Movie: Like a lot of people, I sometimes like watching movies that have absolutely no redeeming value. Such movies are often referred to as “guilty pleasures”. Whether it’s for the gratuitous nudity, the mindless violence, or the cheesy effects, such movies can make me laugh, cry, or at least appreciate the good movies I watch (and review). It’s usually pretty easy to spot such a movie when browsing the aisles of your local video store too. You can look at the title-anything with Kill in the title is a good candidate, you can look at the director-anything by Corman will qualify, or you can look for the lead actor-Steven Seagal, Dolph Lundgren, or any of the other so called “action stars” will fit the bill. That said, this is a review of a movie called, appropriately enough, Out For A Kill
The movie is yet another direct to video release for the aging Seagal and casts him as an award-winning archeologist who is used by a drug cartel in China to smuggle drugs. Being the hero, his character knows nothing about the drugs and soon finds himself on the short end of the stick when the cartel decides he’s in the way and needs to die. He gets set up and ends up in jail, where a couple of US government operatives, one who believes Seagal is innocent and the other who simply doesn’t care, use him to root out and destroy the various assassins sent by the cartel to kill him. Along the way, Seagal loses all his family and most of his friends, all the while spouting various platitudes, which fuel his fire until the ultimate showdown.
Okay, while critics who suggest that every Seagal flick is virtually indistinguishable from one another are acknowledged as being completely correct in their assessment, that doesn’t mean his movies can’t be entertaining. Often enough, I’ve enjoyed watching this martial artist go through the formulaic motions since you can set your brain on auto pilot, sit back, and enjoy watching this Aikido expert strut his stuff. In the case of Out For A Kill though, it became apparent that the guy has run out of steam. One of the problems with following a formula, or relying on the star power of a fading star, is that neither offer any growth and after seeing the same old people doing the same old stuff under similar circumstances, there’s nothing worth spending your hard earned dough on.
It should come as no surprise that the acting was about as good as a medium budget porno and the script appeared to have been written on a matchbook cover, this being a Steven Seagal action movie. Fans of his mindless violence oriented movies probably aren’t looking for anything remotely approaching clever dialogue or deep philosophy. That being the case, I’m reviewing the movie without expecting it to be a classic flick. Good thing too since Seagals’ rambling was worse than usual and his fights here were probably the weakest I’ve ever seen him in. Personally, I think his weight gain isn’t a problem since fat action heroes can still kick butt but the director used a bunch of slow-motion camera tricks in an effort to cover up for Seagals’ growing waist line. This is the biggest problem-an action movie with weak action and nothing else to rely on will usually fall short, this one being an example in the extreme.
The fights looked staged and were too far apart. Even a die-hard fan of the actor is going to want the movie re-edited in order to bypass the crummy talking part and the diluted plot in order to streamline the action. They’d be in for a short movie if this took place but it’d be a better alternative to using the fast-forward on my remote control as often as this one could’ve used. Seagal looked tired during most of his scenes and this didn’t help make the movie very enjoyable to watch. Based on all the deficits of the movie, the best I could justify rating it, and I’ve liked his past movies within the limitations they accept, is a Skip It.
Picture: The picture was presented in 1.85:1 ratio anamorphic widescreen color. The movie had a soft focus a lot and there were some compression artifacts as well as mosquito noise in a few scenes. Most of the scenes took place at night or in poorly lit rooms so there was a darkness to the whole affair that went beyond the use of metaphor. In short, the movie looked low budget with even the colors being off in a number of scenes.
Sound: The audio was presented with a choice of Dolby Digital Surround 5.1 English or French, as well as a 2.0 track for both Spanish and Portuguese. There was some separation between the channels here, mostly in the action sequences, but all too often the dubbing was sub-par. The vocals weren’t bad but the soundtrack seemed to be given preference and that’s a crutch that only the weakest of movies uses to disguise various other flaws. For those who care, there were subtitles in the aforementioned languages too.
Extras: 3 trailers and a paper insert listing the chapters.
Final Thoughts: As I said before, I like guilty pleasure movies when they do things right but this one was worse than expected from a guy that barely registers as making decent movies to begin with. If there was more than a couple of minutes worth of real entertainment value here, I’d let you know about it but sadly, this is not the case. The best way to describe it is that if you take a broken down has-been and stick him in a tired formula, you’ll likely get a movie like Out For A Kill. Pass it up.
