Steven Seagal's TV series "True Justice" didn't make it over to US television until April, 2012, even though it was debuted in 2010. Now the series is being released across the globe on DVD and VOD by mashing up two episodes at a time as a movie. Dark Vengeance is the latest release of the series and I finally had a chance to check it out.
Scripted by Seagal himself, Dark Vengeance has a mix of both good and bad qualities. While our main-man keeps the promise of kicking some badguys' ass with his badass kung-fu moves, as always, the film itself follows that predictable story you get to see in a typical police procedural drama. However, the film manages keep the viewer entertained throughout its' 90-minute runtime. More on that below.
Warning: Following review may contain some spoilers
Story
Dark Vengeance opens up with a crime scene which appears to show the works of a serial killer involved in black magic. Elijah Kane (Steven Seagal) takes on this unusual case to solve the mystery using his wits in the subject and of course with some help form his undercover police task force, which includes Meghan Ory, Warren Christie, Sarah Lind and William 'Big Sleeps' Stewart.Story follows as this task force led by Elijah Kane goes after this badguy who kills blond girls who work at strip clubs. Incidentally, all these murder victims has the same looks of Sarah Montgomery (Sarah Lind), who works in Elijah Kane's team. She volunteers to get down to a strip club to help find this killer, while showing off some of her dancing skills, which I enjoyed a lot.
Things go out of hand when other team mates forgets to keep an eye on Sarah while she's doing her job. This leads to several confusions but finally, thanks to her sloppiness, Kane catches the badguy. Then they all have a drink to celebrate, Seagal plays some guitar and end of story. Well, not exactly. Because that's where the movie actually begin to get intense. Next day they finds one of their friends from the Police dead, the same way as other girls. Things starts to go out of hand. A group of Police detectives from another department gets involved and Elijah Kane starts to get pissed off, while Killer continues to take more victims. Steven Seagal has to use his own ways to find this killers and end his rampage for good.
Thumbs-UP
Even though I wasn't a fan of Seagal's work, my dad is a huge fan, he has a whole bunch of Seagal's movies. I actually grew up watching these films with him, while listening to him admiring the star. So, it's safe say that I have a pretty good idea of Steven Seagal's work, and I wasn't surprised to find him in this film again as a badass, rebellious cop that listens to anybody. Which is not a bad thing because I truly can't imagine Seagal doing any other character better than this. As always he plays his part well with his calm manner of acting with a couple of jokes here and there, while breaking legs, hands and necks with his awesome kung-fu moves.
Oh My! the appearance of George Takei was also quite a nice surprise.
Thumbs-DOWN
Dark Vengeance is made mainly focusing on Steven Seagal fans. Aside from Seagal's acting and action scenes, this movie is pretty much a predictable film with a lot of pointless scenes that has nothing do with the main story like how Seagal keeps visiting some herb-dealing guy who has no good advice to give and the war with some biker dudes in the second half of the film. Seagal definitely needs to brush up on his writing as well, because some of the dialogues and one liners in the film were horrible.
Overall Rating
For a movie that has been made by combining two TV show episodes, Dark Vengeance is more than entertaining. However, the result of comparing this with another feature is not the same. I'd rather not go there.
If you're a fan of Steven Seagal, you're gonna love this movie because it has everything you want in a Seagal movie - Steven Seagal kicking ass. Even if you're not a fan, this can still be entertaining, given that you can tolerate a little bit of disappointment.
You can now watch Dark Vengeance online at Redbox.
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