Review of Mercenary For Justice

Introduction

The sky is blue.

The Earth orbits The Sun.

Tuesday comes but once a week.

Steven Seagal`s newest action B-movie goes straight to DVD.

Another month, another direct-to-video release for the flabby Buddhist. You might think your job is boring, monotonous and repetitive, but spare a thought for the once girly-haired Chuck Norris wannabe - turning up to work and spitting out the same cringe-worthy lines, tempting the same stone-faced look out of his leathery puss and dishing out the same homo-erotic Seagal-Fu on the bad dudes.

Sometimes you have to wonder how he even manages to roll himself out of bed in the morning.

That all might sound a little unfair. Especially when you consider that before his movies occupied bargain bins the world over, prior to his making environmentally friendly movies about saving puppies and in an era before he shared top billing with monosyllabic gangsta rappers, Seagal actual made some half decent no-brainer action movies.

But Is `Mercenary For Justice` on par with `Nico`, `Under Siege` and `Hard To Kill`? Or is it all a little too `The Glimmer Man` revisited?

Video

A decent anamorphic 1.85:1, obviously taken from a pretty clear print.

It`s a 2006 movie - anything else would be ridiculous.

Audio

Dolby Digital 5.1

Dialogue funnels through the center fine. The rears aren`t used to much effect, bar some frantic gun noise and the occasions when the unremarkable score bleeds through.

Features

Under the bonus header, there are the options to run a movie trailer and a `making of` featurette consisting of 15 minutes worth of irksome back-slapping.

You can also choose the `scene selects` (sic) from the main menu.

Conclusion

No word mincing or sugar coating here - Mercenary For Justice is simply a very poor movie.

The script is nonsense; the story is overly convoluted and clearly constructed with little regard for logic. While the dialogue is particularly bad, the line delivery from every main player is almost always dreadful. You could give them scenes from The Tempest, and this bunch would still lack the enthusiasm and believability of a primary school nativity.

The action is at times quite smooth and passable. The first 20 minutes of sub-Black Hawk Down street warfare is punchy, although our man Seagal is mostly MIA, only popping his head round the door for a few seconds during this section to confirm that, yes, this is indeed a Steven Seagal film.

At others times, especially the fist fights, the choreography is dull. Devoid of thrill or fun, most of the action jumps from a high of laughable to a low of coma-inducing.

Perhaps the worst thing about Mercenary For Justice is the overwhelming sense of amateurism. While the acting leaves a lot to be desired, and the direction is not in the least bit ambitious, there are glaring moments of an inexpert hand in almost all fields. This is apparently a $15 million production. So why are the effects bland, stunts insipid, and worst of all, why is Luke Goss credited on screen as "CIA Dirty Deeds Man", and Roger Gueneviere Smith referred to as a "Black Opps Producer" (sic)? Wasn`t there room in that chunk of change for a researcher or spell checker to bring a little authenticity to the movie?

By now you`ve probably come to the conclusion that Seagal isn`t the worst thing about this flick. And that`s very true. However, if the law of diminishing returns is to be obeyed, his next movie will be so bad it`ll block out the sun, leading to the end of all life on Earth. Or at least the end of his career in film.

As one bizarrely sanitised baddie in the film says, "That`s it for you, poophole".