An absolute waste of money

A Brilliant Conflict

Too much about the plot just didn't add up, the writing was bad, some of the scenes were cringey and awkward,

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

An intelligence operative discovers that no one is what they seem in the shadowy world of espionage. The Shadow Man makes fun of 80's Pop Corn Action Flicks and unlike films such as Commando and Rambo 2 which although they were corny and over the top they still had a lot of cool one liners and a lot of great action that they were entertaining and turned into classics now in this case we have just a bad made for DVD kind of action movie starring Steven Seagal who shoots down a chopper with a gun and then it explodes and has some of the worst cgi effects i have ever seen , also he punches a dude and his eyes go missing or even the fact that a guy gets shot in the cheek and he is still alive for a few seconds before he gets shot in the head. Action Movies might be corny and over the top but they are entertaining and great if they are directed by the right person and have a great cast which in this case we have none overall The Shadow Man is just terrible.

Ever since I were born I always watched his films and loved them. But now I'm a lot older I feel they have dropped a lot 'Same with Van Damme'.The story felt like it..... Had now story. The acting and filming was bad. If you saw your daughter getting kidnapped, you would run after her, you wouldn't stand there and wait for the explosion to happen. And lets talk about the filming. Every scene felt like it was jerky and making it look like it was obvious that what was about to happen.The stunts and martial arts. You stand there and I will hit you and you can fall like there is something wrong with you. That is all that happened.I just think that Seagal has gone past his sell by date.

Shadow Man starts as ex CIA agent Jack Foster (Steven Seagal) arrives at a Romanian airport with his 8 year old daughter Amanda (Skye Bennett) in readiness for a holiday, however the holiday doesn't last long as a car bomb goes off & Amanda is kidnapped by a woman in a taxi. At the airport Jack meets up with one of his former CIA colleagues Harry (Vincent Riotta) & gives chase to the taxi but they lose it, Jack is angry about someone kidnapping his daughter & Harry fills him in. It seems that Jack's father-in-law George (Michael Elwyn) has smuggled out the formula for a bio-warfare chemical that is wanted by the CIA, the Romanian mafia & the Romanian cops all for differing reasons & that everyone suspects that George has used either Jack or Amanda to smuggle it into the country. Jack is now angrier than ever & kills lots of people as he searches for his daughter...This American, English & Romanian was directed by Michael Keusch & is yet another pretty bad straight-to-DVD low budget action film shot in Eastern Europe with Steven Seagal as some sort of CIA agent, soldier or other military or crime fighting Government official, his career now consists solely of this sort of production & he is still too fat. Do you know the thing that really bothers me about these recent conveyor belt production line of poor straight-to-DVD Seagal action flicks? It's not so much that they are bad but the fact that despite Seagal not making a decent film in over a decade I will always be bone headed enough to sit down & watch them! The script by Steven Collins, Joe Halpin & Seagal himself takes itself very seriously & there really isn't much to it, certainly nothing we haven't seen before. There's the usual cheaply staged fights & shoot-outs along with the now obligatory twists which are far too predictable. The film actually lasts for quite a long time & I must admit I was getting really bored with it, your never quite sure who the main bad guy is meant to be as there are various people after Jack & the formula but none are that menacing, given much motivation or screen time. So basically it's a disjointed plot that stumbles from one fight to another until Seagal finally gets his daughter back, was there any doubt?Director Keusch uses the annoying modern style of quick cut editing & shaky camera moves which gives Shadow Man an irritating look about it. The action scenes are strictly average, there are some fights & a couple of shoot-outs but very little else of interest. The one time the makers try to do something vaguely exciting with a car chase it looks pretty poor & very stilted. As does the whole film generally speaking, it's just not very good although competent I suppose. Seagal again uses long baggy coats to try & hide his weight but he does look out of shape & that's a fact. Then there's the CGI computer effects, Shadow Man contains an awful looking exploding helicopter that would embarrass a Playstation game. I'm not happy about the end either, I mean after causing lots of damage including destroying a public library, shooting & killing lots of people including innocent Romanian police officers are we really expected to believe Jack & Anya would be allowed to simply leave scott free? I'm sorry but you can't be arrested, taken to a police station, beat the hell out of two officers & just walk out. The other cops in the station would have blown Jack away without even thinking about it.Technically the film is alright although I didn't like the look or feel of it with it's MTV style editing & cinematography. Shot in Bucharest in Romania. One other gripe I have with Shadow Man is that quite a lot of the dialogue is spoke in Romanian with English subtitles but the subtitles are very small & only stay on screen for a few seconds & would often disappear before I manged to read them. The acting isn't great, Seagal mumbles his way through his lines as usual while Eva Pope will probably be better known to UK viewers as barmaid Tanya Pooley from over 100 episodes of TV soap opera Coronation Street.Shadow Man is yet another generic, dull & somewhat forgettable Seagal straight-to-DVD action flick. I didn't think that much of it & doubt many will, there are better action films out there.

The film concerns about a shadowy CIA ex-agent (Steven Seagal) , he goes to Bucarest (Romania) and at airport his daughter is kidnapped after an explosion . A Romanian cabbie (Eva Pope) carries to the small girl and being pursued by Seagal . Later on , he contacts with the American Ambassador (Imelda Staunton : Vera Drake). The film expands an exciting suspense about world of espionage blending with lethal virus intrigue and a kidnapping.The picture contains numerous gunshots , blown up , bloody killings and great lots of violence when struggles and murders happen . Interesting scenes when Seagal is locked into room and he similarly to ¨McGiver¨ uses items for creating weapons confronting nasties ; besides , some cars chase are quite thrilling . Here appears the prestigious British actress Imelda Staunton , she shot for two days, but Seagal did not film any reverse angles with her . All the scenes where her character speaks with Seagal's character were done with the help of a stand-in . Imelda Staunton was quite vocal about her displeasure with the film with several online publications , she went on to say that the picture was a disorganized, under-funded mess . The film is produced by veteran French producer Pierre Spengler and Joe Halpin , usual financiers of Seagal films and shot at Castel Studios in Bucarest where have filmed his last movies .The picture belongs the last period of Seagal career when he's making middling and low budget films , directly to video and many of them are considered semi-turkeys stinkers . These film are directed by B-directors as Don E. Fauntleroy (Mercenary for Justice) , Michael Oblowitz (Foreigner) , Anthony Hickox (Submerged) , Alexander Gruszynski (Black down) and this one , Michael Keusch (Attack force , Flight of fury) who directed him in three films . Following the tendency to oriental action cinema , Seagal hired Asian directors as Mink (Into the sun) , Leong (out the reach) , Ching (Belly of the beast) . These movies aren't on the level from previous successful and big budget Seagal films just like : ¨Glimmer man¨ , ¨Under Siege I,II¨ , ¨Exit wounds¨ , ¨The patriot¨ , ¨Fire down below¨ and others .