646f9e108c A hard core Interpol Agent is assigned to an Eastern European task force to target gun trafficking and dope running throughout the Balkans. While investigating a Russian gun dealer, his team is caught in a bloody street war between a Gypsy gang and the Russians, leaving one task force member dead. Fueled with vengeance, he leads us on an action packed thrill ride while avenging his friend&#39;s death. I go into this review admittedly having not watched a lot of Seagal&#39;s DTV stuff, which there are hundreds of, but I have watched a fewwellall his theatrical releases so I think I&#39;m pretty clued up on what to expect by now.<br/><br/>And for the most part, Born to Raise Hell fulfills the expectations you have of a Seagal movie - Seagal plays his usual rolea cop or some other sort of government/military official, some bad guys pop up, Seagal chases them down and deals with them. Usually, this combination of factors leads to a good watch where you can just sit and enjoy without thinking too much, but there are a few things that pull this film down from the usual Seagal standards.<br/><br/>Firstly, the cinematography and camera work is pretty terrible - unnecessary shaky camera and slow motion effects, freeze frames on really ridiculous moments (suchone on the main villain&#39;s face in the middle of raping a woman), the lot. It reminded me of that &quot;you wouldn&#39;t steal a car&quot; anti-piracy advert, except imagine that for whole action/dramatic sequences.<br/><br/>Another issue is that there is pretty extensive dubbing over of Seagal&#39;s voice - it&#39;s there from the very start and happens every so often throughout, always reminding you that it&#39;s there, that ol&#39; Steven just can&#39;t deliver his hard-hitting lines anymore (if he ever could). One fairly hilarious example is near the end when Seagal says a line &quot;I&#39;ll be out in 10, 15 minutes&quot; with the word &quot;minutes&quot; dubbed over. Did they really need to dub over the word &quot;minutes&quot; to give it that extra authority it needed? There usually is always a little bit of dubbing in Seagal DTV flicks and it&#39;s fine but there&#39;s just way too much here.<br/><br/>The other main criticism is the other characters - one of whom, a Russian drug lord living in Romania, is originally pursued by Seagal and his team but then Seagal sees fit to make a deal with this drug lord who has killed or ordered the killing of multiple people throughout the film, in order to pursue the main drug lord villain. There is a scene at the end where Seagal is talking to this morally reprehensible guy like they&#39;re friends. According to the film&#39;s logic it&#39;s OK because the other drug lord does home invasions where he murders people and rapes the women while the other one isn&#39;tbad.<br/><br/>There is also one of the most cringeworthy scenes I&#39;ve seen in a Seagal movie yet, where the overweight, ageing Seagal &quot;makes love&quot; with his young Romanian girlfriend. The shoddy camera-work with Seagal wearing clothes while his girlfriend is basically naked and quick cuts to make it look like they&#39;re having sex but not really just makes this scene unintentionally hilarious.<br/><br/>Overall, Born to Raise Hell is a less than passable Seagal DTV flick. Don&#39;t get me wrong, it&#39;s still enjoyable to watch, and Seagal&#39;s usual action sequences with martial arts aregoodwhat you&#39;d expect from the guy&#39;s DTV movies. But poor directing, dubbing and some choice plot scenarios let this one down. There&#39;s an hour and whatever of my life wasted. Poor in every respect, I felt offended by this film for reasons I can&#39;t quite fathom. Maybe something to do with an American view of the world? I can&#39;t be sure. Maybe that is my main gripe - the idea that a country, even ex-eastern bloc, needs the yanks to show &#39;em how to &#39;do justice&#39;; of course, there&#39;s no such thingdrug dealers or crime in the USA….. And the &#39;sex&#39; scene!?!? A laugh out loud moment, tinged with guilt. It mightwell have been inter- species. They probably made this film where they did &#39;cos the girls are pretty and easily paid. So, to summarise - red-neck, USA-hollering&#39; sexist clap trap. He should be, at the very least, strongly discouraged from making any movies again.
anelcopat Admin replied
344 weeks ago