Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14781 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-11-05
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Number of discs: 1

Synopsis
Steven Seagal stars in this action-packed film as Simon Ballister, the father of a policeman who dies in a drive-by shooting. Simon moves into the worst part of town in a bid to find the killer of his son and ends up taking on the gangs that rule the city.

Customer Reviews

THE FILM SEAGAL NEEDED TO BOOST HIS CAREER
Steven Seagal's career post Under Siege has been one in constant need of resurgence. On Deadly Ground was greeted with acid tongued derision from critics, thus followed up by Under Siege 2, an upturn, though still unfavourable in comparison to the first. Exit Wounds followed another string of poorly received outings. Then the downward spiral hit high gear with the odd (and only slight) upturn in films like Belly Of The Beast and Into The Sun. In 2007 it's seemingly a crunch moment. Seagal needs an upturn. His fan base is in danger of decimating, perhaps jumping ship to Jean Claude, Wesley or Dolph, heck maybe even Don Wilson when you consider how bad Attack Force was. Urban Justice needed to be decent, needed to hit the high notes. But did it? Well overall...it kinda did. Not to say it's a great film by any means, but it's an upturn in fortune for Seagal, and most importantly, the man himself really comes out of his corner throwing some big shots again. He's not been out for the count quite yet, and with a few rounds left in him, maybe he can still turn this fight in his favour (nice analogy huh?).

Urban Justice firstly steers clear of the trend of Seagal's post Exit Wounds flicks, and that is CIA/FBI conspiracy subplots that eat away at the pacing and clarity of his recent flicks. This plot line is simple, straight and laid out. Seagal's son gets killed, and he wants the killer, nothing more. There's nothing too much on the side that gets in the way of Seagal getting from A to B. Secondly the film features Seagal as prominently as a leading man actually should feature, both in screen time (some of his recent flicks have him disappear for sometimes 15 minutes at a time!) and ADR participation (no dubbing this time folks). Above all Seagal manages to bring back some of his charisma that had seemingly been left behind in the early 90's somewhere along with Kelly Le Brocks hotness. Seagal's cool again, he's badass! Sure a little chunky and sweaty still, but he kicks ass! The action in this film is pretty good too. There's a plethora of hand to hand fights, which believe it or not, actually feature Seagal himself! Yes amazing given recent history. His stand in, stunt double and ADR double sat around twiddling there thumbs in this picture, and that's good. Seagal fans don't want those guys too busy. The fights are pretty decent though and Seagal unleashes some pretty savage beat-downs. We get vintage moves here. He breaks every conceivable bone in the human body during this flick, a femur on one guy, and a couple of ribs on another and so on. Best and coolest of all is the fact that Seagal once again looks like he could kick most guys assess! He's quick in this film I'm telling you. It's that old school Seagal who can virtually stand on the spot, but a few lightening moves of the arms and hands, and big ol' size 16 boots from no where, and the bad guys are floored. The fights are well edited and though tightly shot, they pack a punch, and the sound design is top notch. As for the rest of the action, we have disappointingly lame car chase. Not so much down to budget, but down to a complete lack of any kinetic energy and imaginative stunt work. The shoot outs are almost Hard Target insane! Meaning entire clips are unloaded on each individual bad guy, and blood shoots out all over the damn place! In fact the blood impacts in this film are the most insane I've ever seen and totally illogical, but I love it. It's the kind of super-violence Seagal used to produce. Seagal also gives his best performance in a few years. He seems interested, engaged and as I said shows off his charisma here.

The director Don E Fauntleroy was previously responsible for two of Seagal's shoddiest works. His inclusion in this was a worry, but while those first two collaborations with Big Pappa lacked any real autuership of any kind, here it's different. Fauntleroy manages to project some vision here, some style. We're not talking Scorsese, but for these sorts of flicks he's serviceable. Elsewhere the co-stars are not too bad. In particular there's a decent cameo from Danny Trejo, while Eddie Griffin makes for a somewhat cartoony but well suited villain.

On the negative side, though the plot is very simple, it's simplicity should have lent itself to a quicker pace of movie. The mid section suffers some lag, with too many gangster based dialogue scenes. That might not have been so bad if anything important was being said, and also the script is problematic in that the hip hop dialogue isn't very realistic. It's as if the writer knew only a couple of hood words and decided to repeat them endlessly. The relationship between Seagal and his snitch and also landlady could have been developed but instead feel needless and pasted in. Above all it would have been a few more scenes with Seagal. Elsewhere the score is pretty bad. It's a rush job without question and one that jars against the competent direction, editing, and an in form Seagal.

