This wasn't so bad......untill it started
It has been a while, but I got lucky and received a preview version of Black Dawn last night and I just finished watching it.
Plot:
As Craig stated, the plot is reasonably simple and straight forward

. Seagal plays Jonathan Cold once again and the story is that he is to be believed that he was killed after shooting 6 agents. Julia Stone plays his former "student" in the agency.
Jonathan Cold is undercover to stop a criminal from selling a nuclear device to some foreign terrorists. His cover gets blown and with his former student he is in a race against time to stop them from completing and detonating the bomb..........With other words, the plot is just an excuse for killing a lot of people and blow stuf up.
Action:
The action is frequent and keeps the pace of the movie going, but it has it flaws.
Where should I start? The first scene after the opening titles (that were probably the longest opening titles I've ever seen) is supposed to be in the financial district of Amsterdam..........supposed to be. In this scene there were two things correct......the numberplates on the cars and the Dutch police van. What has this to do with action I hear you say? In this scene the terrorists rob a armored car carrying diamonds. They shoot the armed guards (armed guards are illegal in Holland by the way) And the armed driver starts shooting at them. What would you do if you got shot at? I would run and duck for cover, but this woman-terrorist just easily walks away and only now and then hides in a doorway. The driver must be blind not to hit her. BIG BUMMER!
Other shoot-outs are done a lot better except when someone is shooting towards camera. You hear the shot, but you don't see anything happening.
Fights there are a few and most of them are obvious doubles, but they are okay, better then his latest doubles.
The infamous truck-scene is on the other hand a pretty nice one. When Cold and the woman agent jump through the window they land in the back of the truck. The terrorist shoot at the truck wounding the driver who then is unable to steer right and just floors it to get out of there. In the chase the driver is killed and Cold throws him onto the following car and takes the wheel.
FX:
Indeed a special mention worth. They stink! There are not many digital-FX present but they really stink. Movement of the characters and or props are not synchronised with the background, the coloring is totally off and the black outlines around the "real" things are clearly visible. 10 years ago these FX would have been great, nowadays you would even see better and more realistic stuff in games (f.e. Far Cry). Shame on the FX-company.
Cast/acting
For once I thought the acting wasn't as bad. It's better then the Foreigner, OFAK, BOTB, Submerged or the japanese/chinese from Into the Sun. Julia Stone does a lot of overacting, but the rest do their best to give a performance.
Seagal did seem to put in an effort until 3/4 into the movie. Somehow his interest in the project seems to have slipped away and he moves and acts really uninterested. His "real" voice is present during all his dialogues. Unfortunately his pose before, during and right after a fight are all exactly the same which shows that he didn't move at all (stunt double!!!) during the fights.
Music:
Finally something really positive. I'm a big fan of soundtracks from movies and this one I liked very much. It had suspensefull themes for supposed to be suspensefull scenes and fast hard music when there was action.
There is only one but...........it sounds a lot like music from The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy (music by John Powell). I'll try to upload some music fragments (with sound-fx from the movie unfortunately).
Story:
Tetian terrorists are stealing diamonds all over Europe to finance an atomic bomb which they want to set of in LA.
Jonathan Cold is hired by American criminals to free their leader from prison and help them as a nuclear device expert. These criminals want to sell the terrorists their bomb in exchange for the diamonds.
The criminals are beeing watched by the cia, fbi or EPA (this doesn't become obvious in the movie) and one of them recognises Cold.
When she gets captured, Cold rescues her and blows his cover. They are on the run and try to stop the criminals and terrorist.
Somewhere along the line the head of the agency is revealed to be corrupt and the one trying to detonate the bomb.
Of course Cold and the woman save the day and Cold disappears to probably return in another lousy dtv sequel.
Conclusion/rating:
It's a standard action-flick. Nothing fancy, just shooting some fighting and blowing things up. The fx and the obvious lack of interest on Seagal's part don't make it a great one, or one to watch over and over. It's better then Submerged, OFAK and The Foreigner but it's worse then BOTB, Into The Sun and Today You Die. I think all fans are craving for some old fashion action from the man, like he did in Above The Law, Marked for Death, Under Siege or Exit Wounds.
It's what I keep saying, he needs a big budget and a story he wants to tell (like Into the Sun) so that he is motivated and wants to perform his best.
Rating is a 5,5/10.
Peace
And some pictures from the movie