Shadow Man

Shadow Man

Shadow Man
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DVD details

Actor: Eva Pope, Imelda Staunton, Michael Elwyn, Steven Seagal, Vincent Riotta
Brand: Sony
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Dubbed)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 1.85:1
Running Time: 91 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-06-06
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

DVD Reviews of Shadow Man

DVD Review: Can't Step Out Of His Own Shadow
Summary: 1 Stars

As much as I like Steven Seagal and his movies, I must admit that I found very little to like about "Shadow Man" - Seagal's 25th action feature, directed by Michael Keusch, who would go on to direct the equally poor Seagal flicks Attack Force and Flight of Fury. Everything from the storyline, production, acting, and action falls completely flat, to the point that I began wondering where the more approving reviews on Amazon came from. It feels like The Foreigner in rewind, with dreary visuals and poor action scenes highlighting an over-complicated storyline that's impossible to care about.

The story: When travelling to Romania for the 5th anniversary of the death of his wife, businessman Jack Foster (Seagal) sees his daughter Amanda (Skye Bennett, who'd return in Against the Dark) kidnapped during an airport attack while Jack himself is targeted by Romanian officials and mobsters who believe him to be in possession of a devastating biological weapon. Gunned for from all sides, he must team with a beautiful ex-agent (Eva Pope, "Coronation Street") if he hopes to eliminate the threat and save his daughter.

That sounds straight-forward enough, but again, this is one of the most convoluted Seagal films that I have ever seen. As an action hero, Seagal has never really needed brainiac storylines to get over, but the script of "Shadow Man" calls for the plot to take at least two disorienting twists, feature a supporting cast the size of China (this includes Oscar nominee Imelda Staunton, but only about a third of all the speaking roles have actual relevance to the movie), and require the viewer to juggle the intentions of several characters amidst the general chaos. That last aspect may have been fine if there was a single interesting character in the whole movie. Seagal himself comes off as a big, callous jerk and an awful parent (e.g. he puts off joining his daughter, who is disappointed that he's not coming, to have sex with some nameless woman). Eva Pope is easily the best performer in the movie, but that's not saying much, seeing as the rest of the cast is entirely faceless and forgettable.

The production is sub-standard: the film utilizes the "shaky camera" technique to maddening effect and the locales are consistently colorless and boring to look at. Action scenes fail to exhilarate: Seagal busts out an aikido move every half an hour, but all of the hand-to-hand fights, shootouts, and car chases are cut so swiftly and irregularly that you'll hardly have time to register what's going on in half of the shots. For a couple nice touches, though, Jack builds a nifty MacGuyver-style bomb with a phonograph and somehow manages to shoot down a combat helicopter with a pistol (tidbit: three years after this, Seagal's daughter Ayako released her biographical film called "How to Blow Up a Helicopter", which I'm positive was inspired by this particular scene).

In conclusion, I would only recommend this film if you particularly enjoy Seagal's direct-to-video efforts, because it'll take some commitment to get to like this one.
More Shadow Man reviews:
1 2 3 4 5

Description of Shadow Man

SHADOW MAN - DVD Movie
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