Out For A Kill

suziwong

Administrator
Staff member
Lotussan said:
Yes, I agree, suzi....
Either cut OR tied...
And, my fingers are waiting!
heh, heh, heh! ;) :D ;)
And not only for this because this is only on the outside!
But I because he is so gorgeous, and sexxy, and fabulous from the inside too!
This is more important!
Oh, Steven!
Such a unique man, and very interesting!
And soooo wonderful!
I adore him soooooo much! :)

You are really wonderful my dear !!
love
 

Lotussan

I Belong To Steven
And you too, suziiiiii! I love you sooooo much, too!
And we love Steven, always, always, always! :)
 

MMCK2

New Member
I've Finally Saw "Out For A Kill" And............

I finally tracked down a rental copy of "Out For A Kill" and am just after watching it. I thought it was pretty good, if not a classic. Its been a while since I saw a Seagal film with as many fights as there is in this one and he does a good lot of them himself, and there does not seem to be as many stunt doubles used as in the likes of "Ticker" or "Half Past Dead". He plays the role of the quite professer well and I honestly think that his acting is improving with every film: witness the scene where he tells the female,Chinese cop Tommi that she played a part in getting his wife killed; the bit where he says "stay out of my way and stay out of my life!" he does with convincing venom, although don't warm up that Oscar just yet.

The problem with the film is that there is a very haphazard narrative which boils down to the fact that director Michael Oblowitz cannot tell a story at all. He connects so many different, unrelated scenes together, and then repeatedly intercrosses them that the film comes across as incoherent and muddled. Another problem with him is that he is an experimental director who thinks he can repeatedly use flashy, if nauseuating camera work to none-action scenes instead of tried and tested film-making editing, so that he comes across as unique. Well, f*ck all that! He should first of all buy himself a book entitled "Film-Making For Dummies" and then leave things alone for a while.

No, the main selling point of this film is the martial arts scenes and the film delivers in spades for a latter day Steven Seagal movie. The sword-fight with the two monks in the temple is really well done (a lot better than the one in "Exit Wounds") and you can see that Seagal can really handle a sword. Another good fight is the one he has with the villains main henchman in the laundry room towards the end where he uses some different martial arts stances from the ones he normally uses. Although I've heard a lot of people here did'nt like it, but am I the only one who thought that the fight in the barber shop with the little, monkey kung-fu guy was f*cking class.

The only other bad point of the movie I can think of is the subtitles/titles on the screen howlers. Apart from what every one else has mentioned there is also a goof in the fact that although we know the villains at the table can speak English whilst in conference, there is still some seens where they all of a sudden speak in Chinese. I have to admitt, some of it is funny, I mean when you see all these guys talking angrily in Chinese, and the following subtitles appear on screen-:

"I will go after this c*ck sucker professer myself"

LOL

Overall 3 out of 5 (Fairly good)

Peace.

MMCK2
 

GlimmerMan

Huge Member
Glad you enjoyed it, MMCK. I have to say I agree with you in that Seagal and the multiple fight sequences were good, but the rest of the movie was exceedingly poor.

Glimmer
 

Lotussan

I Belong To Steven
It was a good as any of the other 'cheesy'
chinese films out there Glimmer, I thought it
was really pretty good, I had fun watching it...
 

rgray_aikido

New Member
The movie itself was very poorly put together but i did enjoy the fight scenes. It was nice to see Seagal finally doing some fighting and there was lots of fighting. There were two things that bothered me. Why was Seagal talking in a quiet monotone voice through the whole movie? What was up with that???It was very distracting. The only time in the movie that he talked at a normal volume and with emotion in his voice was in the scene where he was flying the plane and trying to get information from "Crash" the pilot. The ending was dissapointing . I was enjoying the film, There was a huge buildup and then it ends with a wimper. But all in all i enjoyed it for the seagal fights. it was cool to see him doing his trademark arm snaps. It was a made for video movie nothing more nothing less. Can't wait till Belly of The Beast comes out.
 

GlimmerMan

Huge Member
Lotussan said:
It was a good as any of the other 'cheesy'
chinese films out there Glimmer, I thought it
was really pretty good, I had fun watching it...

Lotus - the point you make doesn't make sense given that Out For A Kill wasn't supposed to be a 'cheesy' Chinese movie - it was supposed to be a serious action thriller set in different locations in various parts of the world. In that respect it failed miserably, and no amount of justification or debating will change that. It was an OK movie, but it wasn't good. You have your opinion about it and I have mine and I'm sorry that I have had the audacity to criticise a movie by the great Steven Seagal, but nothing you say will convince me otherwise. The reason you had fun watching it was due to the simple fact that it starred Seagal, who, in your eyes can do no wrong. That's kinda sweet in a way and you are clearly an ardent admirer of his, but the hard fact is that even for an STV movie, it was pretty poor. It says a lot about a movie when you enjoy the trailer more than the film itself.

