After years upon years of
watching Steven Seagal movies, watching the 'Today You
Die's' and the 'Attack Forces' and the 'Into the Sun's' that
are almost legendary in the lore of the cinematic bad movie
atmosphere, it is time to jump in the time machine and
revisit the movies that actually made Steven Seagal a movie
star, because if you came into this game late or were born
around 1990, you might be baffled how this could have ever
happened in the first place after watching something like
'Attack Force'. Were you one of these late comers, you would
think, and correctly so, that anybody could mumble their
lines and get a stuntman to do just about everything for
them. But you have to go back in time, kids, to see why
Steven Seagal earned the right to mumble his lines and have
a skinny stuntman do everything for him. Like walk up a
flight of stairs. Seriously, that actually happened. So
let's begin where it all began, where a young, slender,
handsome Stevie was speaking his words semi-intelligibly,
working with a top flight director in Andrew Davis… nothing
but mad love to Keoni Waxman and all… and doing his own
stunts. Remember, this is the guy that saw Kelly LeBrock in
a movie, decided he wanted her, went and got her, then
eventually left her. So my man had to have had something
going on back in the day.
Seagal opens our film with narration as the character of
Nicolo Toscani, an Italian immigrant who subsequently went
to Japan to train under the masters in the art of Aikido,
eventually got drafted into the CIA, didn't like what he saw
there and eventually became an out of control Chicago Cop.
When I say this cat is 'out of control' he is seriously that
guy that doesn't play by the rules. Even the basic tenants
of proper police procedure are foreign to this guy. In this
movie you WILL NOT see Nico read somebody their rights, use
his handcuffs because the dead and unconscious don't need
them, or ask permission for ANYTHING… like illegal wiretaps
and sting operations and whatnot. What you will see is Nico
punch poor FBI agents in the face who are desperately trying
to do their thankless jobs and violate enough civil rights
that would fill up an LAPD log book.
Now we can settle into our
story. Kind of. First thing we need to see is some Nico
badassery where he goes into a bar full of thugs to retrieve
his wayward cousin. About this… girlfriend is in bed with
her boyfriend, under her own volition, and yet Nico beats
this guy near to death. For being with his girl. That's not
cool. I'd actually say that kind of action was 'Above the
Law', and it was, but the violation of this kids civil
rights was kind of necessary because this clown gave Nico
the lowdown on a drug deal happening, and now Nico and his
partner Delores (Pam Grier), affectionately called 'Jax' can
do some illegal wiretapping and bust some more heads, all of
which is also Above the Law. Note that Jax keeps telling us
she's due to be off of street duty in a weeks' time. I sure
wish she'd stop telling us this.
One thing you should know is that when I saw 'Above the Law'
27 years ago, I had no idea how over-plotted it was because
there sure is a lot of stuff going on in this movie. But
ultimately all you really need to know it that Henry Silva
is in this movie, and by default of him being Henry Silva
he's the bad guy and he and Nico have a spotty history…
something to do with that CIA we mentioned earlier. Note
that Silva's character was actually playing by the rules…
which Nico, not surprisingly, refused to abide by.
Eventually I'm guessing Nico will need to beat this guy to
death. And that's really all you need to know, convoluted
plot be damned.
Ah… 'Above the Law' is a like a crisp breath of fresh air on
a spring day. Now watching it again almost three decades
later, it probably isn't nearly as good as I remember it
being, and I'm not quite sure what Seagal had over other
late 80's, early 90's potential action heroes such as Jeff
Speakman, Jeff Wincott or Thomas Ian Griffin but he's the
one still standing… so to speak. It does help 'Above the
Law' that Andrew Davis was directing who was a bit of master
making this kind of the stuff back in the day, lest we
forget his amazing handling of Chuck Norris in arguably
Chuck's best movie 'Code of Silence', though I can't imagine
anybody seriously arguing otherwise, and of course 'The
Fugitive' which will come a few years later.
But let's not sell Steven Seagal short. While Seagal might
not have been, and still is not much of an actor, the man
does have some presence and probably most important, dude
has confidence. Because of his limitations as an actor, this
overpowering confidence he exudes has to be all Steve, which
probably makes him a pain in the ass to deal with in real
life, but it sure did make him fun to watch back in those
early 90's action movies. Heck, I didn't even notice until
it was pointed out to me many years later that he runs
funny, because I was probably to afraid that he'd jump
through the screen and beat my ass and violate my civil
rights. And when we tell you that Nico didn't play by the
rules, he really didn't play by the rules. The truth of the
matter, if you really want to break it down which of course
is not recommended, is that Nico is a fairly awful person
and the worst pretend cop since Havey Keitel's Bad
Lieutenant.
Did we enjoy our revisit with Nico Toscani and Above the
Law? Heck yes we did. Over plotted and featuring a character
who probably should've been carted off to jail after any
number of his gross legal violations, it's good to see
Steven Seagal the way we remember him. Running, fighting,
and even walking up flights of stairs. Ah… those were the
days.
