Sick Product of a Sick System

People are voting emotionally.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Blistering performances.

The law of diminishing returns sees Steven Seagal's career sliding into oblivion, but I still manage to get a kick out of about half the straight-to-DVD movies he has coming out now. Unfortunately, TODAY YOU DIE isn't in that half: it's one of his worst films, an utterly low-budgeted, unoriginal attempt at an action thriller that rips footage from close to half a dozen other movies from the last ten years. Stuff from a Peter Weller film is in here, along with shots from Van Damme's THE ORDER, and you have to wonder just what the heck is going on when Seagal's using a body double for much of the running time.Unsurprisingly, the film is packed with continuity errors and other assorted goofs. The plot is threadbare and tattered, another silly excuse just to have Seagal wandering around, shooting people and beating them up. He takes part in a couple of fight scenes, but the rest use a stuntman to double for him. The funniest bit was when one fight is shot from the neck down, just when you thought they couldn't make it any plainer that Seagal took no part in it. These fights scenes would be quite entertaining if it wasn't for the obvious doubling, so it's a shame they found it necessary to do it.Elsewhere, the script is laughable and the film makes ANOTHER return to prison, where Seagal once again bonds with the black inmates and teams up with a black rapper-turned-wannabe-actor (sigh). Yet again he doesn't have to wear traditional prison garb although every other inmate does. The cast is an assorted mix of has-beens and wannabes, including a surgically altered TV actress, an almost unrecognisable returning actor from Seagal's glory days (Nick Mancuso from UNDER SIEGE I & II) and Robert Miano, a trash favourite. Seagal doesn't even try here and word has it that he often didn't bother turning up on set. The film as a result is an unwatchable mess, one to laugh at rather than enjoy. Director Don E. Fauntleroy's next collaboration with Seagal, MERCENARY FOR JUSTICE, turned out to be a lot better.

Director Don E. FauntLeRoy's slam-bang action thriller "Today You Die" is the first of three straight-to-video releases that he helmed with aikido star Steven Seagal. FauntLeRoy and Seagal reunited for "The Mercenary" and "Urban Justice." "Today You Die" qualifies as a fair formulaic crime saga about greed, betrayal, and the theft of $20-million. Set primarily in Las Vegas, "Today You Die" follows our hero after he survives not only a disastrous car chase on the strip but also a stint in prison as he tries to eliminate a gallery of villains who do their damnedest to scare him into revealing the whereabouts of the loot. Like most straight-to-video Seagal outings, "Today You Die" unfolds like a gravity-defying fantasy and our indestructible hero finds himself getting out of one tough scrap after another with groups of trigger happy gunmen. You can tell that Seagal made this movie after his theatrical run days ran out. The paunchy "Under Siege" star lets his stunt double help him out in various action scenes, most obviously when he seizes an overhead lighting fixture and propels his bulk over a table to knock a henchman head over heels during a fight scene. FauntLeRoy appropriates several scenes from Sidney J. Furie's "Top of the World" for a careening auto chase down the strip with Seagal behind the wheel of an armored truck that the police are pursuing. The prison sequence consists of many scenes derived from director Walter Hill's "Undisputed" with Wesley Snipes and Ving Rhames about boxing in prison. The scenes when Seagal acts improbably like a cat burglar who robs from the rich to give to the poor came from director Sheldon Lettich's thriller "The Order" with Jean-Claude Van Damme. The amazing thing about this stock footage is that FauntLeRoy does such as slick job of seamlessly making it a part of "Today You Die." Incidentally, the film draws its title from a line that Seagal's co-star Anthony 'Treach' Criss utters near the end when he has a face-to-face showdown with another villain who double-crossed Seagal in this tolerably entertaining shoot'em up. Mind you, FauntLeRoy and company shameless steal the scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" when Indy shot a native after he displayed his wizardry with swords rather than take the man on in his own element. Similarly, one of the villain's henchmen waltzes up to Seagal with intent to kill and performs a back flip and some martial arts moves before he closes in for the kill. Nonchalantly, Seagal whips out his automatic pistol and plugs the poor fool. As the film opens, our hero's African-American wife, Jada (Mari Morrow of "National Security"), has a bad dream about visiting a tarot dealer and see the dealer turn up the Death card. She sees somebody pull a gun on her husband, Harlan Banks (Steven Seagal of "The Glimmer Man"), and then she awakens to find herself in bed with Harlan. She recounts her dream and begs Harlan to reconsider going out and stealing. Harlan dismisses her dream. "Dreams are symbolic. They don't often mean what you see." The next time that we see Harlan, he is sliding down a wire on a contraption that allows him to go from one skyscraper to another. He enters an apartment in the skyscraper and finds himself in the residence of a scumbag narcotics dealer. No sooner has Harlan rifled the safe and looted it of its contents: sheaves of greenbacks and jewelry galore than he finds himself face-to-face with two thugs. Evidently, when Harlan bypassed the security alarms, these two found a way into the residence. Harlan explains that he robs only to give the loot to the poor. They suggest that he treat them like the poor. Harlan agrees and then reverses the shotgun that the thug had been holding and shoots both the thug and his back-up. The scene illustrates a point that often occurs in most Seagal movies: never shove a gun into our hero's snout because he will take it away from you as easily as taking ice cream from a baby. The next time that we see Harlan he accepts a legitimate job to drive an armored car from a crook named Max Stevens (Kevin Tighe of "Eight Men Out") who is planning a crime. Too late Harlan learns that he is driving the armored car for a gunman, Bruno (Robert Miano of "Fast & Furious"), and now the bullets really start to fly and here come the cops. The chase through Las Vegas that results in the deaths of three cops sees Harlan get away long enough to lay Bruno on the sidewalk and disappear with the armored car. Later, the police find Harlan on the sidewalk, too, and they arrest him. The filmmakers bypass length courtroom scenes and Harlan finds himself convicted and bussed off to a maximum security prison in the middle of nowhere. The thugs are furious because they have lost $20-million and Max stages his own death. Eventually, Harlan breaks out of prison the same way Charles Bronson broke into prison in "Breakout." They fly off in a helicopter and Seagal wipes out the villains.If you look closely, you can see a young Chloe Moretz, future star of "Kick Ass," as the little girl at a charity hospital on the block. Furthermore, Seagal's protagonist makes short work of former two-time UFC Light-Heavyweight champion and three-time UFC Heavyweight champion Randy Couture who plays a thug's front door henchman. Overall, despite the obvious use of his stunt double and the stock footage, "Today You Die" should satisfy undiscriminating Seagal fans in search of their fix. Freshman scenarist Kevin Moore and "Point of Impact" scribe Les Weldon have taken "Octopus 2: River of Fear" writer Danny Lerner's story and turned it into a noisy buddy picture that eliminates all the dull scenes, including some important exposition, so that "Today You Die" doesn't wear out its welcome during its 90 running time.