Glimmer
 
Hi everyone,

I'm sure the general opinion on this film has already been decided but I thought I'd add my two cents after just watching it a few minutes ago.

1. The film looked really cheap and horrible.

2. The film was porrly edited apparently by blind monkeys.
3. Seagal looked bored and tired.
4. The dialogue was atrocious and filled with lots of mombo jumbo hocus pocus.
5. The fights were lame, especially the fight with the monks at thge funeral. Where the hell did that mini explosion come from that let Seagal know theywere gonna attack him?
6. The special effects were downright laughable.
7. Michael Oblowitz sholdn't be let within a fifty foot radius of a camera.
8. The plot - what the hell was going on? Not even the actors seem to know - or care.
9. The lame opening credits that made it look like
the producer's ten year old son did it on his PC.

10. If Steven keeps making crap like this his dwindling fan base will
 
Hi everyone,

I'm sure the general opinion on this film has already been decided but I thought I'd add my two cents after just watching it a few minutes ago.

1. The film looked really cheap and horrible.

2. The film was poorly edited, apparently by blind
monkeys.

3. Seagal looked bored and tired.

4. The dialogue was atrocious and filled with lots of
mombo jumbo hocus pocus.

5. The fights were lame, especially the fight with
the monks at the funeral. Where the hell did
that mini explosion come from that let Seagal
know they were gonna attack him?

6. The special effects were downright laughable.

7. Michael Oblowitz shouldn't be let within a fifty
foot radius of a camera.

8. The plot - what the hell was going on? Not even
the actors seemed to know - or care.

9. The lame opening credits that made it look like
the producer's ten year old son did it on his PC.

10. If Steven keeps making crap like this his
dwindling fan base will become even less.

Over all 1 out of 5.
 

Lotussan

I Belong To Steven
I happened to like the swordfight with the monks...
I thought the movie was intertaining...
Poor baby does tend to look both bored and tired, he obviously works very hard, and therefore deserves some credit I think, could all the folks that complain do what he does?
I doubt it...
 

GlimmerMan

Huge Member
Gunslinger - I agree with all your points apart from the fight sequence one. I agree that the fight scenes were not the best he has ever done by some considerable distance, but they were a marked and welcome improvement from the shoddy crap we were treated to in Half Past Dead and The Foreigner.

Lotus - The reason why 'poor baby' looks bored and tired is probably because he had to do a couple of fight scenes himself in this movie and relied less on his stunt double. I wouldn't say he works particularly hard when compared to someone like Schwarzenegger and he certainly isn't making movies for his fans anymore. Does he really give a sh*t about his fans or is he just in it for the money now? I grow more cynical with each passing day and as a matter of fact - I am getting kinda pissed off paying good money for sh*t movies, the kind of which I would normally expect to find in the bargain bin in HMV. An ol' sourpuss I may be, but I took off my rose-tinted spectacles a few years back. I can honestly say that the last Seagal movie I REALLY enjoyed was Exit Wounds. The ones since then have been mediocre at best.

Glimmer (an open mind with a closed fist...)
 

TDWoj

Administrator
Staff member
Lots of actors - in fact, most actors - in fact, some of the best actors ever - have done movies just for the money. You'll find a lot of truly awful movies on the resume of any actor you care to name that they would just as soon have the movie going public forget about. Why rag on Steven as being any different from those?

Of course, the biggest problem he is facing is that he can't get good directors or good scripts to work with any more. Those who want to make good movies won't touch him with a barge pole, because he's just got too bad of a reputation. So he's stuck with low budget films made with poor crews and bad directors and scripts that should never have seen the light of day, let alone be transferred to film.

Is he doing it for the money? You bet. He's got 6 children, two (legal) ex-wives, and 8 security guards, not to mention that great big house and property in California (among others, I gather), a cook and a bevy of girls to pay expenses for. And if he's tired of making action movies and wants to do something else, he can't because his fan base insists he only ever do action movies. And if he makes an action movie where he does do his own stunts, he gets ragged on for not doing them exactly the way he used to do them 13 years ago.

It's called the no-win scenario.

I'd like to think he doesn't really want to put out crap. But if crap scripts and crap directors and crap crews are all he can get at the moment, you can bet he'll take it and the money offered for doing the film, or else go broke.

I also think it's a cheap shot to suggest that he looks tired, ill or bored because he had to do the work himself in this film. I'll wait until I hear about it from him, himself. In the meantime, I can only hope that BOTB will be better. And I hope that the Yakuza/Into the Sun film is indeed the one I've seen the synopsis for, and not that awful Romeo-and-Juliet rubbish rumoured.

