to slow down his own voice (edited) to stretch the length of the dialog in the opening scene a little better (which is why it sounds so funny)?? Let me know what you think!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsMqv9ifZZE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsMqv9ifZZE
BarbaraAnn101
Well-Known Member
All I know is...there is a voice over in the TRAILER FOR THE MOVIE!!!! The trailer is supposed to showcase the BEST stuff....Steven, Steven, Steven.....what are we going to do with you and these bad, bad voiceovers....
marky96
Active Member
A review from the guys over at Den of Geek:
http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/23043/examining-the-recent-cinema-of-steven-seagal
http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/23043/examining-the-recent-cinema-of-steven-seagal