Steven Seagal is a thief who specializes in robbing wealther drug dealers, giving to the poor and unfortunate..heh, Harlan, the Robin Hood. Anyway, Harlan wants to go straight for his girl, Jada(Mari Morrow), so he takes on a job as the driver of an armoured car for a Max Stevens(Kevin Tighe, wasted in an underwritten role). Max intends to have the millions for himself and his unscrupulous associates, with the intent of using his loader, Bruno(Robert Miano)to bring him the money, but Harlan has other plans. Escaping the police, hiding the money, and ditching Bruno(who had a loaded gun pointed at Harlan's head threatening to shoot him if he didn't drive)after evading capture by ramming a huge dump truck, Harlan passes out. Charged with the murder of police among other things as a result of the damage caused by the high-speed chase, Harlan is imprisoned and many wish to know where the money is. Harlan joins forces with an inmate, Ice(Treach), a leader of one of the many gangs in the prison, breaking out with the plans of finding Max and eliminating every member of his corrupt entourage. Soon DEA agent Rachel Knowles(Sarah Buxton) becomes part of this scenario thanks to her boss, Saunders(Nick Mancuso)who claims there's drugs involved. Also injected into the plot is Harlan's desire to save a children's hospital about to close and Jada has mysterious dreams regarding Max.Seagal and Treach cut up with each other speaking in gangsta, while Buxton spends time trying to help Harlan, uncovering the possibility her boss is in cahoots with Max. Mancuso's character is an odd duck, allowing Rachel much leeway despite the threat she is to his career. Tighe shows up for five or so minutes tops, which is a shame. Seagal's Harlan escapes prison and finds each and every rich associate of Max's, inevitably discovering his whereabouts after cracking a few skulls, snapping some wrists, and breaking some bones. Treach speaks in his rapper speech and Seagal tries to answer him in kind, providing some unintentional laughs. As you'd expect, a lot of people get shot and Seagal doesn't break a sweat. It's interesting seeing Seagal in prison, among the convicts, helping Treach out when a group of "Eses" plan to take him out.

Almost as if there was an unexpected explosion in whatever department is supposed to handle plot and character development you can almost see bits of "what might have been" scatter all over the place. Bit like the fairly realistic blood spatters from (mostly) shoulder wounds in one shoot out.Seagal always manages to get interesting co-stars. In this case I nominate Mari Morrow.And it gets a bit sentimental at the end. Quite touching, especially after such a spectacular explosion in the final warehouse the whole damn county would have been declared a disaster zone. All good fun.But you can't deny you keep watching them, and part of the fun is that Seagal seems to insist on doing exactly what he feels is right. And even if it goes directly to video, how many stations carry his films?. Dammit I watched a 2005 film tonight on an Irish channel. It all means royalties.So lets all get crazy!.