By Geno McGahee
“I’m going to be the one doing the fucking now.” — Simon Ballister (Steven Seagal)
This movie was a Christmas gift to myself, from myself. Since most people do not understand the wonder of Steven Seagal, the chances of getting a four pack of his films for Xmas were slim. The chances of Seagal being slim in them were less slim.
We begin with Max Ballister (Cory Hart), a good cop that caught some drug dealing on camera, but when he discovers that bad cops were involved, he is taken out. That brings his dad, Simon Ballister (Steven Seagal) to the hood to kick some ass and he wastes little time in doing so. He rents an apartment in the bad part of the city and the minute he comes out, he is faced with a fat gangsta and a medium-sized gangsta and they quickly tell him that he’s not allowed in their gangsta’s paradise. Seagal insults the fat one, calling him a “chubby ass” and then beats him. He may not have room to talk, but in his defense, the goon was far fatter than him.
After beating the duo, he insists that they tell their bosses, whatever drug lord it may be, that he is not leaving until he avenges his son’s death. The road to revenge includes beating and killing a lot of people. I wonder if any of the dads of the goons that Seagal took out will come back for revenge against him…sort of like TAKEN 2. “You killed my chubby ass son, you chubby ass.” To the future producers, you have my permission to use that line.
Unknown to Seagal (and I have to call him Seagal…sorry…he just doesn’t look like a Simon), the lead detective that is looking into Max’s death, Frank Shaw (Kirk B. R. Woller) is dirty and working with drug lord, Armand Tucker (Eddie Griffin). Griffin is pretty funny and unbelievable in the role. Maybe that’s because I saw him in Deuce Bigalow and I can’t get that out of my mind. He just doesn’t come off as a ruthless bad ass, but he tries hard and I give him that.
Gary (Jade Yorker) is a street kid that is tied to Tucker’s gang, but is also helping Seagal. It’s a good thing because Gary needs help too as a group of skinhead racists, right out of A TIME TO KILL show up in a dirty pick up truck and chase him down. Rednecks in the hood. It was very odd to have them in this movie but there they were. I wonder if they just thought it would be cool to have some variety and add another gang, but this time, it would be a Nazi gang. They did it in WARRIORS and it worked there, but it doesn’t work so much in this. At least we get to see Seagal kick some more ass, which is always a treat.
In Seagal’s later movies, he has picked up different accents. He’s tried Russian and then a Cajun accent, but in this one, he just talks really soft and slow. It’s OK, but it still seems a little forced. His hair still resembles a bad Halloween Dracula wig, but he does seem in far better shape for this film or that long leather jacket hides a lot.
There is a big showdown at the end with plenty of bloodshed and death, but I have to say that I was disappointed. The bad detective gets choked to death and Seagal lets Tucker go. This is not how the HARD TO KILL Seagal would have behaved. He was in a building. So, what do you do? You take that detective and toss him out the window and say “the case is dropped.” Then you chase Tucker up to the very top and kick him off the top of the building and say “that’s for Deuce Bigalow 2.” What a piss poor ending to this movie. Choking a guy to death…what crap!
URBAN JUSTICE is best described as a “mixed bag.” The movie starts off very well and is fast-paced and action packed, but it trails off and gets repetitious. If they were able to keep up the pace, this film would be a real winner, but sadly, it dies. The ending was a letdown and it started to resemble a first-person shooter video game rather than a martial arts kick ass film that Seagal is known for.
I would recommend this for Seagal fans and fans of action films in general. When it comes to Seagal’s recent action run, you could do a lot worse than this.
Rating: 5.5/10
The reason the pacing of the film starts to die down is because Seagal is out of breath from all the killing. Also, I hate to tell you this, but Duce Bigalow 3 is in the works!