Thursday, March 10, 2022

The Keeper (2009)

The Keeper (2009)

 


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.

Unsurprisingly, there is some female flesh on display, although it doesn't revolve around Seagal. In one scene, the young lady's boxer boyfriend is kissing a topless woman while the lady is in the next room. The villain has a naked masseuse in one throwaway scene. Lastly, we have another scene of the boyfriend snorting lines off a naked prostitute's buttocks[1]. While I am sure that sex sells and helps his movies to do well on home video, I wonder why he insisted on doing things this way for so long. This is especially true once you remember that he was one of the first Caucasian Hollywood celebrities to publicly come out as Buddhist. Whenever celebrities make much ado about their spirituality and then make movies that are filled to the brim with nudity and violence, I cannot help but shake my head. I guess Seagal is like the evil monk in 1993’s Iron Monkey: he practices Buddhism in his heart, not in his mouth (or eyes or penis).


[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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