Colour me disappointed! Driven To Kill (Ruslan's a better title), looked kind of vintage in the trailer. Sadly, it's another suckfest. The film is horrible. Not quite Kill Switch horrible, but horrible nonetheless. The trouble is, the plot, the cast, and the film in general, just doesn't engage in any way. Okay so Seagal fans generally won't be too bothered about a poor narrative, just as long as Big Papa kicks some A, which he does. There's a fair amount of action, but a lot of it is poorly filmed and more poorly edited. Like Kill Switch, the editing is bad. It's not crazy bad like KS, but it's still bad. The film just gives you a headache.
Probably the biggest problem, is the main man himself, Seagal. I don't like ragging on Seagal, because he da man, but he's just not putting in any effort in the majority of his films from the last 5 years (probably more). This is no different. Aside from the usual appearences by Mr stand in, Mr Stunt double, and Mr Dub-over, Seagal's biggest failing here, is the fact that nearly all his dialogue is inaudible. His Russian accent, consists of him mumbling quietly and inaudibly, which does little to help the already weak narrative. Seagal just looks crazy bored in this. There's nothing in the script to engage him. There's no sign of direction from Jeff King (who should change his first name to Wan), and as I said, the editing is very poor, as is the post production job on sound. Furthermore the cinematography is very bland.
Overall, this has plenty of action, without really much impressive choreography (nothing close to the fights in Pistol Whipped), and though the film has plenty of violence, it merely feels like an obnoxious cover up for anything remotely imaginitive in terms of action scenes or choreography. I mean, what happened to the days when Seagal fights looked downright awesome, and at the same time conceivable. See Out For Justice bar fight, Hard To Kill shop fight, or Mark For Death capture escape for example. Those were great. They were eye-catching yet realistic, and above all they were filmed wide, to show the audience everything. Good choreography and excellently performed by Seagal and the stunt crew. Now all we get is these tightly filmed, poorly thought out scraps, with no imagination, and in many shots, no Seagal.
The Keeper, looks a lot better. It helps firstly that it's got a director directing. Someone, though with a dodgy track record, shows sign of competence and an understanding of how each individual shot will affect the wider picture. Hopefully the production crew is a higher standard too. But Driven To Kill, is YET another poor offering from Seagal. *1/2.