One of my all time favorites.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

I came across this film unintended. Saw the name Seagal and thought OK, another B- Action movie... exactly what I wanted to see. But it said Thriller.. so I watched with interest... the opening credit went on with some pleasant music but I didn't realize then... the film did not develop as I hoped, no violence explosion, no hard shooting etc.. no running LOL... actually, now for me *SPOILER ALERTS!!!* this is a Drama /Existentialism (I always label films with 2 categories). This is by no means a Film Noir like some here on the board try to say. That is an insult to all the great films of the 40ties and early fifties... but alas, so many here have no clue about it and write stupid comments. Here we have no tension, we have no suspense and bleak outlook, that only can be done with good actors committing themselves and a good script. Here we have lame acting at best, and a director who wants to be more than he can achieve. Anyway. .. so about 30 min. into the film, I was already a little less interested, Duffy proposed Jack to fu*k his girl (May), that was the moment I said to myself Stop... what is this? Made no sense to what I was expecting from the movie.. but anyway, I was emotionally maybe a little opener that usually (because of personal reasons)... so as Jack was hit, fell in the pool.. woke up ... and then, looked at May, asking her if these were his cloth...... ever from the first second where the music came back in, when Jack was talking to May, the two tones from the song "The Spider" give an introduction, more noticeable than in the beginning of the film... same song, but at first watching, this was not clear to me. The talk, the story, was weird, but this music kept me captive... I stopped actually the film and googled the soundtrack, none available.. it is the only essential music in this film. astonishing... and a real discovery. love it, even the entry lyrics are intriguing... "I must confess, I've done you wrong, and now you're tangled in the web of my song... "exactly what i was... falling in the web of this song. GREAT!!!the song is available on Youtube, either film clip or video clip.The ending of the video clip with the vampire kiss is not necessary, because the retro look was cool enough.. (Greta didn't even have the heavy red lips as expected, she looks gorgeous). Sometimes newbies want to add too much things together which do not fit. That is maybe the border between amateurish/mechanical and real talent.The film has real flaws and weaknesses, others here have commented on that, so I refrain. But: We look movies for many reasons... this one is slightly below average but will stay in my memory because I discovered a great song.. and besides Films (DVD, MP4), I collect music... so thank you Keith Waggoner for that great song... One song is enough to make me happy and don't feel I had wasted time on the movie... :). Will even revisit the film, even though I have the lead song in my iTunes database... and listen to it a lot. 5/10

GUTSHOT STRAIGHT is a basic, slightly weird noir-thriller that was seemingly cast at random. The eclectic team of stars populating this one is its most unique asset, while everything else is predictable and firmly in the B-grade of cinematic standing. It's good for a lazy evening's repast, but it's got no hope of becoming anyone's new favorite.The story: A hapless gambler (George Eads) is drawn into a vicious setup that places his life at risk.In addition to Eads, the ensemble includes AnnaLynne McCord as the femme fatale, Stephen Lang and Ted Irvine as creepy weirdos, Steven Seagal as a mob boss and Vinnie Jones as his enforcer, and Tia Carrere in a three-minute role as a club lady. Despite most of the cast's affiliation with the action genre, there is very little action here, but at the best of times, there's a decent amount of intrigue. Essentially, the plot boils down to a slain millionaire and a case of blackmail, and when the film kicks into gear, the angst experienced by the Eads character is palpable and compelling. Disappointingly, suspense collapses in the form of Seagal's character, who's essentially written as a panacea to the lead character's problems and wrests an unconvincing happy end for the star.Even before then, the film has trouble maintaining its level of suspense. Giving every impression of trying to stretch their screenplay to meet a required runtime, the filmmakers resort to several time-killing scenes – sometimes it's a forced interaction between characters, and other times it's simply Eads walking around aimlessly. Speaking of which, it doesn't help the movie that the Eads character is a thoroughly unlikable and uninteresting jerk. Most of the other major characters are at least mildly interesting, but whatever time Eads doesn't spend directly imperiled is spent being a cad and a loser. The times that the film does get interesting are due to the hard work of the story, not of the protagonist.Among all of the performers whose name got drawn out of a hat to be in here, Seagal is the most curious. It's almost as though his scenes were filmed for another movie, given the abrupt change of tone the film undergoes as soon as he shows up, playing the mafioso persona he's cultivated for the last several years. I almost wish that Seagal were the main character, because even if this didn't actually improve the quality of the film, it at least would have made it shorter. As is, it feels overlong at 85 minutes, and I cannot recommend it to anyone but George Eads die-hards.

I didn't know what to expect with this movie. Maybe having little expectation is why I liked it.First of all it had a pretty good variety of good/known actors. Stephen Lang (Sargent guy from Avatar), Ted Levine (The Silence of the Lambs), even Tia Carrere and Steven Seagal have an appearance.Although the hat was a little silly. Really who wears a hat like that these days? I know, I suppose it was to add character.Not fantastic, but not that bad either. Definitely a notch above the average at least.With out giving anything away, the film had a nice dark film noir feel to it. This movie might be sort of a sleeper, I bet it will gain popularity in a few years..It might not have many reviews, and, a lot of them might not be great but I'd recommend it to anyhow who likes noir/mystery/dark style!

I didn't plan on writing a review about this movie, cause there simply isn't that much to say about it and I didn't have a strong liking or disliking for it, it was just a okay but flawed watchI'd like to point out that even though Steven Segal and Vinnie Jones despite getting top-billing and on the poster are not in it for that many scenes (3 to be exact).Now I don't even like them so personally I don't care but I know they have a strong following so I thought I'd give the heads up to their fans who might be eager to watch them.It's also not a action-movie as the poster is made to look like, it's more of a slow burning film noir type movie, not a very successful one but that is the genre I think they are heading for.It's not all negative though George Eads from CSI is a pretty cool guy in the lead and I wouldn't mind seeing him lead other movies in the future.The plot is decent when it's not all over the place, I could have done without 1 or 2 twists though, which felt terribly forced, like they often do in movies like these.AnnaLynne McCord whom I loved in Excision and enjoyed in Scorned (despite that movie being very flawed her performance was very entertaining) is just okay here, feels like she's not really trying too hard.Tia Carrere appears in one pretty pointless scene.What more can I say? Oh yeah one thing that got a little annoying was when they had tons of flashbacks of scenes from like 10 minutes prior in black and white, highly pointless.