Today You Die (2005)

Seagal is back! Overweight, mumbling, dyed hair, immobile. I love this stuff. Please note, if it moves, it's the stunt double. However, although Seagal (Harlan Banks here) can't act, some of the support is OK.Mari Morrow plays his girlfriend Jada. She's pretty and handles her part well. Although this wasn't the smartest career move, she stands out. Sarah Buxton, less so. Is she full of botox, or just have no facial expression? Robert Mianpo, Nick Mancuso, Kevin Tighe (Max) all do OK. Which, in a Seagal film, is praise.The plot seems better than usual. He's a thief trying to go straight, and gets set up as a getaway driver. In fact the getaway scene is the best in the movie. But it all goes downhill from there.Seagal goes to jail. We're in prison, in a desert area. But one of the guards appears to be standing in front of a wood and we keep seeing trees everywhere.He escapes with Treach ridiculously easily, gets armed and looks for Max. Now we have a scene with an old Jaguar with blacked out windows. Except, when Seagal's inside, it's some sort of American sedan with clear glass! I came to this film ready to criticise but there are signs that old Seagal is beginning to realise the joke. This is better than most recent offerings. It's actually quite watchable.

Steven Seagal does it again. Another daft and dull… well for most part straight-to-DVD action vehicle with him whispering his lines, providing intellectual discussions (about dreams and their meanings; "I had an awful dream.") and whooping some ass… well maybe not so as the director does a really good job hiding Seagal's face during many of the fight sequences. Quick combat we get a good look, but the extended scenes not so. Thanks stunt-man. Quick and flashy editing helps, which has Seagal always walking away from an encounter with his back facing the camera. Seagal is a thief (a Robin Hood of sorts) who decides to go straight, but a job he takes on as an armour guard truck driver turns out to be a set-up. He finds himself spending time in prison, but he happens to be the only one who knows where the stolen 20 million dollars was hidden. The criminals who set him up want their money, but Seagal wants revenge when he breaks out (in a rather unconvincing manner) with a hommie. "Today You Die" actually started off promising (with an explosively barnstorming car chase sequence), but when it hit's the prison yard and from then onwards it rapidly becomes uninterestingly old-hat with its heavy-handed plot devices (betrayal, corruption), try-hard attitude and flimsy characters. Well at least it provides hilarity. Just listen to the lame dialogues. "He's evil. Something beyond this earth." Throw in one wannabe gangsta known as Ice Kool (Anthony "Treach" Criss), talking all tough and the jovial banter between the two is embarrassingly bad. Watching Seagal going around handing out his own sort of punishment simply was mind-numbing… since Seagal is invincible. Not even a scratch. Must be that politeness and muddled intentions. Good for a laugh, but not much else."You want to dance with the devil. Lets dance."

Steven Seagal is a thief who specializes in robbing wealther drug dealers, giving to the poor and unfortunate..heh, Harlan, the Robin Hood. Anyway, Harlan wants to go straight for his girl, Jada(Mari Morrow), so he takes on a job as the driver of an armoured car for a Max Stevens(Kevin Tighe, wasted in an underwritten role). Max intends to have the millions for himself and his unscrupulous associates, with the intent of using his loader, Bruno(Robert Miano)to bring him the money, but Harlan has other plans. Escaping the police, hiding the money, and ditching Bruno(who had a loaded gun pointed at Harlan's head threatening to shoot him if he didn't drive)after evading capture by ramming a huge dump truck, Harlan passes out. Charged with the murder of police among other things as a result of the damage caused by the high-speed chase, Harlan is imprisoned and many wish to know where the money is. Harlan joins forces with an inmate, Ice(Treach), a leader of one of the many gangs in the prison, breaking out with the plans of finding Max and eliminating every member of his corrupt entourage. Soon DEA agent Rachel Knowles(Sarah Buxton) becomes part of this scenario thanks to her boss, Saunders(Nick Mancuso)who claims there's drugs involved. Also injected into the plot is Harlan's desire to save a children's hospital about to close and Jada has mysterious dreams regarding Max.Seagal and Treach cut up with each other speaking in gangsta, while Buxton spends time trying to help Harlan, uncovering the possibility her boss is in cahoots with Max. Mancuso's character is an odd duck, allowing Rachel much leeway despite the threat she is to his career. Tighe shows up for five or so minutes tops, which is a shame. Seagal's Harlan escapes prison and finds each and every rich associate of Max's, inevitably discovering his whereabouts after cracking a few skulls, snapping some wrists, and breaking some bones. Treach speaks in his rapper speech and Seagal tries to answer him in kind, providing some unintentional laughs. As you'd expect, a lot of people get shot and Seagal doesn't break a sweat. It's interesting seeing Seagal in prison, among the convicts, helping Treach out when a group of "Eses" plan to take him out.

After being impressed with Dolph Lundgren in The Russian Specialist (as well as Van Damme in Wake Of Death) I finally got around to watching this movie which was still on my TiVo for like two months. There is a story about that, in that no movie that has stayed longer than a couple weeks on the TiVo has ever been that good and in this case, this was no exception in fact Today You Die was painfully bad, trite and just plain dull. The movie has Steven Seagal as a thief who steals from rich corporation and gives back to the community (Oh brother.) and in doing so gets caught one night and is sent to prison. Too bad then that he sets out to get out of prison and take on some more mobsters in this interchangeable bad straight to video movie you could name. I admit to being a big fan of Steven Seagal's early work, especially since he seemed polished, slick and cool. However in Today You Die, Seagal is a rather wimpier version of his once formidable self and in fact does so little akidio one wonders why he bothers with the action phase if he can't lose weight and actually look credible in the action sequences. Today You Die was as awful as I expected it to be, it did after all have the guy from Naughty By Nature (You down with O.P.P?) and well any expectation beyond that further insures that I had only but minimal expectations for this movie. It speaks volumes that this movie couldn't even rise to the minimal occasion I set for it. Today You Die is a bad movie plain and simple, I really feel sorry for Seagal fans, since they have actually rented this and put money down on such a clunker. My condolences.* out of 4-(Bad)