Overall this isn't exactly a great film, but in Seagal's recent canon, it's top notch. Importantly, the man himself is back to his old self again. If a better film can be put around him, he'll surely be able to deliver a film to rival his best ones. As it is, Urban Justice is a welcome filler and good solid Saturday night home entertainment. Coming from one of Seagal's harshest (though I maintain, realist) fans, that's saying something.

A big improvment
Seagal's recent direct-to-DVD movies have all been more or less bad. At best they have been watchable. When "Mercenary for Justice" came out, I thought it couldn't get any worse and then he proved me wrong by doing "Attack Force". Many of the movies have suffered from incoherent scripts, bad dubbing (Seagal's character changing voices from one scene to the next) and lack of fighting scenes. I'm glad to say "Urban Justice" (aka "Renegade Justice") departs from this trend. The story is pretty straightforward and there are several scenes where Seagal gives the bad guys what they deserve. The movie is not without flaws (such as a couple of annoying supporting characters and cheesy flashback sequences, and the script could have used some tweaking) but it is definitely a step in the right direction for Seagal. I think most of his remaining fans will enjoy "Urban Justice" and those who gave up on him after "Attack Force" may want to consider giving this movie a chance.

Seagal (almost) going independent
Steven Seagal's movies have been subject to all kinds of criticism. This criticism was often justified, but just as often it was beside the point. As far as depth of plot, quality of acting or realism go, Under Siege 1+2 are none the worse than, say, Die Hard 1-3, Rambo 1-4, Speed 1+2 or any number of office box hits that get much better ratings at the IMDB. No action movie can be judged by the same standards as The Godfather or Blade Runner. None of the movies mentioned above deserves a rating above 2 stars by the-movie-as-an-art form-standards. (It would seem that the focus on martial arts alone will demote a movie to trash in the eyes of many, while it'll justify spending a few bucks and two hours of your time, for some others; so Speed or Die Hard get great ratings, Under Siege mediocre ones.)

The really annoying trait of Seagal's output in recent years is pretentiousness. I appreciate actions flicks. Life does call for that 2 hour time out with brains turned to low volume, every once in a while. What I can't stand is a movie pretending to be Metropolis, and then transporting no deeper message than "if they bug you, f**k 'em up". In addition to this trait, a number of Seagal's films actually suffer from too good, supporting actors and technical realization. The best (meaning worst) example is The Fire Down Below, which stars a whole bunch of serious actors, is beautifully shot, has an alarming message - and is constantly sabotaged by Seagal himself in his ridiculous outfit with his violent solutions to every problem. His very presence breaks up scene after scene and ruins what could have been an intelligent movie.

Now, Urban Justice is completely free from these annoying traits. Supporting actors are just that - supporting, not stealing the show. The lighting is bad, but otherwise the movie is decently made, and never pretending to be more than late afternoon past time.

What makes it actually interesting is, that for once Seagal dares to move beyond even the most common cliché of the action genre, the one of good against bad, right against wrong. For illustration, on to the spoiler containing part: Seagal's son gets killed, and daddy vows to kill the people who killed the son. At no point is there talk of justice. It's about vengeance for the sake of vengeance, nothing more - nothing less. Interestingly, Seagal's character describes himself as "a bad man with good intentions" and responds to the accusation of being "just as bad as the others (the murderers)" by saying that he is actually "a mother**king lot worse". To really rub it in, at the very end of the movie, after having killed everybody even remotely involved in his son's killing, he lets a major drug dealer go free, because "I came to do one thing, and I did it. I have no beef with you" (note that this is an almost quote: Muhammad Ali famously refused to go to Vietnam because he had "no beef with them Viet Cong"). In another instant of obvious departure from the good-bad-dichotomy, Seagal arbitrarily breaks an unconscious opponent's neck, apparently because he feels like it and to show he's serious.

Taken together, this makes for not only the least pretentious Steven Seagal movie, but for one of the least pretentious actions flicks I have ever seen. It is full of nasty, gruesome hand to hand combat which maintains a high level of realism at (almost) all times, it's got tremendous shoot-outs (every shot a shot through, for better blood spray) and an overall feel of darkness and depravity that I find - sorry to say, it, almost - refreshing in the genre.

Recommend entertainment for any action fan, but also for many an independent fan.