Starring: Steven Seagal, Liezl Carstens, Arron Shiver,
Johnnie Hector, Steph DuVall, Luce Raines, Kevin Wiggins, Trine Christensen
Director: Keoni Waxman
Action Director: Dickey Beer
The Keeper marks Steven
Seagal’s first collaboration with Hawaiian filmmaker Keoni Waxman. They would
go on to make nine films together, plus the TV series True Justice. Moreover, Waxman’s films were among the most
higly-rated of Seagal’s post 2010 ouput, so obviously the guy found the key on
how to work around Seagal’s limitations and occasionally problematic
tendencies. While The Keeper is an
uninspired, if competent, effort all around, it generally does carry the air of
a professional production about it.
Seagal plays
Roland Sallinger, a veteran LA cop who takes a bullet in the chest from his
partner. The latter wanted to abscond with some drug money that nobody on the
case was aware of, but Sallinger was too honest for that sort of
underhandedness. After recovering from the murder attempt, Roland is forced
into retirement, much to his dismay—he has no family save a niece (Danish
actress Trine Christensen), whom he lives with.
He receives
a call from an old colleague, Conner Wells (Steph DuVall), who got rich after inheriting
his family’s oil-rich lands. However, his daughter, Nikita (Liezl Carstens, who
played Seagal’s daughter-in-law in Urban Justice),
has been the subject of an attempted kidnapping. Sallinger takes the job and
heads out to Texas, beefing up the security around the Wells family compound
and accompanying her on her frequent clubbing excursions. Meanwhile, a local
crime boss, Jason Cross (Luce Rains, of The
Marksman and 3:10 to Yuma) starts
pressuring someone on the inside into selling her out.
The plot is very reminiscent of the Jet Li film Bodyguard from Beijing. However, unlike Christy Chung’s spoiled
rich girl character, Nikita warms up to Roland Sallinger fairly quickly. That
is because this is Steven Seagal we are talking about her, and as the saying
goes, he makes every man sweat and every woman wet. While there are some subtle
hints that Nikita might like Roland
in that way, the film thankfully does
not pursue that particular subplot.
The performances are pretty solid. The best we can hope for from Seagal
is that he does his own looping, which seems to be the case here. Fortunately,
he does not try to expand his range by attempting Tennessee twangs or Russian
accents and other nonsense like that. Steph DuVall, who plays Roland’s
long-time friend, does a decent job. DuVall mostly has a television background,
with his biggest role being on the 2002 series “The Guardian.” Luce Rains (aka
Steven Hartley) has had a long career in TV movies and has shown up in numerous
contemporary western films, too. My main complaint his character is a throwaway
line about Jason Cross being a white supremacist of sorts, but it is forgotten
as soon as it is brought up.
There is a decent amount of action, all of it solidly filmed, edited and
choreographed by longtime Seagal collaborator Dickey Beer. Seagal has a brief
fight at a club, where he does arm locks and throws, keeping it simple. There
is a big gunfight in the street which is well shot. Seagal later fights a thug
at a restaurant and does more kicking than usual. The finale has him killing
numerous targets with a sniper rifle before facing off with the main villain's
lieutenant, played by Eb Lottimer. The two have a sweet exchange of handwork
before Seagal starts throwing him and around and dispatches him in a
typical grisly faction.
[1] - Said prostitute is played by Alexandria Morrow. She had small roles
in Zoolander and The Avengers. On the Brazilian DVD, her name is
written in a large font in the upper right-hand corner of the back cover, right
next to Steven Seagal. I'm not sure what to make of it. The same DVD cover also
says, "from the special FX team that gave you Hancock." Is that
the sort of info that would convince a non-Seagal fan to check this film out?
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