There is really nothing to be said about "Exit Wounds" that hasn't been said in the last few weeks. Steven Seagal is still the king of bad action movies and will have to do more than cut his ponytail off in order to change that. He still has this image of a stiff and boorish bully who always talks as if he were trying to repress an uncontrollable rage.
He is no fun as an action hero, and as a person, there is very little to like about many of his characters. He stars here as a renegade Detroit police detective named Orin Boyd. After he pulls a stunt that saves the Mayor's life from would-be attackers, Boyd receives more negative feed back than good. He is considered to be reckless by his department, and so without telling us why the Mayor was attacked in the first place, the story switches over to Boyd's new headquarters.
He is demoted down to the 15th precinct, a hole in the ground that he doesn't want to be in. He is assigned a new partner (Isaiah Washington) and is told to seek group therapy for his violent and reckless behavior. The rest of the plot centers on a drug scam run by Latrell Walker (DMX), a crime boss who soon becomes Boyd's prime target. But what Boyd doesn't know is that it runs deeper than drugs.
"Exit Wounds" is a messy all over the place. It contains brutal martial arts sequences, gruesome death, formulaic story, and it's biggest problem, just bad acting. It is directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak, the guy who made even Jet Li look bad last year in "Romeo Must Die". Here, he is working with the same tools he did last time. The fight scenes are all poorly edited and over stylized with slow motion kicks and punches. He subjects his characters to gruesome deaths (one in particular goes through a windshield while in another scene one is crushed between two cars.), which just come off as mindless violence rather than anything impressive to watch.
The plot is the regular renegade cop routine, including several old cliches that you would find in your regular silly cop thriller. But this thing really loses its way when it gets trigger happy with its plot twists. Characters switch sides throughout this entire movie until it gets to the point where the twists are the movie. You begin to lose track of who is good and bad, and overall, you just don't care. Nothing that writers Ed Horowitz and Richard O'Ovidio come up with is ever shocking and it is easy to just slump back in your chair and roll your eyes everytime another twist is introduced.
Acting, by Bartkowiak's definition, must be to have his actors model for the camera while rap music plays in the background. The script is already spitting out senseless dialogue as it is, but the actors bring no emotion to their roles besides tough demeanors and blank expressions. Seagal is terrible at doing comedy, in fact, he actually looks more threatening when doing so. DMX has that same ability, just with drama. There is an early scene where he visits his jailed brother, a serious scene that is written and acted terribly enough to be laughable.
One highlight of "Exit Wounds" though is Anthony Anderson. This guy is like a fatter Chris Tucker. He always makes even the worst line funny because of his great timing with physical mannerisms. He and Tom Arnold apparently knew this movie was terrible and so they come through with a very funny improv conversation (Arnold plays a talk show host in the movie) that is worth the wait. They take a crack at everything from viagra to masturbation to fat women. It's more entertaining than anything else in this movie, trust me.
He is no fun as an action hero, and as a person, there is very little to like about many of his characters. He stars here as a renegade Detroit police detective named Orin Boyd. After he pulls a stunt that saves the Mayor's life from would-be attackers, Boyd receives more negative feed back than good. He is considered to be reckless by his department, and so without telling us why the Mayor was attacked in the first place, the story switches over to Boyd's new headquarters.
He is demoted down to the 15th precinct, a hole in the ground that he doesn't want to be in. He is assigned a new partner (Isaiah Washington) and is told to seek group therapy for his violent and reckless behavior. The rest of the plot centers on a drug scam run by Latrell Walker (DMX), a crime boss who soon becomes Boyd's prime target. But what Boyd doesn't know is that it runs deeper than drugs.
"Exit Wounds" is a messy all over the place. It contains brutal martial arts sequences, gruesome death, formulaic story, and it's biggest problem, just bad acting. It is directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak, the guy who made even Jet Li look bad last year in "Romeo Must Die". Here, he is working with the same tools he did last time. The fight scenes are all poorly edited and over stylized with slow motion kicks and punches. He subjects his characters to gruesome deaths (one in particular goes through a windshield while in another scene one is crushed between two cars.), which just come off as mindless violence rather than anything impressive to watch.
The plot is the regular renegade cop routine, including several old cliches that you would find in your regular silly cop thriller. But this thing really loses its way when it gets trigger happy with its plot twists. Characters switch sides throughout this entire movie until it gets to the point where the twists are the movie. You begin to lose track of who is good and bad, and overall, you just don't care. Nothing that writers Ed Horowitz and Richard O'Ovidio come up with is ever shocking and it is easy to just slump back in your chair and roll your eyes everytime another twist is introduced.
Acting, by Bartkowiak's definition, must be to have his actors model for the camera while rap music plays in the background. The script is already spitting out senseless dialogue as it is, but the actors bring no emotion to their roles besides tough demeanors and blank expressions. Seagal is terrible at doing comedy, in fact, he actually looks more threatening when doing so. DMX has that same ability, just with drama. There is an early scene where he visits his jailed brother, a serious scene that is written and acted terribly enough to be laughable.
One highlight of "Exit Wounds" though is Anthony Anderson. This guy is like a fatter Chris Tucker. He always makes even the worst line funny because of his great timing with physical mannerisms. He and Tom Arnold apparently knew this movie was terrible and so they come through with a very funny improv conversation (Arnold plays a talk show host in the movie) that is worth the wait. They take a crack at everything from viagra to masturbation to fat women. It's more entertaining than anything else in this movie, trust me.