Just when you thought it was safe to watch another Steven Seagal movie…
Right, so this is yet another direct to DVD action flick featuring Steven Seagal. One of the many in his vast pantheon of films, only two of which I believe are worth watching, and only one of them is a true Seagal starring feature. For the record, those films are Under Siege and Executive Decision. Almost everything else he’s ever made is filler and only worth your time if you have a high threshold for cinematic pain. Needless to say, going into Attack Force thinking along these lines almost doomed it from the off. And with good reason too.
We don’t get off to a good start. A moving vehicle is shown in slow motion, not for any artistic reason but because they needed to make sure the character dialogue, in voiceover I might add, was able to fit over it. When it’s that obvious that footage has been tinkered to suit a minor point as this, you appreciate just how bumpy the ride is about to get.
It’s then that you realise that quite a number of Seagal’s lines have been dubbed, and dubbed by somebody else doing a terrible Steven Seagal impression. Why this decision was made I don’t know. Apparently it has something to do with the plot being changed between filming and release – there were aliens involved at one point until they decided on the party drug plot – but that doesn’t explain why some of the lines being dubbed are identical to what were being spoken on set, nor why it sounds like more than one person dubbed Seagal. He has about four different voices from start to finish. Somehow I doubt that Seagal is a master of accents.
The other explanation is that the original audio was unusable and Seagal refused to go into the studio and ADR his lines – not outside of the realms of reason. However you look at it, I’m certain that drinking games exist where you take a sip or a shot whenever there is an obviously dubbed line of dialogue, or a shot or scene that would make more sense in a different story. You’ll likely be smashed within thirty minutes.
The plot is, consequently, almost entirely forgettable. Seagal, with the character name of Marshall Lawson (a name that is deserving of a far better film than this) is on the trail of some bad guys selling that party drug I mentioned previously, called CTX.
Let’s just gloss over that the people who have apparently taken this CTX drug now have the ability to blink using their second eyelid, a clear holdover from the original alien-led narrative. For the sake of argument let’s say that this party drug gives them a second set of eyelids that… oh, who am I kidding? It’s ludicrous.
As if the weird amalgamation of stories wasn’t enough, it also takes an absolute age to get going, with a dearth of action sequences until the final third, and even then they are lacking in coordination and energy.
This won’t be a film I remember in any great detail. In fact, I barely finished watching it less than half an hour ago and the details are already beginning to fade. I suppose I should consider myself lucky.
