Sunday, April 20, 2014

Force of Execution (2013)

In a change from his usual movies where he befriends a small child to show how sensitive he is and then kills everyone, Steven Seagal is a Mr. Douglas, a large, mumbling,  emotionless crime lord with a little goatee and what is possibly supposed to be a Southern accent. It's damn strange whatever it is.  When he sends Hurst, his number one hitman,  to go undercover as a prison guard and kill a snitch, gang leader Iceman points out the wrong target.

When Hurst returns to bad guy central, Mr. Douglas says he's been a loyal number one hitman for fifteen years but this mistake is unacceptable.  Douglas has Hurst severely beaten and breaks his hand, but as a sign of respect he's allowed to live. This allows Hurst to become a drunken bum who cries in frustration because he can't hold a pistol and live in a dirty room above a restaurant in a bad part of town.

After Oso and Douglas's girl, who run the restaurant downstairs, are targeted by Iceman's gang, Hurst starts protecting them and informs Mr. Douglas that the Iceman is planning on taking over his territory.  Isn't it nice that even though Douglas destroyed his life and crippled his hands, Hurst is still loyal?  Aw now we're going to see some action.

Based on Seagal's age and size, you can probably guess we're not going to see much action from Seagal. He dons sunglasses, a hat, a scarf, and grabs a big gun. While there are a few fight scenes with Seagal where he heavily thumps someone on the noggin, most of the action is done by Hurst, who should be starring in his own action movies since he's got some good moves. Too bad the action is few and far between in this film.

The strange thing about this movie is everyone is a bad guy and how are we really supposed to root for a killer?  Are we supposed to sympathize with Hurst because his livelihood of assassination was taken away after his hands are smashed?  Because the real question I have is why didn't he drag his bloody carcass to a hospital so he could be treated and his hands would heal, rather than having two useless appendages that are only good for clumsily slapping on either side of a bottle of liquor?


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