Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

As you would expect from a straight-to-DVD effort, there is little in Driven to Kill to lift it from the cesspit. There are however two factors that make this movie unintentionally hilarious:1. Segal does a Russian accent. It's terrible. And very, very funny. 2. Segal's character Ruslan is supposed to be a novelist. It's hard enough believing this meat-fisted lunk can read, let alone write, but Segal has been detached from reality for some time now.As pointed out by one of the previous reviewers, Segal's computer keyboard control is astonishing - and even more impressive than the death-by-gun-barrel-in-the-eye sequence.Is this enough to make the movie good? Hell no, it has Steven Segal in it for a start. But if you've got nothing (and I mean *nothing*) better to do for 90 minutes, this may just about fit the bill.

Steven Seagal is "Driven to Kill" when his ex-wife is slashed to death and his grown-up daughter is beaten up and stabbed several times during a home invasion. This mediocre formulaic urban revenge thriller begins as if "Kill Switch" director Jeff King had planned to maintain the mystery about the identity of the villains behind this heinous act. No sooner have the chief characters been introduced than King lets slip who carved up the ex-wife and daughter. Similarly, our quick-witted protagonist keeps the news that his daughter has managed to survive the assault under wraps. This strategy sounds like a homage to the Steve McQueen thriller "Bullitt" when the eponymous detective withheld information about the death of a mob witness from the district attorney. Meanwhile, everything boils down to two rivals in the New York Russian mob squaring off against each other when one learns that his son is about to marry his enemy's daughter. King stages Seagal's perfunctory fights in bars, pawnshops, public garages, and a hospital, but there's nothing remotely memorable, though the garage scrap boasts at least one slick camera set-up. Probably the closest thing that makes "Driven to Kill" interesting in terms of Steven Seagal movies is that we get to see the renowned aikido master pursue a plug-ugly on foot. Mark James' screenplay boils down to basic stuff.Seagal is cast as Ruslan Drachev. A former Russian mobster in the Big Apple who served time in a gulag, Drachev has gotten out of the crime business to become a hard boiled novelist of pulp fiction thrillers. Ruslan is residing peacefully in California when his ex-wife Catherine (Inna Korbkina of "Dawn of the Dead") calls him up and asks him to attend his daughter's wedding. Ruslan flies out the next day and reunites with Lanie (Laura Mennell of "Watchmen") and then discovers that she is marrying his former rival's son, Stephan Abramov (Dmitry Chepovetsky of "Lucky Number Slevin"), who has a suspicious tattoo on his hand. Initially, Ruslan isn't pleased with his daughter's selection of a son-in-law, but Stephan assures Ruslan that he hasn't gotten involved in his father's line-of-work. Eventually, the man with all the schemes, Mikhail Abramov (Igor Jijikine of "Law of Corruption") comes out into the open and reveals himself and his villainy in all their glory. This is about the time that somebody in the NYPD leaks the information about Lanie's survival and Mikhail and a squad of gunmen enters the hospital to terminate Lanie. The last major set-piece transpires in the hospital. Ruslan tells the doctor to hide Lanie. While Ruslan is preparing a reception for Mikhail, Mikhail and his gunsels disguise themselves as police. When they enter the hospital, Mikhail and company run into two genuine cops and kill them. Meantime, Stephan holds Catherine's husband Terry Goldstein (Robert Wisden of "Watchmen") at gunpoint. It seems that Goldstein and Mikhail conspired to kill Catherine. Earlier, Goldstein admitted that he wanted all Catherine's money. Predictably, after an extended, noisy shoot-out, Ruslan kills Mikhail. Lanie recovers, and Stephan and she go on their honeymoon and Ruslan returns to California and resumes his career as a crime novelist.

Some revenge movies work, such as Bergman's "The Virgin Spring," but "Driven to Kill" does not because the screenplay was simply not ready. The beginning of the film was OK. Our hero Ruslan Drachev (Steven Seagal) is introduced to us as Russian mobster who, even in his advanced age, can attract women with his bad boy image. Seagal does not quite get the Russian accent right and his personality is not as fresh and vibrant as the Russian mobsters in Eastern Promises. But no matter. I also did not mind the fact that it was easy to predict what was going to happen at the wedding. When the title of the movie is "Driven to Kill," we can assume that Ruslan is in for a shock. But when the revenge sequence starts, the film falls apart. To begin with, Steven Seagal's character seemed too cool and composed to be "driven to kill." He did not even appear shocked and overwhelmed with grief after seeing his dead family. Dmitri Chepovetsky as the fiancé, Stepan, did a better job. This was a big problem, because "Driven to Kill" lacked that electricity one feels when you truly believe that the hero desires revenge. But the main problem was the plot itself. There was nothing new, there was no cleverness or wit. The villain was revealed too early on and his motivations for acting in the way he did were utterly absurd. Ruslan also did not want Stepan to follow in his mobster footsteps, which begs the question of why he brought him along for the killing spree in the first place. Finally, far too much film was devoted to Seagal's martial arts skills rather than to plot and character development (perhaps because there was nothing to develop!); and while the fight sequences were interesting on the first two or three occasions, they grew tiresome as the film dragged on. The gun fights were not interesting either and I rather suspect that the shocking scene where the mob boss shoots off his underling's ear was put in there to jolt the audience in order to hold onto their attention. There were some laughs from this movie, such as when Detective Lavastic (Zak Santiago) tried to explain why Ruslan's decision to go on a killing spree was wholly justified, because after all who in law enforcement would ever praise a civilian for going on a killing spree that wipes out 20+ people? But I do not think that scene was meant to be funny, because if the film-makers were that smart, they would have rewritten the entire script. This film also stars Igor Jijikine who is pretty convincing as the villain Mikhail, but unfortunately he is not given any good material to work with. The thugs also OK, except they are just thugs with small brains who, judging from their fighting skills, are setting themselves to go down hard. So they are not too interesting to watch either.

Driven to Kill(aka Ruslan) is the latest Steven Seagal film.Like all his other films for the past 7 years, this is once again a straight to DVD feature.Now by hearing this, you would not expect much after seeing that the majority of the newer Seagal films suck.However there are a few exceptions such as "Urban Justice", "Pistol Whipped" and this film, which in my opinion is not only his best straight to DVD film, but it ranks up there with his classics from the 90's.The acting is not all that great, and I did not find Seagal to be that bad of an actor back in his "Under Siege" days.Here, he sports a semi-Russian accent which is not very convincing.The acting from the others, especially the Russian mobster is fairly good though.The film is about a retired Russian mobster, who is now a novelist.After his wife is killed and his daughter is injured in an assassination of sorts, Seagal reverts back to his old ways and tries to find out who did this.The plot may not be the best but the most important thing about Seagal films is the action! In this category, it does not disappoint.I'm actually surprised it was Rated 14A in Canada because this is easily one of Seagal's bloodiest films.We also see Seagal use aikido again, as in we see him breaking people bones! Any fan of Seagal should check this movie out!