This is taken from my webiste,
Another Politics Blog here's a link
Secondly, I watched a direct-to-DVD release from earlier this year, Into The Sun, starring the incomparable Steven Seagal. Sadly, Stevie is relegated to inexpensive, direct-to-video releases these days, primarily because he wanted to stop making violent action films. So basically, Seagal makes "action" movies, only with a ton more dialogue. Anyhow, for those of you who don't follow the DTD market, Seagal plays a CIA operative, Travis Hunter, who is called in to investigate the murder of Tokyo's governor, which is believed to be the work of the Yakuza (Japanese mafia). However, instead of just going around Tokyo and kicking the new Yakuza leader's ass, Hunter asks around for information pertaining to the case. Really gets boring. In addition, he gets engaged to this Japanese girl associate who's like, half his age, but she gets killed. That, in addition to the death of his partner, finally motivates Hunter to go and kill the Yakuza leader, who the old Yakuza guys don't like because he ignores old Yakuza traditions and wants to make big business in China and America. Overall, this movie is almost 100 minutes long, but the beginning and the end are the only things worth watching.
If I can say some good things about it though, the production values are actually very good for a DTD release. Yes, images on computers and TV screens are obviously superimposed, but other than that, there were real elephants in the opening, Seagal's martial arts skills are as good as they've ever been, and the cinematography wasn't half bad.
But the most important thing about this movie is supposed to be the action, and there's barely any to be found. I know Stevie wants to "branch out" and make different movies, but let's face it, most of these suck. I like his classics like Under Siege and Above the Law for a reason: they had a lot of action, and the dialogue was limited to short conversations and some one-liners. I mean, Into the Sun's climax was a sword fight with Seagal and friends against the Yakuza, and it was cool, but had there been more of this and less sequences with the Yakuza gang conversing, it would've been a lot better.
Anyhow, I'm hoping Seagal will ignore the advice of his spiritual advisors and make one more violent, really bloddy action flick that'll go to theaters for a change so he can have one last hurrah.
Final thought: Some of it is just plain unbearable, but the few action sequences and the surprisingly good production values don't make it suck the whole way through.
Bonus: If you stick around long enough to watch the end credits, you can hear Steven singing. I didn't know it was him until the music part of the credits rolled, but after that I rewound so I could hear the whole thing through. He's actually a pretty decent singer. And that just gave me an idea...