A very important man in my life has always been, Steven Seagal. He always plays such a powerful man who overcomes so many obstacles in his quest for justice. I have found myself watching nearly all of the movies he has starred in or even had basically glorified cameos such as in Gutshot Straight. Today, I want to do a movie review of “Beyond the Law.”
At my first open mic reading I did my Seagal Poem and at the end I told you to check out “Beyond the Law” co-starring DMX. I can not recommend this movie enough, simply put its a phenomenal movie perfect score of 5 out of 7 stars. Probably his strongest showing since 2012’s Maxium Conviction with Stone Cold Steven Austin. Even if you aren’t a Seagal fiend like me, you can enjoy this movie. Ask Mark, Douglas, Ronald Reagan, Duri, Aruna, Simon Hoppe, Ashley or Ray. Sadly, my good friend Calem took the opposite view on me concerning this movie but I will delve into that later.
One of the overriding themes was city vs country life and how the city will destroy you alive, it reminds me of a quote I read as a child at Athens Y Camp in Tulossa Falls Georgia “Away from the flea-bitten, sin-filled, God-forsaken cities of man, into the valley of the Paradise of Youth.” The city is evil and will eat you alive, but them country folk, as Swilly so succinctly put it ‘take care of their own.’ No loyalty in those city folk.
Before I get into the nitty gritty, let me give you a quick plot summary Ray came up with “He killed his son, so he killed his son, but he wasn’t fixing to kill him because of his dead son, but because of who he was. In the end, Minerva won.”
Now what happened was the kid of Frank Wilson, gets got by Seagals son. But that was the wrong move to make! Chance had two powerful patrons in the form of Seagal and his co-lead, Frank Wilson. These two powerful men have a bone to pick with Desmond Packerd before they come to blows, there can only be one man left standing!
These two powerful men, coming from different sides of the law. Frank Wilson is the dirtiest of cops in a city of full of dirty cops and Seagal, a philsopsizing criminal mastermind of a drug empire. It’s like two master samurai who must put down a rogue ronin who has no moral code before they battle. Despite coming from opposite sides of the law, both Seagal and Frank Wilson have highly developed moral codes. These are men with integrity but different moral codes.
All in all, there were powerful scenes, powerful dialogue, powerful story arcs and starring the most powerful of men, Steven Seagal albeit in a more limited capacity than in his previous films.
In this movie, you gotta give props to Seagal. After nearly 30 years in the game playing the same character type, a special forces/CIA/army veteran, a mysterious man with a mysterious past, he plays a bad guy. As far as I know, this is the first time he has played a bad guy since 2010’s Machete with Danny Trejo.
Now in this movie, he plays the head of a family like Don Corleone of the Godfather except Seagal’s family is deep into the dope game! However, despite playing a dope peddler, it is vintage Seagal. He is still a man with a strong personal moral code even if he is on the wrong side of the law. What struck me about this movie was the moral ambiguity involved, seemingly every character had some dilemmas they were facing that could never be clear cut black and white like in traditional Seagal flicks. Nuance is a new addition to Seagal’s repertoire.
One of the first scenes was emotionally gut wrenching. Frank Wilson’s son gets killed by someone who is truly a Paul Bunyan mother fucker. This guy is so big, that if I didn’t know any better, I’d place a wager on him rather than Seagal but that’s blasphemy. No one ever gets over on The Great One, or as his detractors call him, The Greatly Bloated One. It was a brutal scene. Duri from Just BLT had to cover her eyes when she saw it, it was that overwhelming.
Godfather Seagal realizes real quick that someone is making a move against him so in preparation, he shows exceptional gunplay at the shooting range; sharpening up his skills. Magnificent grouping of his shots and you gots to drink when he shows this gun play. Sly Seagal quickly puts it together, starts making his power moves and covers his bases before he makes a move. Truly a methodical strategic genius.
