Kill Switch (2008)

'Kill Switch' is a masterpiece of B cinema, written by Seagal, who gathered everything he has found enjoyable in the trade, from the '70s vigilantes to the '90 thrillers about cereal killers, and even to a legendary scene from '9 ½ Weeks', and all is craftily directed, and awesomely free of any schmaltz, and it has to be one of Seagal's best movies, perhaps his very best, and one of the coolest action thrillers as well, rewarding and encouraging and uplifting, in the line of Widmark, Eastwood, Wayne, Bronson; it's a rip-off of 'The Silence …', 'Seven', even '9 ½ Weeks', not to mention the '70s movies about vigilantes, punisher, unorthodox policemen, and everything has been ripped off (and sometimes reverted, like the idea of a young and bright FBI agent) with a very sure taste and feel for how it works; the two cereal killers, Lazerus and Billy Joe, are rightly uncanny, as are most of the locations and settings, and so many of the scenes are delightful, like the one in the library, or later Jacob chasing Lazerus through the building. This is the kind of movie that Willis and Rourke deserved.The cast deserves praise: Isaac Hayes, Holly Dignard, the girl from the library.This is exploitation by people who know their trade, a movie to boost your trust in the genre, and approval of it. The taste is flawless.Again, think of all the schmaltz we have been spared of, like Jacob teaming up with Frankie, or being tender to his girlfriend. The one-liners are pithy and strong.Somebody wrote that most of Lazerus' deeds involve young women; it's untrue, the case in recapitulated by the coroner, who mentions three dead men, and three women. The scene is in Lazerus' barn, when Frankie calls his name, had a certain resonance.

Shoot the editor. No, really. This is the worst cut film in the history of film cutting. A linear mosaic, it reads like a bar-code scanner being run over a cubist painting by a dervish with St. Vitus' dance. Using the stuttering "ner-ner-ner-ner-nineteen+ visual cut'n'paste once - even twice - throughout the whole film would be acceptable, if a little gimmicky. Using it as the default widget in every fight scene - not only for cuts, but to highlight random fist impact frames - is just naffly tasteless, like some prat holding the camera on the diagonal to be "cool."Was this cut on a suite set up for an MTV job with all the presets set up for hip-hop gangsta rap and then operated randomly by a blindfolded passer-by? This level of medium intrusion is criminally incompetent, and has made what was probably a fairly bad but entertaining project into a completely rubbish unintelligible piece of pointless drivel.I was looking forward to a bit of mindless, gratuitously violent entertainment - why else would I have watched a Big Steve film? I think I saw some, but I was so dazzled and wrong-footed with all the smoke and mirrors that I'm not really sure. Frustrated. I am.Technical rant over.Everything else I want to say has already been said throughout this thread, which makes better viewing than the film.Go watch Death Wish 2 instead. Probably just as bad in most ways, but at least you can see what's going on.Bah!

OK, so it might require a drop of beer to smooth it down, but Killswitch is the most entertainment i've had in years. From the first time Segal opens his mouth its just laugh a minute hilarity for however long it went on for. I have no idea what accent he is trying to pull off, but it fails in comedy fashion, most of the time you cant understand what he is saying, but that just makes it better! I'm not really sure there is any plot, I actually think Segal just plays some weirdo no one understands so they give him a big fake case to solve to keep him out of the way of real police business. I guess its a bit like Se7en but with a more slapstick approach. The fights are hilarious, just shots of segal looking vacant, then a body double in a wig shot from behind, then another (same) shot of Segal. We counted 26 re-uses of the same shot in one of the fights at the end which forced us to pause the film for fear of death by laughter.Im still having trouble working out who segal plays in this movie and the many flashbacks have no relevance on the film at all and are never explained, which just makes them better! There's just so much gold in this film! Why everyone in the film hate women? Who is the random FBI expert who turns up to help the case though admits she only ever worked on one homicide ever? where does segal get his knowledge of astrology from? why does he live in the biggest apartment ever? Who is that woman he lives with? what does his partner do at all in the whole movie? why does the murderer commit any of the crimes? and the ending!!!! WOW! Forget the sixth sense, you did NOT see this coming! trust me, in the 'so bad its good' stakes, this takes some beating 10/10

The name 'Steven Seagal' may not put the fear of God into many people these days, but when it is preceded by the two little words 'written by' it is something to strike fear in the hearts of stronger men than me. Summoning that peculiar kind of bravery possessed by a masochist equipped with a dozen clothes pegs and a wet shoelace I girded my loins and pressed the 'forward' button on my remote. There was no going back now, like one of Seagal's on screen sparring partners I was to be exposed to every sweaty punch and chop the big (big) man chose to throw in my direction.I can get back the precious 8% of available recording time KillSwitch occupied on my Sky box, and the 90 minutes I lost watching the film are, in the grand scheme of things, only a minimal fraction of my intended lifespan, but my faith in the movie-making business may never be the same after watching this unholy mess.The story is rubbish – that was to be expected after we learned who the screenwriter was – but the direction and editing in this film are surely something to be amazed by. The direction varies from pedestrian to excruciatingly bad – we see one bad guy crashing through a window half-a-dozen times, another bad guy collapse onto a table three times, etc. The editor keeps cutting away from the fights to the same headshot of Seagal in which he looks like a mildly interested bystander. In one fight scene, his opponent's bloody scars keeping appearing and disappearing. Another fight seems to go on forever, with all participants seeming to possess super-heroic stamina levels, and you end up watching in stupefaction, not quite able to believe that a movie fight scene is actually boring you.Seagal plays a Southern cop with issues. It seems he witnessed the murder of his brother when he was a kid. What bearing this has on his present-day pursuit of a serial killer is never really explained. Neither is the identity or motive of the murderer. In fact the incident just seems to have been added to fill out the running time, give the director (whoever he is – I really can't be bothered to check) a chance to show off all the flashy tricks he learned while balancing on top of a dustbin to peer through the window of the local film studies classroom, and to give Seagal the opportunity to come over all broody every now and then.Seagal was never sylph-like but, judging by the way we are treated to a lot of head-and-shoulder shots but hardly any full-lengths shots of him, his girth has expanded considerably since the 90s. In fact, he doesn't even move when he fights: he just parries his opponents' blow and waits for them to stray close enough for him to fell them with his meaty paw.