-TD, open-minded, no fist
 

Lotussan

I Belong To Steven
This is all making me very ill...
He can decide what is best, and we can accept it, it's his career after all...
The Foriegner was a success going straight to DVD, so maybe this is a good thing...
I think he knows what he is doing...
What he does and why is his business...
 

rastafari

Well-Known Member
out for a kill is coming tomorrow so i will gie my opinion then...i think botb will be very good as seagal is working with a good hong-kong director and then is next 2 films into the sun and out of reach are being made by franchise and i expect both to get cinema releases so we could see a return to form by mr seagal.
 

Lotussan

I Belong To Steven
I think he is brilliant and beautiful, and I am happy to see all of these movies, and I wish him success with each one...:)
He is very dertermined and admirable for his efforts, Glimmer has no right to say he's anything but, stop minimizing his work, anyones efforts deserve regognition, it's disgusting to cheapen his work that way...
He has the right to earn money in whatever way he sees fit, as long as he isn't doing anything to hurt anyone...
I don't know why some of these boys have to tie their egos to him so much, it's kind of silly...
Get out and see if you can do better, and then throw the stones...
 

cheetah222

New Member
Used To Be A Huge Fan

When Steven first hit the scene in Above The Law I become an instant admire and fan. The movies that followed were also good but I feel he peaked in movie quality (scripts/acting) with Siege 1 and Siege 2. After that I noticed a slight but perceptable decrease storyline quality and acting.

Even though Siege 1 is my favorite, I actually think Steven's full acting potential was being realized in Out For Justice. His Italian character was very animated and emotional (happy, sad, angry, humorous, caring) and I think that if Seagal kept in that direction he would actually come-off as a better actor than he does today. Either he, by choice, or the producers of his movies have him stuck in this stone-faced monotone speaking characters and it is boring to watch.

This movie, Out For A Kill, was painful to watch. It is so poor in so many ways and on so many levels I can't go into all the ways it was bad (but a lot of you have so aptly outlined it here in this forum anyway).

The most ridiculous scene was the fight with the Monkey Style guy flying through the air and clinging to the walls. The effects were so cheesy it was beyond plausibility. What I used to like about Seagal movies is how true to life the fighting sequences appeared to be. You could actually imagine it happening that way in real life, but now they are turning into SFX and Super Stunt video clips and they suck.

The sword fight in Marked For Death was better than this one, and what's up with that long chinese-styled shirt he now favors? Is he trying to hide he growing girth? Part of the reason he looks so beat is because he has let his weight and health slide down with his success. Look at a picture of today next to one from his earlier films.

I just want to see Seagal back in shape and healthy looking and doing great movies again. I hope Siege 3 resurrects his career and puts it back ontrack. Siege 1 - Ship, Siege 2 - Train, Siege 3 - Plane??
 

GlimmerMan

Huge Member
Lotussan said:
He is very dertermined and admirable for his efforts, Glimmer has no right to say he's anything but, stop minimizing his work, anyones efforts deserve regognition, it's disgusting to cheapen his work that way... I don't know why some of these boys have to tie their egos to him so much, it's kind of silly... Get out and see if you can do better, and then throw the stones...

Lotus - first of all, I have every right to say whatever I want about Seagal. I am sorry if all this is making you 'very ill', but I am just about sick and tired of everyone kissing his ass! It's absolutely nothing to do with my ego (huh?), and it isn't about cheapening his work. I mean - let's face it - his current output of work couldn't really look much cheaper if it tried.

My words are not those of a nasty, bitter, vitriolic critic and I am really trying hard not to insult Seagal personally - I am just a terribly disappointed fan. From watching the trailers for every one of his last three movies, I have been really excited as from the trailers, the films looked genuinely good. However, each time I have been disappointed and each time I have thought: "Ah well - his next one will be better". But it won't be and I am starting to wonder exactly why I bother watching his latest movies at all, as it is becoming increasingly obvious to me that he will never again do another film that is as good as Under Siege, Marked For Death, Above The Law, Out For Justice or even Fire Down Below or Exit Wounds. Is it wrong to expect more?

Even you must agree that Out For A Kill was critically flawed. If I truly thought that it was a halfway decent movie, I would say so, but it isn't. That should be cool by you and we should agree to disagree. You like the movie and refuse to admit it is flawed and that's fair enough - I respect your opinion even if I wholeheartedly disagree with it.

I have said before that the best thing about the movie was Steven Seagal himself and the martial arts scenes were decent, but I expected a lot more from the movie than a couple of decent fight scenes - I expected a movie which I would watch and think "That was awesome". I thought those very words when I left the cinema after watching Terminator 3 and 2 Fast 2 Furious and Identity and a whole host of other movies that I have seen this year and even after Exit Wounds, after some initial scepticism, I honestly believed that Seagal had made an excellent movie and he was back on the road to stardom once more.

