What Was The Appeal Of Steven Seagal?

funny now and a lot more when I get in that office you can take that to the bank want to take you to the bank senator Trent to the blood bank it's no secret that in recent years Steven Seagal has become a best complacent and at worst a bit of a dick he's pushing out work at a pretty rapid pace though it would be hard to tell one of his more recent films from the other and his public image has taken one hell of a self cause beating so what actually was the appeal of Steven Seagal during his most successful years what was it about this guy that has allowed him to still push out movies that some people somewhere must actually watch his contemporaries have reinvented themselves growing and evolving with their work and finding actual success from J CBDs genuinely decent dramatic roles to Dolph Lundgren's pretty okay stab at the director's chair hell chuck norris appears to become even more popular in recent years so what happened to this guy and why did we like him in the first place at 64 here's the same age as current action star Liam Neeson one would expect Seagal would be a go-to for the same roles that nice and seemed to have a pick of these days after rule segala is actually able to do the martial arts his characters are supposed to he's a master in Aikido and made sure that was very much represented throughout his career however since the mid-90s his box office returns dipped dramatically to the point that he was quickly relegated to the director video market and now apart from the optical appearance pretty much exclusively low-budget DVD and VOD film favoring large jackets tight framing and choosing to spend much of his time sitting down to cover his matured shape with only very quick flashes of his trademark Aikido action he seems to either not be able to or not interested in evolving as an actor the way other action stars have but once admittedly quite long ago now Seagal was a genuinely formidable screen presence with a string of hits in the late 80s through to the mid-90s that any act will be proud of following the success of his first film above the law he grew into a very dependable bankable star though his later work devolved into generally poor straight-to-video flicks with the odd half decent effort here or there for a short while he was appearing in genuinely decent action I'm thrillers that's the thing for me that I find interesting about Steven Seagal I don't want to get into who he is so much the things he stands for as that's been done far better than I ever could in psychology a study of the ass-kicking films of Steven Seagal by Vern and I can say is one the best books you could ever hope to read if you have an interest in Seagal or action films in general but there is something genuinely fascinating about these earlier films that I want to explore briefly as said before there was once an appeal to Seagal something that really made him a household name but was it about him or the films he appeared in the thing about Segal's earlier stuff has said is that generally they're decent flicks there are almost less action films and more crime thrillers after the over-the-top bombast of the 80s muscle-bound one-man-army heroes Seagal felt more like a from the street straight talking genuine guy who happened to know martial arts and you believed it is that kind of what he was or at least how he appeared like a cross between the fast-talking everyman John McClane and the hard-hitting martial artist Van Damme he ushered in the 90s action hero with his genuinely fascinating use of her then pretty young scene martial art and he's tough formidable but still believable appearance for me though what really made Segal of course was the films he appeared in in his first five films above the law hard to kill mark for death out for justice and under siege he worked with interesting experienced directors in films that surrounded him with great character actors that helped elevate his work from cheap interchangeable action films with interchangeable free words titles to actual decent entertainment to bad even during this period of genuine success he still looks a little bit silly when running Andrew Davis who helmed a fugitive right after his final Seagal collaboration book ended this period of success directing both the girls first film above the law and his biggest success under siege having worked previously with Chuck Norris on code of silence in 1985 you can see Davis's evolution from trashy R films through his films as a gal to his oscar-winning the fugitive his Chuck Norris action film chops made him a perfect fit to bring Segal's at a big screen and his down and dirty shooting Sal fit the character of Nico well when it came to under siege both director and actor developed significantly and together they made one of the more memorable die-hard honor something films this time using that formula for some battleship action surrounding Seagal with better actors including Tommy Lee Jones in a very unrestrained bad guy role really makes under siege work with seagulls typically understated delivery feeling right against Jones and you see two larger-than-life personalities it helped to that Davis's action directing it improved significantly since above the law and together they deliver a very entertaining film that would also sadly be cigars last real critical and commercial success it's the film's between above the law and under seas that really interest me though as they all feel unique and yet are very much of the same mold in hard to kill Steven Seagal hunts William Sadler the man responsible for the death of his wife and acts later alongside some kind of lost forest animal and his then wife Kelly LeBrock it was the first film to really make strong use of Seagal skill of Aikido something Andrew Davis shied away from favoring gunfights having never found quite the right way to showcase the martial art it's not a great