User Reviews

For their sixth feature-length collaboration, Steven Seagal and director Keoni Waxman stick with the formula that had served them well for their last two pictures. Like FORCE OF EXECUTION and A GOOD MAN, ABSOLUTION features more fights, a recognizable supporting cast, and a beard for Steven…but it's not as good. This is a decent action flick, but while it has all the right components, it's missing the energy of its recent predecessors. It's worth watching if you're a fan, but it's much more of a middle-of-the-road outing for the Buddhist Bonecrusher than I would prefer.

The story: A mercenary hit man (Seagal) becomes involved in a corrupt operation between the government and the underworld when he rescues a young woman (Adina Stetcu) from a vicious mafia boss (Vinnie Jones).

In all fairness, I did not particularly enjoy the expanded storyline, but someone who has no problem with it might rate the film higher than me. A cornerstone of the plot involves Vinnie Jones' character as a sadist who kills trafficked women in his personal torture chamber; this isn't HOSTEL by any means but it is sadism purely for sadism's sake, and it makes for probably the worst role that Jones has ever played. Adrina Stetcu, playing his surviving victim, is a damsel who needs to be saved multiple times by Seagal and ultimately falls for him despite his relatively cold attitude towards her. This is a pretty cynical film, for sure...though it isn't without its light moments. There's a laid-back sense of humor for most of the runtime, and Seagal seems to enjoy teaming up with his on screen partner Byron Mann. This isn't BELLY OF THE BEAST, but the two have decent chemistry.

Like Bren Foster and Victor Webster in the two films before this one, Byron Mann fills the role of a nimbler cohort to take the heat in half of the fight scenes. Of the nine full-length brawls, Byron leads five and the adrenaline is clearly on his side. Both Seagal and he are guilty of some doubling throughout, but particularly Mann's fights provide some thrills; I enjoyed his showdown with ex-UFC champ Josh Barnett more than I thought I would. Seagal is serviceable and even reaches into his repertoire to pull out some moves from his heyday, but overall, the brawls could use some better choreography. Vinnie Jones' single fight is particularly disappointing.

This movie constitutes the third installment in Seagal/Waxman's "Alexander" trilogy, but it does not tie the story lines together any more than A GOOD MAN did. ABSOLUTION can easily be viewed as a standalone film, but if you were to watch only one of the three most recent Seagal vehicles, it should not be this one. While not such a big step down that I'd be amazed if Steven regained his composure with his next film, this one's still a minor disappointment for this fan and should definitely be approached as a rental.

When a contract killer encounters a girl on the run from a psychotic, cockney, ex-footballer cum actor mob boss, with powerful political ties, he is torn between protecting the girl, and remaining loyal to the government agency that hired him for the mission......

Seagals movie career of late seems to be like the mountain setting on your generic treadmill. Up, down, up, down, and so on.

After his last movie, A Good Man, it seemed that Seagal started to give a damn about his audience again, but just like any old friend you haven't seen in years, he goes and let's you down again.

And I'm talking letting you down in the way he did back in 2006 with the slew of movies he made for Sony. This is on the same level as Attack Force, Flight Of Fury, and Against The Dark.

But instead of being shocked into just how awful those movies were, you just roll your eyes and think to yourself 'oh well, he'll have another movie out next year'.

But then on hindsight, after seeing the state the man is in, that may not be the case. He's become a caricature of himself. Spray on hair, spray on beard, long coats to hide his girth, and tinted sunglasses to hide his years/embarrassment.

It's a generic plot that's passed from straight to DVD action movies like a ticking time bomb. Man on a mission completes mission, bumps into damsel in distress, and finds out he's been set up by person who set up original mission.

With a special guest star as the chief bad guy.

Seagal is clearly past his prime. Here it seems that the film is sold by his name, because he still has a solid fan base, but he's upstaged by Van Damme defector Byron Mann (Ryu, from the classic Streetfighter) who is very light on his feet.

So if like me, you still yearn for that last classic from Seagal, keep waiting, you won't find it here.

But it's the best film ever to see Seagal and realise that he's slowly becoming Jabba The Hut.

Rubbish.

ABSOLUTION is another in the absolutely endless wave of action thrillers made in the past few years starring Steven Seagal and invariably shot in some East European country; this time it's Romania. Seagal plays the usual former special forces guy who moves in to help save a girl from the mob, only to find a sinister conspiracy in place surrounding a popular nightclub. Anyone familiar with the modern-era Seagal will know to expect shaking camera fights and plenty of doubling, with the hefty protagonist now one of the worst things about his own films. The rest is just about passable, with the likable Byron Mann (a Seagal regular) doing well as the second hero and Vinnie Jones randomly playing a serial killer in scenes that feel like they belong in a different movie. The fights are refreshingly gruesome with lots of justice meted out to the bad guys.