Another of the first scenes was vintage Seagal but it was carried out by Johnny Messner, AKA Frank Wilson who meets an ex-con he planted evidence on who did three years! It’s a 4 on 1 fight but classic B action movie scene. The bad guys dance around in a threatening manner but Frank delivers some brutal bone breaks and manages to so badly demolish three of the 4 that the 4th flees in sheer terror because of Frank’s intimidation abilities. Seagal would’ve gotten the 4th though.
Later Frank Wilson meets the ex con again, he had told him after the ass whooping he delivered when i call, I want information. So they meet again, and Frank Wilson makes up a straight power move and treats the ex con like a straight bitch!
Ex con “I remember what you said the other day after you whipped my ass.” He gives him the information, and says “Hey, are we square man?” The ex con was trying to pay Frank Wilson respect but Frank treated him like garbage. Once his bitch, always his bitch. The whole scene he didn’t say a word and walked away like a savage.
I initially thought this movie might be a sequel to 2001’s Exit Wounds which also starred DMX but in this movie, DMX plays a cop but again, there is so much more ambiguity you can’t tell if he is acting out of greed, malice, corruption or what his motivations are. I will say I greatly enjoy it when he taxes Seagal’s son not once, but twice for information. Does he survive or does he perish the dangerous life he has chosen? You gotta watch to find out!
When Frank Wilson finds out his son got killed, he heads for the city with a duffel bag full of ‘negotiation tactics,’ care to take a guess at what this bag of negotiation tactics are? Later, Frank Wilson shows not only strategic but tactical brilliance. Realizing that he is being hunted, he goes back to his home in the country where if anything happens, it’s ‘self defense’!!!!!!!
Never seen such a play before in all the years I have been watching these straight to DVD movies. On top of that, when he is back on his country home, he knows they are coming. He doesn’t defend his abode but posts up in the bushes before taking out the first creep, and immediately upgrading to a shotgun. Of course he takes out 2 more guys by hiding under the floorboards before……
Now what I loved about Frank Wilson’s story arc, was this is a man whose death is already promised to him. Cancer. Not ass cancer a la The Asstronaut but cancer in the lungs. You can never win against such a man who’s desire for vengeance drives him to slay his enemies and crucify his opponents before his hourglass of life empties.
Now I just want to deliver a few of Segal’s most powerful lines in this movie. Seagal has a sit down with his son; keep in mind that despite being nearly 70, he has a perfectly manicured beard and goatee without a hint of gray which was evident in 1990’s “Hard to Kill”; he is truly a genetically superior individual. Regardless, dialogue is as follows:
“I was thinking about the family, hoping you could kind of open up to me. Talk to meh. I don’t really like to talk too much about myself but it seems like I’ve done as much as I possibly can. You know I love you son, and I would step in front of a mother fucking bullet if I had too. But, I can’t really teach you if you don’t want to listen.”
“Rather than being stupid, and arrogant and thinking you smarter then everybody else, I wanted to try to beg you one last time, to act right.”
“Well, we just have a sort of different way of looking at life. So I’m gonna say this one more time, I’d really highly consider getting rid of your criminal friends, treat people the way you want to be treated. Bring something good into this life cuz we at the crossroads now, and if you make the wrong decisions you gonna fuck up the rest of your family and end your own life.”
A few scenes later;
“I’m tired of telling you over and over and over again, the same mother fucking thing. And it break my heart, to have to talk to you like this, you a grown man. What happened to ya boy? You treat us all like this, put us all in harm’s way and you crossed the line, if you had a soul, I feel like it’s unretrievable. You lost that the day you killed that boy. I don’t mind if you had to kill somebody, buy not like that. “
“At least I do my own killing, and I like it”
You can’t talk to Seagal like that unless you’re willing to put your life on the line.
“You no longer my son”
“You were never a real father, just posed like one”
*this is actually a good description of Seagal’s personal life with his numerous children by numerous women”
In this movie, Seagal took a cerebral, deliberative and contemplative approach to things a la Captain Picard instead of his usual fist first a la Captain Kirk before he makes his power moves.
