|
 ere's
a thought: the first draft of Seagal's latest
direct-to-video actioner "Black Dawn"
must have had Muslim terrorists as the villains,
because it doesn't make sense that a bunch of
Chechnya
teenagers (they look like teenagers with facial
hair, anyway) are trying to blow up
Los Angeles
with a suitcase nuke. The reason given is that the
CIA killed their leader, so now they want to bring
the pain to
Los Angeles
. Which, actually, is kind of okay with me. Like
most Americans, I probably won't miss
L.A.
all that much if it went kaput tomorrow. Oh sure,
we'll probably bemoan the absence of mindless
Hollywood Summer blockbusters for the first few
years, but by then some quick thinking
entrepreneur would have relocated Hollywood to
Idaho already, so what's to cry about?
In "Black Dawn",
Steven Seagal reprises the character of Jonathan
Cold, an ex-CIA agent turned freelance operative
who was last seen blowing stuff up real good in
Europe
as chronicled in "The
Foreigner". (For those wondering,
"Black Dawn" marks the only sequel
Seagal has done other than the "Under
Siege" movies.) This time around, Cold is
somewhere in
Los Angeles
, having broken some British guy whose name
escapes me out of federal prison. Said British guy
wants Cold to join him and his bearded little
brother to sell a suitcase nuke to the
aforementioned
Chechnya
teenagers, who have been going around the world
busting up jewelry stores to finance their little
purchase. And they say teenagers nowadays can't
finish a hard job!
While Cold is in the employ
of the British fellow, we notice that the CIA is
watching things. Or actually, Agent Amanda (Tamara
Davies), who used to be Cold's protégé, is doing
most of the watching, not to mention snapping an
obscene amount of photographs. (At one point the
cutie pie CIA agent must have snapped about 5
rolls of Cold during a 5 second span. Seriously,
the girl's got a problem, methinks.) And so the
Chechnya
teens manage to get their hands on the suitcase
nuke (remember, they want to blow up
L.A.
), and it's up to Cold and his former protégé to
save the day.
The film takes a curious turn
toward the halfway mark, as it's revealed that
Cold is not who he claims to be, and various other
factions of the CIA become involve. It's all very
convoluted, not to mention keeping the main
storyline in the background. (Remember those crazy
Chechnya
kids and their plot to blow up L.A?) There's a lot
of action in "Black Dawn", but it's
almost all shootouts, which leaves little room for
Seagal to ply his trademark bone breaking skills.
Fans of Seagal's martial arts won't be too happy
with the choice of guns over martial arts, and
even longtime watchers of generic direct-to-video
shoot'em-ups will walk away thinking there are way
too many gun battles involving silenced pistols
going pfft
pfft pfft all the time.
Besides using more stunt
doubles than before (basically anything involving
Cold shot from 5 feet away involves a Seagal stunt
double), Seagal seems content to remain in the
background for much of the movie. That leaves
Tamara Davies to do a lot of the running, diving,
and shooting. Davies' character is the audience's
POV -- she's constantly confused about what's
going on, leading to some funny lines. It goes
without saying that Davies has no chemistry with
Seagal whatsoever, but then again, who does? To
her credit, Davies carries on with the role with
enthusiasm, as if she didn't know she was in a
generic action movie filled with generic bad and
good guys doing and saying, well, generic things.
Of the villains, Nicholas
Davidoff talks with a Russian accent for half of
the movie, and forgets for the other half. And I
can't even remember the name of the British
villain, which should say something. Most
disappointing of all is that Don Franklin, late of
the great but cancelled TV show "Seven
Days", has a small role as Amanda's partner,
but he has a total of about 3 exposition scenes
before he's unceremoniously killed off. Plus, fans
of '90s softcore erotica should get a kick out of
seeing the movie's producer, Andrew Stevens,
sporting a 'stache as a security guard at a
nuclear facility.
There's nothing about
"Black Dawn" to make it a particularly
bad movie given its star's recent output, but
unfortunately there's also nothing slightly
remarkable about it, either. Director Alexander
Gruszynski doesn't bring a whole lot to the film,
but then again, neither does Martin Wheeler's
Plot-o-Matic 3000 screenplay. The film is saved
somewhat by the fresh enthusiasm of Tamara Davies,
and it's too bad she's not in a better movie. The
lack of martial arts might put off Seagal fans,
but let's face it, if you still consider yourself
a Seagal fan after the string of mediocre products
the man has put out in recent years, and then
you'll probably watch anything with the ponytail
one in it. |