Movie : 1/5
Video: 1.5/5
Audio: 1.5/5
Extras: 0.5/5
Replay: 0.5/5
Source : DVD Talk
The movie is yet another direct to video release for the aging Seagal and casts him as an award-winning archeologist who is used by a drug cartel in China to smuggle drugs. Being the hero, his character knows nothing about the drugs and soon finds himself on the short end of the stick when the cartel decides he’s in the way and needs to die. He gets set up and ends up in jail, where a couple of US government operatives, one who believes Seagal is innocent and the other who simply doesn’t care, use him to root out and destroy the various assassins sent by the cartel to kill him. Along the way, Seagal loses all his family and most of his friends, all the while spouting various platitudes, which fuel his fire until the ultimate showdown.
Okay, while critics who suggest that every Seagal flick is virtually indistinguishable from one another are acknowledged as being completely correct in their assessment, that doesn’t mean his movies can’t be entertaining. Often enough, I’ve enjoyed watching this martial artist go through the formulaic motions since you can set your brain on auto pilot, sit back, and enjoy watching this Aikido expert strut his stuff. In the case of Out For A Kill though, it became apparent that the guy has run out of steam. One of the problems with following a formula, or relying on the star power of a fading star, is that neither offer any growth and after seeing the same old people doing the same old stuff under similar circumstances, there’s nothing worth spending your hard earned dough on.
It should come as no surprise that the acting was about as good as a medium budget porno and the script appeared to have been written on a matchbook cover, this being a Steven Seagal action movie. Fans of his mindless violence oriented movies probably aren’t looking for anything remotely approaching clever dialogue or deep philosophy. That being the case, I’m reviewing the movie without expecting it to be a classic flick. Good thing too since Seagals’ rambling was worse than usual and his fights here were probably the weakest I’ve ever seen him in. Personally, I think his weight gain isn’t a problem since fat action heroes can still kick butt but the director used a bunch of slow-motion camera tricks in an effort to cover up for Seagals’ growing waist line. This is the biggest problem-an action movie with weak action and nothing else to rely on will usually fall short, this one being an example in the extreme.
The fights looked staged and were too far apart. Even a die-hard fan of the actor is going to want the movie re-edited in order to bypass the crummy talking part and the diluted plot in order to streamline the action. They’d be in for a short movie if this took place but it’d be a better alternative to using the fast-forward on my remote control as often as this one could’ve used. Seagal looked tired during most of his scenes and this didn’t help make the movie very enjoyable to watch. Based on all the deficits of the movie, the best I could justify rating it, and I’ve liked his past movies within the limitations they accept, is a Skip It.
Picture: The picture was presented in 1.85:1 ratio anamorphic widescreen color. The movie had a soft focus a lot and there were some compression artifacts as well as mosquito noise in a few scenes. Most of the scenes took place at night or in poorly lit rooms so there was a darkness to the whole affair that went beyond the use of metaphor. In short, the movie looked low budget with even the colors being off in a number of scenes.
Sound: The audio was presented with a choice of Dolby Digital Surround 5.1 English or French, as well as a 2.0 track for both Spanish and Portuguese. There was some separation between the channels here, mostly in the action sequences, but all too often the dubbing was sub-par. The vocals weren’t bad but the soundtrack seemed to be given preference and that’s a crutch that only the weakest of movies uses to disguise various other flaws. For those who care, there were subtitles in the aforementioned languages too.
Extras: 3 trailers and a paper insert listing the chapters.
Final Thoughts: As I said before, I like guilty pleasure movies when they do things right but this one was worse than expected from a guy that barely registers as making decent movies to begin with. If there was more than a couple of minutes worth of real entertainment value here, I’d let you know about it but sadly, this is not the case. The best way to describe it is that if you take a broken down has-been and stick him in a tired formula, you’ll likely get a movie like Out For A Kill. Pass it up.
Movie : 1/5
Video: 1.5/5
Audio: 1.5/5
Extras: 0.5/5
Replay: 0.5/5
Source : DVD Talk