El Chupacabra

1980s Seagal makes a comeback

Steven Seagal has been turning out B-grade movies at a prolific rate, but among the many forgettable (yet awesome) creations he has contributed to, the odd one rises above the cruel undertow of suckage and manages to surprise us, if ever so slightly, with its relative level of quality.

This is a more recent phenomenon with Into the Sun and now Urban Justice marking a possible resurgence in Seagal's career. I'm not saying that these movies are on the same level as such classics as Out for Justice and the celebrated Hard to Kill, but they seem to focus more on the simple, forumlaic action that made his earliest movies successful and less on environmental activism and eastern mysticism, both of which seemed to be anathaema to his post-Under-Siege movie-making attempts.

Contemporary Seagal wrestles with convoluted and preaching narrative when all the viewer wants is the classic Seagal who made bad guys punch themselves, snapped necks, and tied up arms like Christy Yamaguchi laces up her skates. I personally understand why he can't or doesn't want to do this as many of his films of this sort were, when it comes down to it, largely indistinguishable. At the same time, he plays an ex-CIA agent in basically every movie he makes.

Urban Justice could be the best balance between classic Seagal and modern Seagal we can hope for. Much like Skinny Elvis and Fat Elvis, Classic Seagal (Skinny Elvis) could move quick and raise his feet above the level of his knees, but Modern Seagal (Fat Elvis) is more mature and serious, which really only made his movies more boring. Hmmm... I guess what I'm trying to say is Seagal does manage to lift his feet above the level of his knees in Urban Justice and that is worth the rental in my books.

Eberts Thumb

Eddie Griffin makes Bill Cosby cry

Urban Justice is said to be Seagal's best work since Under Siege, or at least Exit Wounds. It did get a few things right. For starters theres more actual action than his last three or four movies combined. This isn't to say its action packed, just that he lifted his ankles off the ground to kick a few times. It also didn't try to get us to believe he was an ex-CIA operative, just that he has a dark past. Its still another revenge movie, where he's out to avenge his son's death. They also kept the ass kissing to a minimum: Seagal's character gets less than a dozen compliments.

What Urban Justice did wrong was to cast Eddie Griffin as the bad guy. Seriously? My first problem with this is that he just can't be taken seriously. He's got to weight about a buck-ten and sounds like a thirteen year old. If he wants to be taken seriously he should really hit the juice. I don't normally advocate steriod use, but look what it did for Carrot Top. Nobody makes of Carrot Top anymore, although its hard to laugh at him when you think he's going to go into a roid rage. My second problem is that his character seemed like something Dave Chappelle would do make fun of urban themed action movies written by white people with horrible racial stereotypes. Maybe if he didn't say "shit nigga" at the end of every sentence it wouldn't have been so comically over the top, and maybe, just maybe, we could have taken him seriously. Then again, maybe not.

Had Urban Justice starred a black actor instead of Seagal, it would be safe to call this a blaxploitation film.