People keep asking me all the time: why do they let Steven Seagal keep on making movies? Who watches them? Who wants to pay money for them? There are usually three or four new direct-to-DVD Seagal starrers released every year. All of them cheap, most of them shot in eastern Europe, and Seagal himself looks increasingly uninterested. It's also pretty hard to tell the movies apart. Especially since a majority of them are extremely boring.
Still, lots of people tell me they watch every new Seagal movie. They just have to. They gotta catch 'em all. They are fascinated by them. Boring movies starring a non-actor who once was nicknamed The Tall Guy, but who is now mainly The Fat Guy. Sometimes he is hardly in the movies at all, even though he came up with the story, produced and plays the hero. Sometimes he is dubbed by another actor, because he refuses to talk.
So, if you are longing for new Seagal thrills, you are a lucky person. At least three will appear during 2009, plus a TV series.
In February, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released AGAINST THE DARK, directed by Richard Crudo. This is Seagal's take on TWILIGHT - or maybe LET THE RIGHT ONE IN. Except for there is no romance or little kids. In AGAINST THE DARK, Seagal is vampire hunter Tao, who slashes up the undead with a samurai sword. Well, if Blade could do it, why not Tao? This movie is Seagal's first supernatural/horror film.
Then comes Jeff King's RUSLAN, which is in post-production right now. Seagal is a former Russian mobster named Ruslan Drachev, who is now a crime novelist, and who returns home and discovers his daughter is marrying his arch nemesis. His past also comes back to haunt him when his family is threatened. Hungry for justice, Ruslan returns to the life he once knew...with a vengeance. Of course he does. Steven Seagal as a crime novelist? Come on...
Filming right now is THE KEEPER, directed by Keoni Waxman. Our man plays an L.A. cop who after nearly being killed by his greedy partner, flees to New Mexico to work as a bodyguard for the daughter of a wealthy businessman. When mobsters kidnap her, he hunts them down to rescue her and protect her. Hmm - doesn't this sound like MAN ON FIRE? But they are actually shooting the film in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and not in Bulgaria or Romania.
TV's STEVEN SEAGAL LAWMAN is apparently some kind of reality show. Seagal claims he has been a lawman in real life for a long time. Now is the time for him to prove it!
Steven Seagal. Man. Myth. Belly. And a very long filmography.