Belly of the Beast: Colm’s Impressions

So when I went round to Pod’s for our usual 4-movie sitting I ended up forgetting to bring Out For a Kill, the movie that’s mentioned in the other posts here as the one I was going to talk about first.  Unfortunately, this website is only operated by two people so I don’t have the resources for a Ministry of Truth and won’t be retconning the previous posts.

Be warned that in this and every other post there will be spoilers in the classical sense.  I know I don’t watch these films to see how the story unfolds so I don’t know if I would technically consider them “spoilers” because they don’t actually detract from my enjoyment.

Belly of the Beast is set in Thailand and it really helped to see Seagal somewhere a bit more visually interesting.  After the quagmire of inane plot and endlessly shifting allegiances in The Foreigner it was good to see that this film went with a simpler hook:  Seagal’s daughter is kidnapped.  Now, the reasons behind this are murky.  At least two of the factions involved are pretending to do something when they’re doing another and on a single viewing I have to confess that I don’t actually know what everyone was up to.  So there’s a whole tangled mess going on in the background, but none of that really concerns Seagal: his character just sort of cuts through it as he stomps around Thailand looking for his daughter.  He ultimately figures out where she is but I have no idea how because the last two characters he’s in contact with before the final battle he kills without questioning.  But anyway, somehow he finds out where she is and then rescues her and brings down holy hell on a bunch of people in between and for the first time ever I think I mean that literally  since there’s magic and an evil (possibly satanic) sorcerer-type fellow involved.  Also, Ryu from Street Fighter (Byron Mann to give the man his dues) is along for the ride, playing a former partner of Seagal turned Buddhist monk seeking redemption.

Before he was an actor Steven Seagal did…

…this:

Just a little proof that the man did kick an amazing amount of ass when he was young.  He uses a lot of this stuff in the earlier films.

Lawman

I’m sure anyone interested already knows about Steven Seagal: Lawman, but I just wanted to add my own commentary.

This proves that Steven Seagal > Chuck Norris.  In the nineties, when Chuck Norris jumped ship to the small screen he made Walker: Texas Ranger, a fantasy about him being a Texas Ranger.  When Seagal makes the same move to TV (he held on fifteen years longer) he does what is (ostensibly) a documentary series about what he actually does when he’s an actual cop.

Opening Montage

Updated the About Us section

Above the Law

Well, I’m beginning where Seagal began with Above the Law.  My co-contributor and I are up to “The Foreigner” in a Chronological viewing of Steven Seagal’s filmography having skipped only “Ticker”, since he isn’t the headliner and we’d spent enough money.

My name is Colm Seeley and the hope is that we’ll catch up on the previous films and post gifs, clips and commentary as well as keeping up to date as we watch the new films.  Next up is “Out For a Kill”, the main draw of which is that Seagals plays a fucking Professor in it.  We’re diving headlong into his straight-to-dvd work now and I can only hope we emerge alive on the other side.

I should point out that after we decided to do this we used Vern’s wonderful Seagalogy to guide us through.  His personal website is over in the links section.

Until then, ask yourselves what it takes to change the essence of a man.

*glimmer*