I am having a much easier time trudging through the Wesley Snipes Direct to Video compilation than I am trudging through the Steven Seagal compilation, mainly because Wesley doesn’t crap them out quite as often as Seagal. Truth be told, babies shit less frequently than Steven Seagal makes movies though I will admit that Seagal flicks are generally of a higher quality than baby shit. Today however we will be taking a look at the Snipes action fest calling itself ‘7-Seconds’ which he shot in Bucharest hot off the heels of crafting ‘Unstoppable’ which he also shot somewhere in Bulgaria, and the two titles are remarkably similar.

In ‘7-seconds’ Snipes is a defrocked Special Forces officer who is now an armored truck thief, as opposed to ‘Unstoppable’ where he was a retired special forces officer who is suffering Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. In ‘7-Seconds’ a truck heist goes all to hell leading to a group of armed crazies hunting down Snipes while this lovely white army police officer (Tamzin Outhwaite) tries to get to the truth. In ‘Unstoppable’ Snipes is being hunted by a group of armed crazies while a lovely white city police officer tries to get the truth. In ‘7-seconds’ Snipes is pursed by Russian mobster Kutchinov (Pete Lee Wilson) because he’s holding valuable information leading to a bunch of cash. In ‘Unstoppable’ Snipes is being pursued by a Rouge CIA agent who THINKS Snipes has valuable information leading to a bunch of cash. In ‘7-seconds’ Snipes is being halfway helped, halfway pursued by another Russian Mobster, Mikhael (Serge Soric) who’s all angry because this blown truck heist resulted in the death of his brother. In ‘Unstoppable’ Snipes is being halfway pursued, halfway helped by a CIA agent who’s all angry because one of his top agents has been killed. In both films Snipes gets tied down to a chair and mercilessly tortured. In both films there are Entebbe style raids leading to massively drawn out shoot ‘em up operas and in both movies Snipes claims the white woman at the end as the ultimate prize.

Now if you absolutely positively have to watch one of these movies, then by all means pick ‘Unstoppable’ if for nothing else than the Adibese factor which manages to lift that particular flick slightly over the Mendoza line, where ‘7-seconds’ was completely missing that little something extra to make it suck less. Perhaps actor Deobia Operei, who was given the unfortunate name of ‘Spanky’ in this film, was supposed to provide that extra oomph, but I’m sorry, Mr. Operei ain’t no Adawele Akinnouye-Agbaje, even on his best day. As far as the movie itself goes it’s pretty much as run of the mill as a Snipes action flicks can get. When four armed gunman have Snipes surrounded at close quarters I simply muttered under my breath ‘he’s about to do some Wesley Snipes shit on ya’ll’, and sure enough he does some Wesley Snipes shit on them, breaking them down, taking their weapons and ending their lives. What I would have done was to have Wesley make one his lightning quick Snipes moves then get shot in the leg and then get pummeled while he was laying on the ground since we’ve never, ever seen that before. My concern is that Snipes does this so often in so many movies that should the man be facing a gun in real life he may try out some of his kung-jujitusu-fu and end up getting shot in the face.

As most of us know already as action film junkies that these movies tend to make less and less sense the longer they go on, with the only difference for ‘7-seconds’ being that it didn’t make any damn sense from act one scene one. One of the many questions I have is who in the hell is this lady military police officer and how in the world does she have access to do all this interrogation action. Oh yeah Mr. Super Special Forces Man, you should know that a promotion from Sergeant to Captain would be very, very difficult in almost any branch of any nations armed forces. Director Simon Fellows had a very simple theory when crafting this flick and that would be ‘when in doubt, crash a car’ as there were no shortage of action sequences, car crashes, car chases, car flips, shoot outs, karate chops to the throat and knees to the skull. It’s just that all these action sequences are so disconnected by the complete lack of a coherent narrative it’s almost like watching some stunt dudes demo reel.

Though Snipes made ‘Detonator’ after this movie which could be his worst film ever, and that includes ‘The Fan’, his next two movies in ‘Hard Luck’ and ‘The Contractor’ were much better, plus with his tax worries safely behind him perhaps Wesley can be a bit more selective in what he chooses to be in for now on. Watch ‘7-Seconds’ only if you have a car crash fetish or absolutely have to see every Wesley Snipes flick ever made. (NOTE: We have recently learned that Wesley’s Tax worries are squarely in front of him as he has snagged three years in the pen - FREE WESLEY SNIPES!!!)