MAXIMUM CONVICTION: Out Now To Rent and Buy

And the contender of “worst action film of the year” is…..

Seriously, I know the days of Mr Steven Seagal going all “Out For Justice” and so “Hard To Kill!” are long gone, but has he really sank to this low?. You could say Seagal’s films of late have all been a torrid experience but for some and you could include me in that, sometimes I do like to just switch off and watch some endless bullshit and Seagal’s recent CV is a blitz of films in which you can do that! Take Driven To Kill for instance. Dumb and stupid but passes the time quite nicely and just does enough for you to say to yourself, “Yeah I would watch another film with good old Steve in”

The best thing about the former Under Siege star is that he still has a mountain of fans who are still willing to seek out anything he does. Films like those I have mentioned along with Marked For Death and of course the still criminally underrated Nico were 90’s gold, when action films ruled the box office and video market and while Seagal never quite got to the stage where the likes of JCVD enjoyed, he still done enough for the genre to make him one of the most watched actors in the straight to DVD market

Sadly Maximum Conviction is a film that probably will lose him a legion of fans though. Not because of the bad acting and ridiculous plot which if you are either buying or renting films like this then you expect those two factors to be present. But because this time, Seagal cant even fall back on endless dumb fight scenes or even gun duels. You see Maximum Conviction does something that maybe the makers should not have done and that is team him up with Steve Austin, a man who probably will never have a huge star studded action career but will always turn out dependable straight to DVD offerings.

Ever since The Condemned came out, I have liked the man they call Stone Cold so when he is on screen here, I have to say I enjoyed the film a lot more than when the camera was on him than on Seagal. The cover on the DVD may boast a team up of these two, but in reality they are kept away together for a long time and the film only reaches the heights when its centred on the former WWE star.

Plot wise, well its simple! Black Ops soldier Cross (Seagal) and his partner Manning (Austin) are contract security who have been assigned the job of decommissioning an old military prison. What we have then is these two spending 90 minutes cleaning the place and cracking jokes….ok I am taking the piss, their job is too transport the remaining prisoners (and there are not that many) to a different place. Of course being an action film, this simple job goes drastically wrong and we end up with Cross on one side of the prison and Manning on the other, fighting off a group of elite mercenaries for reasons that are too bland to remember.

You can forgive many Seagal films for being a bit rubbish but Maximum Conviction pays the price for Seagal not really being bothered by the whole thing! Unlike other reviews who focus on his weight and then crack jokes, fans of his know that the days of Seagal throwing high kicks and fancy moves are long gone and if it wasn’t for fast editing then maybe he wont be able to even do action films anymore, but at least he can try to act as if he wants to be in the movie. His mopping around and uttering sentences under his breath just makes you the fan think “Well if you cant be bothered, then neither can we!” and you can surely see the once solid sales of his DVD offerings dwindle.

Thankfully we still Austin who may still after a few films looks uncomfortable with the dialogue, he does carry a good fight and its his presence alone that makes the film just about watchable.

Action genre on the DVD market is in good shape thanks to offerings like the Universal Solider sequels, and Maximum Conviction may please a few out there. For me personally, it was a very hard 90 minutes to get through. The fight scenes were bland and the script tiresome with only a fast pace to the proceedings, stopping this from being a total wretched experience. Austin himself deserves much better material than this and as for Seagal, surely its time for him to wake up and realise that somewhere in him there is one last good film to come out. It hasn’t harmed the likes of JCVD to relive past glories. Maybe its time for Seagal to do a Under Siege 3 or a Nico 2, just to excite his fans again!

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