Last scene between Seagal and his son “What happened to your face? You killed that poor fucking young man Chance. It’s not like I’m dumb enough to not fucking know, I gave you one chance to come clean”
“Thats just some junky kid, just a nobody”
“Who the fuck you think you are, making judgements on who should live and who should die. I know Chance’s father, Frank Wilson. I know him real well. He’s the dirtiest fucking copy I ever fucking knew and he’s coming for us. Now, I gotta figure out how to deal with this cuz he the kind guy, where, either he gonna have to die or we gonna have to die. And i’m not fixing to die for this!!!”
“We’ll take care of it, We know where he’s staying. Put a bullet in his fucking head!”
“You gonna take care of it for me?”
“Yea”
“I feel like im talking to a retarded child. Don’t do nothing”
“He took my gun, did this to my face, what do you want me to do?”
“I need time to think about this. You, dont do nothing. Don’t do fucking nothing”
Of course his son does something, trying to hunt Frank fucking Wilson in his own rural settings? Like Omar from The Wire said, “you come at the King, you best not miss.” Like they didn’t learn when they were trying to hunt Frank in the city, Frank turned the hunters into the hunted.
Desmond Packard exclaims in expaseration “He’s hunting me in my own fucking city!” Of course he is! If you can’t hunt Frank fucking Wilson in the city, let alone in the country. He is simply too good at what he does.
Swilly, the old man who is the moral conscious of the movie delivers one of the most hard hitting lines I ever heard to Seagals Piece of shit son “I don’t need to listen to a little boy, trying to sound like a man, when he’s just a piece of shit wrapped up in human skin!” He paid the price for his insolence but he went to heaven where he had loved ones waiting for him. Rip Swilly!
“Shut the fuck up! Don’t say a mother fucking word to me! These the same gangsters you pulled off the heist with? Where the money disappeared? And then y’all killed chance? You wanna be a gangster?” 3 shots in rapids succession boom boom boom, “that’s part of the life, bitch!” Seagal in fact, does do his own killing. Cleared his family of the corruption which was spreading throughout the family because of his delinquent son, Desmond Packard.
Desmond Packerd, the bastard son of Seagal reminds me of Ramsay Bolton, bastard child of Roose Bolton from Game of Thrones. It’s like a bastard thing, the tainted blood corrupts the child.
Last scene, all the henchmen are dead and there are only two Paul Bunyan mother fuckers standing, two grizzled veterans of the game, Frank Wilson and Seagal. “You being here, my son, he dead because of you. So, now here we are. Here we are. The way I look at it, you killed your son, you abandoned him. He was on the street, I gave him a house, I gave him a job, I gave him food. When he passed, I’m the one who told all my people , I’m gonna do anything and everything I can to find out who did it, and bring them to justice. But I’m not fitting to kill you becuz of my son. Im gonna kill you because of who you are, and what you are. The world would be a lot better place without you”
At this point, Seagal delivers an exceptional performance. Gun drawn on him but he moves amazingly quickly for such a girthy man and delivers an ass whooping like I have never seen.
I won’t spoil the ending but it is ambiguous as to what happens.
Now this movie has sadly caused a rift in the Seagal community. Me and Calem have fundamental differences when it comes to this movie. Calem holds that anything less than 100% Seagal is blasphemy, that this is no true Seagal flick. I hold that given his age and girth, he is passing the torch to the next generation of direct to DVD action star flicks; that this is the right move to make. He had less scenes but the scenes he did have were masterful, emotional and hard hitting. They kissed the ring of the King of direct to DVD action flicks, paid appropriate homage to one of the most prolific actors of our era. Honestly I think only my guy Charles Bronson of Death Wish 1-5 and Family of Cops, may he RIP, acted in more action movies
Check it out. I can’t recommend it enough. You ain’t truly living if you aint watching Seagal.
Current events through a historical lens 