August 01, 2008
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Officer, your murder suspect is broken.Aikido master and beloved Internet pinata Steven Seagal's second 2008 outing Kill Switch (aka A Higher Form Of Learning) is actually his very first cinematic adventure for maverick distributor First Look Pictures. Unfortunately, all of the usual problems from his years with Sony Pictures remain intact. The film finds our aging hero portraying emotionally scarred crime fighter Jacob King, a seasoned detective who's hot on the trail of not one, but two savage serial killers. Though the story itself continues to branch away from those cheap military actioners he's become extremely infamous for, it's still a drastic step backwards from his previous two efforts, 2007's Urban Justice and 2008's Pistol Whipped. If you can imagine an unholy marriage between an early James Patterson novel and a cheap blaxploitation flick starring a blues-addicted white man with a faux Creole accent, you'd have something remarkably similar to director Jeff King's goofy little feature. In fact, were it not for two or three blood-soaked fight sequences -- all of which employ the use of a stunt double and an over-achieving editor -- Kill Switch would have been a total bore. If you fancy a go, leave logic and good taste at the door.
Recipe For Mediocrity: One Ridiculous Accent + An Uncomfortably Sexist Attitude + Seagal's Questionable Use Of A Hammer
One More Thing: Remember that scene at the beginning of American History X? The one with the guy biting the curb?
Steven Seagal and Jeff King do, too.
2 Spasms:
I worked on this dog. I'm sorry.
Some friends and I tried to watch this, out of pure curiousity. The editing during the fight scenes was totally confusing and hilarious, especially when Seagal throws that guy through the window and it shows him falling from about 10 different angles over and over again. I also like the scene where Seagal is sneaking through a doorway and it shows a him bring his pistol through the door three times, but very slowly. How did the editor think of that! Anyway, those laughs aren't worth it. We had to turn it off because we started to question what our lives had come to--watching a late-period Seagal vehicle. After we heard his ridiculous accent in his first line of dialogue, my friend quipped this would be the worst of all his movies, and he was right.
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