Starring: Steven Seagal, Kelly LeBrock, William Sadler,
Frederick Coffin, Bonnie Burroughs, Andrew Bloch, Branscombe Richmond, Charles
Boswell
Director: Bruce Malmuth
Action Director: Steven Seagal, Buddy Joe Hooker
Hard to Kill was the first Steven Seagal movie I saw and one of the earliest “adult” martial arts movies I watched, coming on the heels of my brother taping Kickboxer off HBO. It also was Seagal’s second starring role, and getting good buzz from his 80s actioner Above the Law. With only one exception, the general quality of the films Seagal made from 1988 to 1996 was solid and represented a Golden Age in the career of the actor. Things started coming apart after that, but that’s a story for another time.
Seagal plays Mason Storm, a detective for the LAPD whom we meet as he’s eavesdropping on a conversation between the mob and an unseen politician. What Storm does know is that the politician has murder on his mind: he wants the mob to arrange an “accident” for one of California’s current senators. Storm is found out, but is able to make his getaway before any of the mobsters actually see his face. What he doesn’t know is that the crooked government goon has some cops on the take who figure out that it was him who had recorded the conversation. Later that evening, a bunch of masked thugs crash Storm’s house as he’s making sweet love to his wife (TV actress Bonnie Burroughs) and riddle the place in buckshot. Mason is critically injured, his wife is killed and his son flees the premises.
Mason is initially pronounced dead. After the cops leave the hospital, one of the doctors informs his close friend, Lieutenant Kevin O’Malley (Frederick Coffin, of The Base and V.I. Warchawski), that Storm is still alive and in a coma. O’Malley swears to the doctors to secrecy and goes along with the whole “Mason is dead” ruse.
Seven years later, Mason awakens from his coma. One of the nurses, Andrea (Kelly LeBrock, Seagal’s wife at the time), calls the police to inform them that “John Doe” has awakened from his coma. Unfortunately, this news falls on the ears of the Bad Cops, who send one of their number to the hospital to finish off the job. Through a series of mishaps that prove that God was smiling down on Mason, Mason and Andrea are able to escape the hospital. She takes him to a huge house in the countryside where she’s housesitting—convenient, but okay—and there Mason begins his recovery with one thing on his mind: vengeance.
Hard to Kill is easily one of the better Seagal movies out there, from the acting to the action. The plot is no great shakes, but it’s generally well handled without any glaring holes. Well, there’s the one about how the hero can kill all of the bad guy’s lackeys without any legal repercussions, but is expected to spare the main villain at the end. That’s a major problem with Hollywood action movies in general, though. Director Bruce Malmuth, best known for directing Sylvester Stallone’s Nighthawks, keeps things moving at a fast clip, even during the (relatively) action-less second act.
That second act gives us something we generally don’t see in Seagal movies: training sequences. Seagal usually starts the film out as the baddest mofo on the planet and stays that way throughout. The fact that Seagal gets shot up in the first act and gets up out of his coma with his muscles all atrophied leaves more vulnerable than he generally allows his characters to be. The training sequences are nothing spectacular, mainly lifting weights, jogging, hitting a tree with a bo staff, and punching a wooden fence post. But as someone who has watched dozens of Steven Seagal movies, watching him work his way back up is a nice change of pace.
Steven Seagal films are rarely, if ever, pure martial arts films. There is a fair amount of gunplay in this movie, especially during a big shootout at the mansion. There are also some car chases, staged by veteran Hollywood stuntman Buddy Joe Hooker (12 Rounds and Grindhouse: Death Proof). Seagal choreographed his own fight sequences, of which there are a handful. Aikido was relatively new in Hollywood action movies in 1990, so audiences were probably wowed by the ease with which Seagal could take people down and redirect energy (i.e. glorified pushing) so as to shove people into walls. American audiences, who have always valued “realism” over “aesthetics,” would definitely gone for that kind of thing. The fights here generally end before they even begin, as Seagal takes the shortest path to snapping a wrist…or a neck…or a pool cue over a person’s head.
Seagal’s Mason Storm is more or less the same character he always plays, albeit without all the ex-Special Forces baggage that his characters usually carry. He does show some charisma within his limited acting range, although the whole bit of showing off his sex appeal with his real-life wife is rather voyeuristic[1]. He also gets to emote a little more than usually, even going so far as to raise his voice in a couple of moments. And being Golden Age Seagal, he’s still in tip-top shape with his girth perfectly under control. Strange how only some seven years or so later, that would be a thing of the past.[1] - I wonder how Kelly LeBrock
felt about showing up in a movie where she would not only be engaging in
simulated sex with her husband on camera, but watching the latter have
simulated sex with another woman, too.
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