Attack Force (2006)

Attack Force (2006)
aka: Harvester

 

Starring: Steven Seagal, Lisa Lovbrand, David Kennedy, Matthew Chambers, Danny Webb, Andrew Bicknell, Evelyne Armella O’Bami, Ileana Lazariuc
Director: Michael Keusch
Action Director: Tom Delmar, Gabi Burlacu

 

And the award for the Least Creative Title of 2006 goes to…Attack Force. In Steven Seagal’s defense, I’m pretty sure like the rest of the film, the über-generic title has more to do with studio meddling during post-production than it does with the original film that Seagal made. As it goes, the story “Harvester” was the brainchild of Steven Seagal—sort of his version of the 1990s sci fi-action film I Come in Peace. The premise had aliens coming to Earth to harvest human DNA, and Seagal and his team had to stop them without bringing their attention to the public. That was the story and the film that was made.

But the studio did not like that particular film, so they brought in some of the actors to film new scenes of the characters talking about experimental drugs and re-dubbed Seagal’s dialog in parts so he was talking about experimental drugs. In the end, the studio essentially made a new movie about Seagal and his team fighting rage zombies with an inexplicable preference for bladed weapons. Not all evidence of Seagal’s original idea was scrubbed, however. Notice in the closing credits that Ileana Lazariuc credited as “The Queen.” In any case, the bad dubbing (watch Seagal’s voice change in the same scene) and bizarre plotting took a huge karma toll on the movie and Attack Force is one of his lowest-rated movies on the IMDB.

Seagal plays Marshall Lawson, a special forces team commander looking for some R&R with his team in Paris. Three of his men head to nearest strip club for some action and bring home a seductive little nymph named Reina (Evelyne Armella O’Bami). Before the threesomes can begin, Reina goes nutzoid and carves up all three men with a wicked knife. The autopsy shows signs of an experimental drug called CTX on the bodies. The drug is so secret that the company who made it, a government contractor, will want to stop at nothing to keep news of it from breaking out. Even if it means killing Marshall Lawson and his men.

So, Lawson now has his hands full: he is trying to find Reina; his partner is tracking down the drug dealer who gave Reina the drugs, who turns out to be CTX’s creator, Aroon (prolific video game voice actor Adam Croasdell); and he has to not get himself killed by the government agents. Once Aroon releases the CTX drug into the water supply and infects an entire Paris suburb, he’ll have to team up with the military to stop Aroon and his partner, a femme fatale known as “The Queen.”

On the plus side, I like the horror movie atmosphere of the film. It has a subtle soundtrack and the sort of horror movie lighting that keeps things visible, if barely so. There is an ominous feeling to the whole film, especially in the third act when the good guys start raiding houses, looking for people who may or may not be CTX-addled maniacs. In some ways, this becomes Steven Seagal’s The Crazies, beating the remake to the punch by four years. The violence is also very visceral, with most people being dispatched via elaborate bladed weapons that leave deep, bloody gashes in their victims.

On the other hand, the film never quite makes any sense. For example, in the original script, the Queen was obviously the leader of the aliens, even if she stayed behind the scenes for most of the film. Now that the movie is about a drug dealer whose creation transforms people into homicidal maniacs, we the viewer are left to wonder who this woman is and why she is so important—the final fight belongs to her and Seagal, not Seagal and Aroon. Like a lot of low-budget Seagal films, this one is very talky. We are treated to endless scenes of Seagal talking to his partner or his former trainee/girlfriend (Swedish actress Lisa Lovbrand), the drug company’s executives talking to military brass about having to off Seagal, or his partner interrogating Aroon. Less talk and more action would have been better.

The action is handled by Tom Delmar once more. There is a solid shoot-out at a safe-house between Seagal’s team and the mercenaries sent to silence them. The gunplay in the finale is less inspired and more chaotic. Seagal gets a special weapon in the form a pair of “nano-graphite” blades that extend from his form, not too unlike Marvel characters Wolverine and the Owl. Unfortunate, the ominous lighting means that when the fights do come, they are generally hard to see. The final fight with actress Ileana Lazariuc is a bit longer, but the illusion of a man fighting a drug-addled superwoman is ruined by the make-up man not remembering where a bloody gash on her chest is from one scene to another! They all do the thrice-damned camera trick of having Seagal just look at the camera and flail his arms wildly into it. I loathe that since it gives no real sense of proportion, space or interaction with the other performers.

Attack Force is a bad movie, least of which because the titular team figures little into the plot or the film as a whole. There is a surplus of graphic violence on display, and a small helping of titillation that never quite makes it to full-on nudity or sex, but I’m sure most viewers will find the proceedings to alternate between hysterical ineptness and general tedium.