- Actors: Steven Seagal, Russell Wong, Jemma Dallender
- Director: Keoni Waxman
- Disc Format: NTSC, Widescreen
- Language: English
- Region: Region A/1
- Number of discs: 1
- Rated: R
- Studio: Lionsgate
- Release Date: February 28, 2017
- Run Time: 90 minutes
If you are
wondering how Steven Seagal continues to make movies, despite being too lazy or
out of shape to ever utilize the skills that once made him famous, blame
filmmaker Keoni Waxman. The last eight films that Waxman has directed were all
poorly made action films starring Seagal, impressive only for the level of
incompetence across nearly every aspect of their production. Someone must be
making money off of this garbage, because there seems to be no passion behind
any of the filmmaking. Contract to Kill
may be the worst one yet, but I honestly can’t remember much more than the
ineptitude from my viewing of the previous collaborations between the pair.
The narratives
for these atrocious and unwatchable films are nearly always far too convoluted,
leaving little time for badly choreographed and sloppily shot action sequences.
And they nearly all take place in foreign countries, presumably to save money
while pretending the international cast and narrative is anything but silly and
derivative. In this latest embarrassment, Seagal plays a CIA/DEA enforcer named
Harmon, though he is really just another ridiculously well-dressed (Does Seagal
just do these films to steal the wardrobe?) hired professional, who is so good
at his job that we never see him do much of anything.
Harmon is
investigating terrorists who were captured in Mexico,
bringing him to a complicated plot involving Islamic extremists in Istanbul, playing out
like equal part right-wing fantasy and nightmare. In order to prevent a
terrorist attack against America
(despite none of the film taking place in the U.S.), Harmon plays the villains
against each other with a logic-free plan, though it inevitably comes down to a
lackluster battle. Before they discover him, however, Harmon is able to use an
extremely noticeable tactics to infiltrate their operation.
Among these
tools is an operative whose only purpose for much of the film is to fly a
flashy looking drone near the hotel windows of the bad guys, noisily and flashily
spying on important conversations that are conveniently played to open windows.
Harmon also brings along a female operative named Zara Hayek (Jemma Dallender),
who is about as discreet as you would expect a well-dressed model to be in this
situation, especially when she uses her cell phone to film the terrorists
inexplicably having a public conversation in the middle of a hotel lobby. After
an uncomfortable sex scene with Seagal getting far handsier than is normal in
any professional film setting, it becomes painfully clear why Dallender was
cast, despite looking 10-years too young to be in this profession, 20-years too
young to be paired with Seagal, and 30-pounds too light to achieve any of the
fight scenes portrayed in the film. As if these films aren’t offensively bad
enough, it feels like you are watching a young actress literally exploit
herself and her youth for the sake of Seagal’s ego and creepiness. He has more
direct contact in this brief sex scene than in all of the choreographed fight
scenes of the film.
It probably goes
without saying that the acting in this movie is questionable, at best. Along
with a teenage model pretending to be a professional spy, all of the bad guys
struggle just to speak English convincingly, because the filmmaker must know
that his audience base won’t be bothered with the task of reading subtitles. It
feels as though everyone that was cast in this film is simply a friend of the
filmmaker, or the cheapest possible option while shooting on location in Romania. Only
slightly more believable than the acting is the special effects utilized in the
film, though many shots are re-used several times over the course of the film.
Not only is it lazy, but it aggressively insults the intelligence of its
viewers, all but assuming that they must not be paying attention to this
drivel.
The Blu-ray
release does nothing to enhance the shittiness of the filmmaking, though it
does come with a Digital HD copy of the movie. This might be useful for those
who would rather watch this movie on their cell phones. I’m sure it wouldn’t
make it any worse than it already is. The special features on the disc include
a generic making-of featurette and a trailer gallery.
Entertainment Value:
1/10
Quality of
Filmmaking: 0/10
Historical Significance:
0/10
Special Features: 1/10
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