Even the likes of Fire Down Below, which again was a fairly low budget STV movie and wasn't generally well received by the critics - I thought (and still do think) that it is a very cool movie. But his latest ones seem to have no life - he looks old, slow, tired and bored and he doesn't seem to inject any enthusiasm into his characters anymore - he is just going through the motions and I think it sucks. My only hope now is that he slims down a bit, dons the whites once more and kicks some terrorist arse as Casey Ryback, be it in a plane, submarine, nuclear power station or whatever - I just want to watch a new Seagal movie that is genuinely good.

TDWoj said:
Lots of actors - in fact, most actors - in fact, some of the best actors ever - have done movies just for the money. You'll find a lot of truly awful movies on the resume of any actor you care to name that they would just as soon have the movie going public forget about. Why rag on Steven as being any different from those?

You know - TD - I just KNEW you would get on my back about this one, and the funny thing is that I agree with just about every one of your points. But the fact is that I am a fan of Seagal and I am pissed off that he doesn't seem to care about his fans any more. 3 sh*t movies (four if you count Ticker) pretty much back to back and he still can't get it right. The website is a fu*king joke and doesn't look as if it will ever come back online, so we have no more 'official' press releases from those close to him, we will have no more short clips of him thanking us for visiting his site, he never does interviews (mainly because nobody wants to interview him due to his somewhat 'difficult' relationship with the press in general) and the only information we ever get about him is either from unreliable third party sources, cynical fu*king reporters belittling him or badly written newspaper clippings from the Daily Beijing about him being in yet another former Eastern Bloc country and speaking about his Japanese upbringing or his Buddhist beliefs. Basically we, the fans and the people who put his bread on the table get fu*k all information about the things we really want to know about.

TDWoj said:
Is he doing it for the money? You bet. He's got 6 children, two (legal) ex-wives, and 8 security guards, not to mention that great big house and property in California (among others, I gather), a cook and a bevy of girls to pay expenses for. And if he's tired of making action movies and wants to do something else, he can't because his fan base insists he only ever do action movies. And if he makes an action movie where he does do his own stunts, he gets ragged on for not doing them exactly the way he used to do them 13 years ago.

I agree with this also apart from the fanbase thing. Since when has he really given a sh*t about what his fanbase thinks? Seagal has always done what he wanted to do in both his personal and professional life - why would he let his fanbase sway him? I honestly don't think he even cares anymore about what his fanbase thinks. Also - about the stunts thing - I understand about certain stunts that he wouldn't be insured to do, but I think it is pretty piss poor when an obvious stunt double is used for fight scenes, particularly when Seagal has based his entire movie career on fight scenes which he has done himself.

TDWoj said:
Of course, the biggest problem he is facing is that he can't get good directors or good scripts to work with any more. Those who want to make good movies won't touch him with a barge pole, because he's just got too bad of a reputation. So he's stuck with low budget films made with poor crews and bad directors and scripts that should never have seen the light of day, let alone be transferred to film.

I totally agree with this. So maybe he needs to take drastic action. Maybe he should partially fund a movie himself - the way he used to when he was in partnership with Nasso - that way it would have to be good in order for him to make any money from it. Think about it - he never did a single bad movie when he was with Nasso, and even the Seagal/Nasso scripts that didn't turn into Seagal movies sounded cool. Or maybe he just needs to put some life into his performances once more. Fire the fu*king crap directors and direct himself. He did a sterling job in On Deadly Ground for a first time director. Maybe his upcoming projects will see a reversal of fortunes for him, but I am not holding my breath.

TDWoj said:
I also think it's a cheap shot to suggest that he looks tired, ill or bored because he had to do the work himself in this film. I'll wait until I hear about it from him, himself. In the meantime, I can only hope that BOTB will be better. And I hope that the Yakuza/Into the Sun film is indeed the one I've seen the synopsis for, and not that awful Romeo-and-Juliet rubbish rumoured.

You are correct - it was a cheap shot and I am thoroughly ashamed of myself for being so unkind. But as for waiting until you hear about it from him, himself - I wouldn't hold your breath.

Like you - I am hoping against hope that Belly Of The Beast is better, but with a title like that, I only see more critics lining up to take cheap cracks at him. We have got Yakuza and The Rescue coming up and hopefully he will move back into big budget, good director territory with Under Siege 3. But again - I am not holding my breath.

Glimmer (off to watch Exit Wounds and lament for the days of old...)
 

kokoro

Protector
I have to say Glimmer, I'm starting to feel like you!

HPD? TF? dunno if I want to see OFAK!
Just show me The Yakuza, and I'll feel better (I hope)
 
Top