The new Seagal picture DRIVEN TO KILL comes out Tuesday on DVD and futuristic Blu-Ray discs. It’s the one formerly called RUSLAN where he is a Russian gangster turned crime novelist. Check out my review at The Ain’t It Cool News.
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Driven To Kill
8 Responses to “Driven To Kill”
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Looking forward to this one. there’s no reason why seagal can’t be in a kickass movie, and you never know when “this’ll be it!” I guess this one doesnt sound like “it” but at least decent. nice write up.
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Rusty James
It sounds like he’s gonna go kill someone. But first he needs a ride from his mom.
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Vern, I recall you mentioning how you had never seen the Seagal Saturday Night Live in it’s entirty or something to that effect. I still have the damn thing on vhs and I think the reason the end of his last skit was edited out of future broadcasts was because he actually hurt the guy he threw through the window. It was a full blast throw followed by semi-uncomfortable laughter from the audience. Plus he puts Rob Schnieder’s head thru the copy machine. Somebody had to do it eventually.
Actually the whole show was semi-uncomfortable laughter.
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Fletcher Hanks
Vern: Great review.
I loved reading both your book! Anything else on the horizon?
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Lawrence
I turned it off half way through. I just found it all rather boring. Why do you have to make all his DTV films sound more interesting than they really are?
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This was a nice one. De DVD came out recently out the Netherlands and when returning the rented Flight of Fury I was pointed at that fact. The guy at the rental store had watched it the evening before (I got him back on Seagal, even showed him my copy of Seagalogy). He said he liked it, but that he had complaints about the sound quality. He had watched the Blue Ray (which is supposed to have ‘even better audio’). Main complaint was the voice of Steven. At some points he had the impression that the voice wasn’t even his. (Little did he know…).
I just finished watching it, then I read the review of course. Since I am a true and devoted Seagalogist (since december 23, 2008).
Like I said. It was a nice one. I noticed some thing I’d like to share here for obvious reasons:
*The title.
Although the DVD cover says Driven to Kill, that title is not shown on the screen. It says Ruslan.Higher production value:
* Correcting/adjusting the story
A lot of dialog is ’spoken’ offscreen. We see an actor listening and replying something like ‘yes’ or ‘no’ after a while. This is of course a normal thing to appear in movie, mixed with overshoulders, establishing shots and so forth. But in this one some scenes (like the one where he talks to the police after he has the fight in the bar) have that offscreen talking thing. Bit awkward. I crossed my mind that that could be a more elaborate way to fix changes in the script in postproduction (to erase the aliens, again).* Looping
Looping Seagal by another actor but this time they took someone who does a better imitation of Seagal.Other thoughts
*What is he writing?
He’s writing a story about a guy named Clint who’s looking through a scope (of a sniper riffle?) aiming or just following an officer. His word processor shows he typed some spaces to many (later changed passages -one could wonder what the previous text was) but no spelling errors.*Strange editing/déjà vu
The part where Ruslan walk on the pavement in the dark. It looks like a short take that is repeated/zoomed/repeated/jumpcut/etc to make it longer. It is supposed to show that Ruslan is walking on the pavement in a dark mood. Halfway through that little déjà vu the point was made, but it went on and on until finally we get to see his hair leave the lower left corner of the screen.Even more déjà vu is the second writing scene. Ruslan is back home after he got away with multiple murder. He changed back in the same outfit (his writing gear I think) he wore when he got the phone call that started the story. The camera shows him writing and then pans to the left. We see some books and a bottle of Johnny Walker and then the outside. It looks like the same shot as the one in the beginning, played backward. I compared them but could not determine which one would be the ‘normal/real’ one.
And there’s more. But you already knew that, did ya?
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Only the very first scene, the first fight scene, and the very last scene are any good in this one. There’s a lot of badassness, especially the hitting on the ex in Ruslan’s native Russian RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE STUPID CURRENT HUSBAND, and the violence is generally satisfying, but I’ll never rewatch Driven to Kill other than the bookend scenes.
May 19th, 2009 at 7:50 am
I was so pleased with Driven to Kill: Ruslan, especially after Against the Dark which was so bad I fast-forwarded through the last half or so. Driven to Kill to me almost felt like one of the golden age movies. Loved Ruslan’s old school asian dragon shirt in the first scene with his metal spike roulette. Also did you notice how during a fight scene he puts a thug in the same neckbreak hold that Seagal put Kurt Zagon in? Ruslan doesn’t break the guy’s neck, but he does put him in that hold. That scene where Ruslan visits his daughter in the hospital reminded me a lot of the “treat her like the president of the united states” from Marked For Death.