A man known only as The Boss (Jones) is some sort of crime lord but also has a kill room where he tortures and murders the captive victims of his insane rages. When one girl, Nadia (Stetcu) escapes The Boss, she ends up crossing paths with a hired Killer - said to be "the only guy who can do the job" - named John (Seagal). John, a rotund man of girth, teams up with an actual Martial Artist named Chi (Mann) so they can both fight the baddies that are after them - some for political reasons, some for personal ones. After a lot of violence and bloodshed, the final confrontation occurs: The Boss vs. John. Who will feel the ABSOLUTION? Absolution is proof that they are indeed still making Steven Seagal movies. Maybe it's not that difficult to head off to Romania for a while and, armed with a computer that can do CGI bullet hits and editing software that can speed up fights and take away frames, come back with something that you can release to DVD. Presumably Seagal himself doesn't have to appear that long on the set, as he has other people do his ADR, his stuntwork, and even his dialogue scenes, as stand-ins, well, stand in for him. Many times this is very obvious that Seagal is not actually there listening to the dialogue said by other people. Usually his stand-ins look like Hollywood producer Robert Evans or Roy Orbison. So now you'll know what to look for. It's possible some of the stand-ins even have glasses or blonde hair, that's how little they care to make it match. (That's a joke, but very close to the truth).

Just exactly why Seagal doesn't do these fundamentals of filmmaking remains unexplained. Is he some sort of Hollywood royalty that thinks he is above doing these things? Better question: what does this free up time for him to actually DO? What is so important to him that he can't really even appear in his own movies, but for a bare minimum? When did he get so lazy? Why is he running away from himself? (Stay tuned until the last paragraph for a potential answer).

We're not really sure who is watching these Seagal movies (besides us, obviously, but we have a website about direct-to-video action movies - what's everyone else's excuse?) - and, if people are watching them, are they taking them seriously? Are they meant to be taken seriously in the first place? Judging by Seagal's narration about him being a bad man in search of absolution, whatever that may mean, we think the answer may be yes, interestingly. Maybe the foreign markets eat these things up, we don't know. Thankfully, when Seagal is talking (and not someone else talking for him), he doesn't lapse into a random Cajun accent too much, but you never know when it will strike. It's like a cobra. A Cajun cobra.

Smartly, the filmmakers brought a solid actor and quite good Martial Artist named Byron Mann to pick up Seagal's considerable slack. The movie could have starred Mann and been perfectly fine, if a bit junky. However, the two of them walk away slowly from an explosion, so, maybe there was some bonding there. Fan favorite Vinnie Jones as the uncreatively named "The Boss" (Seagal's name is "John" in the movie so the writers get zero points for creativity in naming the characters) is really at his worst here. Not him, per se, it's not his fault, but the role is weak. But the guy likes to keep working, so, lord bless him. But as a pseudo-Saw-type monster/crime boss, Jones doesn't shine like he should. It could've been anyone wearing that apron in that green-tinted room.

Seagal is a victim of his own choices in life. He is where he is because of no one but himself. He wanted to place more emphasis on being some sort of blues-playing Buddha than on doing what he does best. He should consider being less lazy and arrogant and instead put some energy into what he puts out there with his name on it. If he were to reverse course and do that, we might really have something going forward. But as it stands, this is pretty much standard Seagal muck.

Personally I like all Steven Seagal movies and this is one of his better ones in recent years. There are only a couple a few of his movies I haven't seen since I have only Netflix & Hulu at home and no expensive cable bill. I was in the military and met him once up in Alaska while we were to do some military training. I hope and wish he would come out with something big in the theaters like he did in the late eighties & early nineties. This one had a great plot and story line since human trafficking is a real problem in the world today. I wish I was recruited to hunt down human traffickers but I wouldn't want to just catch them and bring them to trial.....once we have solid proof and catch them red handed I would shoot them on site without any hesitation whatsoever. I'm not a republican/conservative/right and never will be but especially major crimes if they're caught red handed there should be no trial because the trial and all that is just a waste of money so just punish them right then and there.

Steven Seagal in another Steven Seagal film. He's been in 58 films so far and I was surprised it was so low. He seems to be in a film a month. This is another routine action story involving corruption, gangsters, perversity and lots of shooting and fighting. Mr. Seagal lumbers about like a woolly mammoth and has a comely young woman fall implausibly in love with him and Vinnie Jones plays Vinnie Jones unconvincingly. The music score is hilariously over the top. The only bright spark in the film is Byron Mann as Chi. The film raises itself when he is onscreen.