Starring: Steven Seagal, Ving Rhames, Danny Trejo

Genre: Action/ Crime

An Alberquerque crime lord known as Mr. Alexander (Seagal + goatee) rules the town and operates by a code where loyalty and respect play a vital role. His right hand man Roman (Bren Foster) is sent to do a job inside in prison, but after being setup by one of the inmates known as ‘Ice Man’ (Rhames) he kills the wrong man and must face the consequences. Usually the punishment is death, but Mr. Alexander spares Roman’s life, but the bones in his hands are crushed when he is tortured, leaving them useless. Mr. Alexander considers turning his back on the life he has lead, but now Ice Man is out of prison and determined to take over the ruling of the cities underground. What is worse, he does not operate with a code!!! Not only is Mr. Alexander forced to engage in all out war, he is force to reluctantly enlist the help of Roman, who is now living a troubled life.

I stated this last time when I reviewed Maximum Conviction, and I cannot emphasise it enough here: When I review a Seagal film it is with a different criteria and different standards to your average film, it just has to be! However, even by his horrific standards, Force of Execution is very poor. I am very patient and forgiving with Seagal as he has provided me with many genuinely entertaining moments during my film viewing life, but this is too much for even me!

It is a given that Seagal’s films are straight to DVD jobs these days, and it is nice that it is an actual film instead of two episodes of True Justice stuck together and given some generic action film title, but this is still pretty awful. I have always enjoyed Seagal films as they are true switch-your-brain-completely-off films, and so are quite fun, though by the standards of proper films atrocious for many obvious reasons. I enjoyed Maximum Conviction, mainly because in Steve Austin the not getting any younger Seagal had alongside him someone who actually looked the part, and a decent wise cracking script made the whole experience good mindless fun.

However, in Force of Execution Seagal and now regular director Keoni Waxman have enlisted the ‘talents’ of Ving Rhames and Danny Trejo. Unfortunately the blu-ray I watched this film on did not have subtitles, so understanding what Seagal and Rhames are mumbling about was almost impossible. Not that it really matters as the plot is beyond generic and put together with no effort. In the same way that 90s erotic thrillers (we have all seen them!) seemed to be a series of rubbish sex scenes stuck together by a wafer thin ‘plot’ built around them, Force of Execution is the same but with rubbish fight scenes instead. The script (what I could understand of it) is awful and way too serious, and the ‘plot’ is all over the place and does not really form a coherent narrative. That is often the case with these films of course, but this time Seagal and Waxman have maybe just gone too far. This is all forgivable in my book if a film of this genre is fun, but Force of Execution is not even that. Perhaps Seagal and Waxman think this is an intelligent film about loyalty, morality and ‘codes’? Well if they do then they are a tad wrong with that one.

Naturally as producer, Seagal is the good guy and because he apparently has a ‘code’ we are expected to route for him. Just in case we are not sure, Seagal tells Rhames fellow kingpin that he has broken the ‘code’, though because of the mumbling it is hard to tell what exactly the code is, but I am sure everyone can guess. The only character likeable that looks the part and does a half decent job in acting is Colin Farrell lookalike Bren Foster. When Trejo’s Jimmy Penauts (!) uses the poison of the world’s two most deadly poisonous scorpions to poison Bren Foster’s character that ‘kill’ him for a bit but then he comes back with the bones in his hands completely fixed and stronger than ever, then Force of Execution truly goes too far.

An absolute load of nonsense that will test and then bore even the most patient of Seagal fans, Force of Execution is basically a series of cheap fight scenes predominantly involving fat old men stuck together with a plot that often does not even try to make sense. Please Steven, just retire!

2/10

If you do happen to want to read my review of Seagal’s previous and vastly superior film Maximum Conviction, then please click here