Hard to Kill (2012)

This movie is worth seeing for five reasons:

1) Emotional storyline. Kill a guy's family, put him in prison, and you've got the making of a high-octane story. Yes, maybe it's not CASABLANCA but it taps into our deepest emotions and desires. Including trying to get your son back.

2) Martial arts. Love the sequence where Steven Seagal is training. Very Eastern. Very authentic.

3) William Sadler as Senator Vernon Trent. Hollywood's most underrated character actor and villain turns in an understated performance. Very smooth and slick.

4) Seagal's romance. Yes, it's cheesy, but I'm a chick. Sue me.

5) The hot tub scene with Sadler. Again, sue me.

Being a huge fan of action films, it's hard to critique them because this genre of movie making has one purpose...to give viewers an escape from reality and a sense of enjoyment in seeing scumbags and criminals get what they don't get in the real world: The sh-kicked out of them. For this reason, I rate films of this nature on production values and good action and effects, not necessarily the script or character definition. Most of Steven Seagal's films are better-than-average and this one rates near the top because the action is top-notch and the choreography of the hand-to-hand scenes is truly believable. His aikido skills are remarkable. There's even a little pathos and some humor thrown in to give viewers a little more than just bone-breaking fun. This is a good movie if you remember not to take it too seriously and just have fun and watch the bad guys get theirs in painful quantities.

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This was definitely one of Steven Segal's finest films. Playing the role of a policeman Segal video tapes a crooked politician striking a deal with underworld elements. This causes hired killers to invade his home. This invasion causes the death of his wife and places our hero in a 7 year coma. His son is raised by a fellow policeman. Segal comes out of his coma and narrowily escapes being killed again. The pretty nurse takes him to an isolated retreat where he regains his health. The crooked politician has now become a U.S. Senator. Through the efforts of our hero the politician is brought down and our hero gains revenge. This is a must see video.

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Seagal plays Mason Storm, a Los Angeles homicide detective who is seen on the dock, one night, with a video camera and a tape recorder, spying on mystery guys who were plotting to turn a political figure into a memory...

Once he gets the evidence, Storm shares the information with a buddy, unaware that two crooked cops, in the next room, are listening in to their phone conversation...

Later that night, an assassination squad turns their automatic weapons against Storm and his family... They murder his wife, fail to kill his young kid, but apparently left him seriously wounded...

After Storm is taken to the hospital, he sank into a deep coma... His death was faked and his true identity was hidden away by a friend..

Seven years later, Seagal suddenly comes out of his coma, and begins to remember events that happened while he was conscious...

When he regains his full consciousness, he asks his beautiful nurse, Kelly LeBrock, to get him immediately out of the hospital...

In a house-sitting far back from the city, Storm prepares his health and wellness with Oriental healing traditions, stimulating the flow of energy within his body, by inserting fine needles into specific points on his skin...

Once achieving his skills of vitality, he set out to avenge his wife's murder by tracking down the crooked cops, and of course the ambitious, cynical politician, who was behind the grand scheme of things...

"Hard to Kill" is full of flying bullets and breaking-glass, with super-graphic fights and shootouts... Our great hero proves once again to have a threatening penchant for breaking bad men's arms, legs, wrists and backs...

Seagal and LeBrock look great together.. Their palpable chemistry is well translated on the screen... The gorgeous model eventually married the wonderful man, and they would have three children... However, in 1996 the two divorced and LeBrock began appearing a bit more, taking part in the feature film 'Wrongfully Accused' (1998), opposite Leslie Nielsen and Richard Crenna...

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I'm conflicted about "Hard to Kill" (alternatively known as "The Seven Year Storm" a better title, if you ask me). On one hand, it's a quality vehicle from Steven Seagal's glory days that displays his strengths to near-perfection, but on the other, it's a pretty dumb follow-up to his smarter-than-average debut, Above the Law. Rest assured, it's not a bad action movie by any means, features a couple unconventional touches not seen in other Seagal fare, and certainly belongs on any of Seagal's "best of" lists...but for many folks, that's not saying much.

The story: Seagal is Mason Storm a lone wolf policeman who's made a breakthrough regarding a plot to assassinate a US senator. Before he can deliver the evidence, an attack on his home by the crooks leaves his wife dead, his son missing, and Storm himself in a coma. Protected by his friend and colleague Kevin O'Malley (Frederick Coffin, View from the Top), Storm lies unconscious for seven years until awakening to renewed assassination attempts and a thirst for revenge.

For the record, being shot and put into a coma would be the most devastating injury ever done to the near-invincible Seagal until some twenty years later in The Keeper. That doesn't stop him, however, from managing to outrun an assassin while still bedridden, mere minutes after he wakes up. Throw in the beard he grew during his coma and the taking off of his shirt, and you've got a respectable list of things you see in none other of his films. I suppose that's where the film's main appeal lies: he's put into situations you usually don't see him in like needing to rebilitate himself to the tune of inspiring music but the fact that he handles all of them in his usual superhuman way puts a bit of a damper on the thought that his character might be but a man this time around. Credit goes to director Bruce Malmuth (Nighthawks) for pushing him, though.

The action is what you'd expect from Seagal at this age. The scene in the convenience store is one of the best examples of seeing practical aikido in use, but both it and the scenes that come after aren't quite as ingenius as in "Above the Law"; in the long run, it's nothing more than Seagal taking out the garbage as usual. However, a later combination of both indoor martial arts and gunplay is one of the finest that Seagal has ever been filmed in: it's a type of scene that hadn't really existed before Seagal and its style still isnt emulated very often, so count your blessings on it. The inclusion of Kelly LeBrock (Weird Science) Seagal's then-wife is a two-edged blade: while she gives little more than an acceptable performance, her interaction with Seagal seems to give the martial artist a confidence that he tends to lack in his usual acting and supplies him with a surprising flair that chooses to express itself during quieter scenes I mean, when's the last time you've seen Seagal guffaw convincingly? Then again, since she was his real-life spouse, it's inevitable that they begin a relationship in the movie, and this doesn't really feel right considering that to Mason Storm, he just lost his beloved wife weeks ago; I figure they were intentionally trying to avoid drama, but it still feels weird.

However, when the bad guys get theirs, you some of the most satisfying scenes that our hero has ever uttered harsh language in: you really don't know how good you can feel for a guy until William Sadler (Roswell Seasons 1-3) is standing with a gun barrel in his mouth, being told what's going to happen to him in prison. The ability to instill this marvelous feel for vengeance earns director Malmuth some kudos...but eventually, it feels like just another run-of-the-mill action vehicle for Steven, since the villain isn't particularly memorable and the scope of the film isn't very big. While it's more interesting than most of the films Seagal would involved in later in his career, it really doesn't top an old-fashioned, to-the-point Seagalian bloodbath like Out for Justice. Fans should definitely pick it up and 80s-action freaks should get a fix out of this one...but everybody else, rent it first.

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