Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

Drea, as played by the always lovely Renee Goldsberry has just spent an evening of bliss with drunken, gambling indebted ex-cop former CIA ghost Matt, as played by the ever intrepid Steven Seagal. Drea is whining at breakfast about the ‘glass ceiling’ and how life would be better for her if she had a dick. Matt chuckles and replies that he probably wouldn’t have liked her as much if she had a dick, especially if that dick was bigger than his, to which Drea laughs and replies, and I quote, ‘I don’t think that’s possible’. My brother and I, with whom I was watching Mr. Seagal’s latest masterpiece ‘Pistol Whipped’ with, literally fell off our metal folding chairs in stitches. It’s not that I doubt Mr. Seagal’s manhood, because if nothing else the man has proven to be most fertile, but I’m pretty sure he inserted that line in there all by himself. Can there be any more joy than the quarterly release of a new Steven Seagal flick? I don’t think so people, I don’t think so.

Our man Matt is a bit of a loser. He has heavy gambling debts, he’s a drunk, he’s been kicked off the police force suspected of stealing a bunch of loot out of a police holding locker and his best friend Steve (Mark Elliot Winston) has married his ex-wife and is raising his daughter Becky (Lydia Jordan). After a particular bad day at the tables Matt has hit rock bottom and gets paid an unscheduled visit by a man only known as Blue (Paul Calderone) who escorts Matt, at gunpoint, to meet a dude we will only know as The Old Man (Lance Henrickson). The old man has brought up all of Matt’s markers, but for a price as he wants the former CIA ghost to eliminate some rather unsavory individuals for him. It seems The Old Man and his mysterious organization has the greater good in mind, or do they. Having little choice in the matter, Matt jumps aboard.

While surveying Italian mobbing, North Korean Dealing, Counterfeit Plate producing criminal Bruno (Arthur J. Nascarella) Matt meets Drea at the club which eventually leads to a night of passion and us learning about Matt’s prodigious member. Why this

totally beautiful woman of color picked this broke down cat out of a crowd of hundreds is a bit of a conundrum, because it's not like she knew he had a big dick before hand, even though we know from previous films that he does walk like a Black man and breathe like a killer. But we will get an answer soon enough.

Then this organization asks Matt to do something that in his heart of hearts he knows is wrong and refuses to do. The Old Man and his crew try to convince him that what he thinks he knows isn’t true, but Matt ain’t trying to hear any of that. But soon Matt will find out some stuff that’s going to set his world on edge, and I guarantee you this, somebody is going to die in the process.

‘Pistol Whipped’ is an interesting little Seagal movie as his last two, at least in my opinion, with ‘Flight of Fury’ and ‘Urban Justice’ have been above average from what we’ve been seeing from the aging action hero. In this one Seagal actually takes a step back narratively speaking, in that there’s not a whole lot of stuff in ‘Pistol Whipped’ that makes a helluva lot of sense, but he takes a step up action wise as Seagal himself appeared to be more involved in a lot of the action sequences than he has been in movies past. The flaws in the story are far too vast numerous to even think about expounding on without giving a way too much of the story, and it is possible that what went completely over my head may make complete and total sense to you. But it did appear as there was a severe lack of flow into why certain characters did certain things, all culminating in a big shoot out at a cemetery, again leaving me wondering how in the hell did it get this point.

But then if you’re renting a Steven Seagal flicks to for earth shattering social commentary, then you’re the one with the problem, not the big guy. One of the things this movie gets right is the casting of Lance Hendrickson. Now Mr. Hendrickson has absolutely no conscious when comes to what he will and will not do in a given movie, but even still his presence and his voice lend an instant credibility to whatever he happens to accept a check to be in. In what few scenes he showed up in this thing, he was great. This weeks Hot Woman of Color, which is almost a staple in a Seagal flick is the aforementioned Ms. Goldsberry, and she is a joy to look at. Perhaps a bit to cute and feminine to be the tough mercenary that I’m thinking that she was supposed to be, but better that she be in this thing than not in it at all. Then there’s Seagal himself, this time playing a bit of loser, which is completely out of character, but ultimately still being the ultimate, single minded of focus badass that we have come to know and love. Though his character is a bit different, Seagal still doesn’t alter his base character in the least and gives us basically the same guy we’ve been looking at since ‘Above the Law’, only a bit heavier. Good thing is that there are more fight scenes than usual in this one and Seagal seems to be doing most of the fighting himself, there was a ton of action with car chases, shootouts, snapped arms and dead Asian dudes all over the freaking place. And my hat goes off to director Roel Reine whose final blowout in the grave yard was certainly something to see. It also had a bit of an open ended conclusion leading us to believe there may be a couple more of these.

I still claim not to be a fan, despite the fact that this site is littered with Seagal movies. But I maintain that he, and Wesley Snipes at this point and time, are the only people making movies that guys want to see, and this is the simple truth. No matter how bad a previous Seagal movie may be, when the next one comes I will be there with bells on waiting to see it, and that I’m not ashamed of. If June rolls around and there’s no Seagal movie being released, I will be pissed off.

Real Time Web
        Analytics