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 ut of Reach" is the nth Steven Seagal movie
to go straight to video, is helmed by a Hong Kong director, stars Seagal
as a Super Duper Martial Arts Guy With a Mysterious Past, and is set in a
foreign locale. It's also the strangest Seagal movie I've seen, not to
mention being the most unintentionally funny.
Seagal stars as William Lancing, a Super Duper
Martial Arts Guy With a Mysterious Past who once worked for a Super Duper
Secret Government Agency but has since quit to live a life of solitude in
the woods. Lancing passes the time by patching up wounded birds and
writing to his pen pal, an orphan girl name Irena, in Poland. But the
strange thing is, although we see Seagal "writing" the letters,
the voiceover that "reads" the letters is provided by someone other
than Seagal. Trust me, when you've seen as many Seagal movies as I have,
you can tell when Seagal's voice is being dubbed. In the course of the
film, I'd guess that about half of Seagal's dialogue (and most of the
dialogue where Seagal isn't onscreen) is dubbed in.
After Irena is taken from the orphanage by Evil
Mastermind Faisal, played by perennial Nasty Villain Matt Schulze (who
played the Nasty Villain in "Torque"
and "Transporter",
to name just a few), Lancing arrives in Poland to bust some heads. He
teams up with a hot blonde cop who has issues of her own, and the two go
after an International Conspiracy getting rich from trafficking young
girls. And oh yeah, the Super Duper Secret Government Agency that Lancing
used to work for follows him to Poland determined to "tie up loose
ends"; they do this by helping Faisal. You know, I'd think my Super
Duper Secret Government Agency would be at least beyond helping a
snakehead just to cap some ex-agent, but maybe I'm just too much of an
optimist.
For a Seagal movie, "Out of Reach" is
surprisingly short on action. There are some spurts of action in the
beginning, a few more in the middle, but that's about it until the final
action set piece when Seagal and the hot blonde cop takes on a gaggle of
gunmen in a brothel that looks suspiciously like a hastily put-together
set. Later, Seagal waltzes into Faisal's completely unguarded mansion and
has it out with the baddie using swords. Of note in this later scene is
that Faisal actually gets in some good shots at Seagal. This, and a scene
in "Belly
of the Beast" where Seagal proves to be just human, is an
intriguing trend. In his old age, is Seagal finally, at last, starting to
let go of the notion that all his characters must be invincible? I
dare not make such grand leaps in hope.
As I mentioned, most of "Out of Reach" is
strange and unintentionally funny. There's that whole thing about Seagal's
voice being obviously dubbed over. Even stranger is that we get to hear
what people think, including the villainous thoughts of the villainous
Faisal. It's a pretty weird device, and was probably inserted later on in
post-production when the filmmakers realized that their film simply didn't
make things clear enough. So they added further exposition via intrusive
voiceover in case any of Seagal's dwindling fan base were too thick to
"get" the hackneyed plot.
Even if you like Steven Seagal's brand of mindless
mayhem, I'm not sure if there's enough "Seagal" in this one to
satisfy even the most undemanding Seagal aficionado. There just doesn't
seem to be enough action, at least compared to Seagal's recent films like
"Out For a
Kill" and "Belly of the Beast". The other thing that
might interest some people is that Seagal seems to have thinned out quite
a bit. In fact, there seems to be two Seagals running around in "Out
of Reach": the bloated Seagal, who shows up in the beginning, and a
slightly thinner Seagal, who shows up about halfway through "Out of
Reach".
In short, "Out of Reach" is a Seagal film.
If you like Seagal films, you'll probably like anything the guy does. If
not, then this one will seem as if Seagal is trying even less than before,
and the result is one unintentionally wacky film. I don't think anyone
expects Seagal's film to have a strong narrative spine, but it's
nevertheless rather bewildering to behold just how incoherent this latest
Seagal offering is. And lastly, after "Out for Justice" and
"Out for a Kill", isn't it just a little bit too early to re-use
"Out" in yet another movie title? Just a thought.
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