film but it has its moments you have to look at these in relation to seagulls other efforts and the film's at the time obviously hard to kill is not an objective classic but as part of the Seagal filmography it's a decent film and like much of this period of Siegel's work it has competent action sequences in a hero that whilst always powerful feels like at times he could lose most of the film he spends building himself back up after being almost fatally injured training himself to expose the murder of his wife when he gets his revenge it feels earned this was back when not every one of his films felt the same or needed to be wildly different to feel at least a little unique omits the tide of generic DTV stuff the story here matters not only the concept marked for death his next film is a mad tail that pits Steven Seagal against Jamaican drug lord or two with Keith David at his side an actor that makes literally any film he is in ten times better it was the first film as a gal to really nail the action with horror director dwight little letting the camera hang back as a gal did his thing punching in for bone breaking close-ups and offering a couple of scenes of excessive overkill for good measure another interesting choice for director hora chops bring awareness and violence to a Seagal film and slightly raises it above your standard action film while still fitting that usual formula of overpowered cop takes on gang narrowly avoiding death a couple of times before successfully taking them down at this point if that formula was beginning to feel stale at least it was done generally pretty well whereas later would become incredibly stale with if you were lucky maybe half the quality the film that I loved most of the girls entire filmography though the one that really for me demonstrated the gals appeal and how if you put him in the right film it could actually work is John Flynn's out for justice in this crime thriller Seagal not only beats one perp of a sausage and shoots another guy's leg off but it gives him his best villain William Forsythe another immense character actor is terrifying as a raging psychopath who has completely lost any sense of consequence for his actions going on a crime spree that starts with the murder of NYPD detective Geno fully knows partner and yep he is called Geno Foligno this film has it all including some of the best action scenes of his career helping to prove the girl that when he wanted to be was a legitimately good fight performer with these four films up to under siege Seagal were two directors who had the ability to at least have some semblance of control Seagal was still fairly new to filmmaking and there was work done to make him feel like a real actor an experienced director like John Flynn who had worked for a while making lean hard-hitting crime films fits a ghoul into their style not the other way around this down-and-dirty street-level action film word for Seagal taking more of a crime thriller approach and keeping his Aikido to an impactful minimum while surrounding him with an interesting cast led to decently entertaining movies there was a reason people enjoyed seeing them sadly Seagal took the wrong lessons from these and felt it should all be about him though my favorite film of his out for justice was also the beginning of the end for anyone looking to have creative control of a Seagal picture John Flynn stated the working with Seagal was quite difficult and Seagal actually had some of forsyth scenes removed as he felt they were up staging his own performance after under siege he then made his first truly bad film which also happens to be his one and luckily only directorial effort later apart from a surprising turn against type an executive decision where he's one of the main build cast and to be quickly killed off he never recovered from his own growing overconfidence an attempt to repeat the success of under siege failed and not even action film super producer Joel Silver could reinvigorate Segal's career with exit wounds quickly Sega's Korean nosedive so what was the appeal then well he was a genuinely decent martial artist in films directed by directors that knew what they were doing with actual budgets at the time he was fresh and exciting feeling like something new after the Rambo's and commandos of the 80s in hard-hitting action films it also worked as street-level crime thrillers he was placed alongside interesting actors that made the world's he inhabited feel believable and each film had its own identity he hadn't yet tried to take complete control of every film he was in and as such there was genuine artistry it wasn't about making him look good it was simply about making the films he was in work could Steven Seagal save his career could he again be more than just a bargain bin action film actor would audiences get past his tarnished public image worried too embraces of parents instead of a sort of action film Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now and take on roles as bad guys or maybe mentors then why not there is use out there for Steven Seagal if filmmakers take a chance on him or more so if Seagal is prepared to step out of his comfort zone or even stand up worried to relinquish control allow someone to use him for a character that actually fits who he is now then maybe he'd find some renewed success the question really is after all this do we even want him to anymore with his music career and spending time with Putin will he even have time for us they don't really keep track of space and time too well

Channel: Rossatron

Views: 607,209

Rating: 4.7970533 out of 5

Keywords: seagal, steven seagal, film, video essay, analysis, review, clip, hard to kill, marked for death, contract to kill, out for justice, above the law, under siege, absolution, el-p, run the jewels

Id: SbioIx12k7s

Length: 10min 53sec (653 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 13 2016