Wait… Steven
Seagal, Danny Trejo AND Ving Rhames? In the same
picture? That's amazing right there. Amazing in
the sense at how indiscriminate these three men are in their
film choices and that this didn't happen years ago.
Nonetheless, here they are in the completely randomly titled
'Force of Execution' which means about as much to this movie
even if they named it 'My Mom Likes Ice Cream'. That
title just doesn't sound all actiony and stuff. This
movie right here, with this kind of talent and with director
Keoni Waxman in the drivers seat, a cat who has directed the
last four Seagal's, none of which made me want to kill myself…
there's no way this movie could be anything but awesome.
But alas… it was not awesome. This makes me sad.
Today Mr. Seagal assumes the role of Mr. Alexander who…
surprise… is a retired ex-special forces badass. This
time however, Seagal is a villain. Kind of. There
really are no good people in this movie and I guess he's the
least bad, but he's still some kind of gun dealing, drug
dealing mobster. I think Mr. Alexander might've told us
this but Seagal was mumbling his lines even worse than usual
this time around, to the point I actually had to turn on close
captioning.
Mr. Alexander has a right hand man in Roman Hurst (Bren
Foster), who is this films real star, and he is dispatched to
do a job. Note that Bren Foster is very impressive in
this film. Regardless, something goes wrong on this
murder gig, mainly because Iceman (Rhames), the dude telling
Roman who to kill, was giving him bad information, and now
Roman has to be retired. Not killed, just brutalized in
the worst way.
Now this is the point where the
narrative in this movie gets a little hazy for me.
Iceman gets out of jail and I think he starts working for Mr.
Alexander. In a way. Or maybe not.
Regardless he starts putting pressure on the Mexican gang to
do something, but I'm just not sure what. We kind of
have
the same
problem with Ving Rhames, one our favorite actors here at the
FCU, that we had we Steven Seagal and his lines. I mean
we could understand with crystal clarity the words he was
uttering, I just think I needed a translator to tell me what
they actually meant. Apparently Ice wants to
'consolidate power'. That I understood while he was
talking to his main man Dante (Marlon Lewis, who also good in
this movie). To do this Iceman has to kill Mr.
Alexander. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! That Iceman is a funny
guy.
Meanwhile, we still have the brutalized Roman to deal with,
who is living on the streets now as a drunk. He stays in
some dive above a restaurant run by the lovely Karen (Jenny
Gabrielle) who is in some way attached to Mr. Alexander, we're
not sure how, and also at this place is the cook Jimmy (Trejo)
who is actually a Curandero, or a Mexican Witch Doctor for
those who don't hablan the espanol. Why is he being a
Curandero relevant? Because it is.
So a big fight looms where Iceman is going to break into the
Alexander compound and take Mr. Alexander out. One of
the most poorly conceived raids ever. My main thought,
with this showdown looming, is if Ving Rhames is going to
allow Steven Seagal to kick his ass on screen. Michael
Pare did. Byron Mann did. Gary Daniels did, Darren
Shalhavi did. Tommy Lee Jones did. Every main bad guy in
every Steven Segal movie has. Guess who's not a
bitch? Ving Rhames ain't, that's who.
So the problem with 'Force of Execution' is that its damn near
incomprehensible. True enough, we don't need much by way
of a narrative in these dollar store action movies we love to
watch, but we do need a little focus on what little narrative
there might be. Waxman was kind of stuck dividing equal
time between Seagal, Rhames, and Bren Foster… Trejo was
usually hanging around Foster… with most of these characters
rarely on screen at the same time and all of them doing
something different. Foster was doing the broken drunk
thing, who can still kick ass despite the fact he has no
hands, Rhames on the other side of town consolidating his
power and the speaking in cryptic craziness… 6-0 yo…
neighborhood! And I really don't know what Seagal was
doing, let alone actually saying. Sometimes he'd appear
out of nowhere and mumble something to drunken Roman,
sometimes he'd gather his men and show them his sweet gun
collection, sometimes he'd pop up in the diner and beat up
gang bangers, but most of the time he just didn't do
anything. At least until the eventual shoot out when he
did everything.
Still, the action was solid, the acting from the majority of
the cast was decent, and Bren Foster reminds me of Scott
Adkins like seven or eight years ago. No, Scott Adkins
isn't a mega star or anything today, but at least he rates
being on the box cover of a straight to DVD movie and doesn't
have to take a back seat to some aging superstar. Bren
Foster is impressive enough as a potential action star that
soon he too might be able to start carrying these movies
without dragging along Seagal, Van Damme, Lundgren, Rhames,
Trejo or whomever else they need to front said movie.
Good luck Bren.
Incomprehensible story line, indecipherable actors, decent
action. 'Force of Execution'. Whatever that means.
