The Perfect Weapon (2016)

This was another that I watched a couple years ago with the idea that I would start the blog back up again, only to not make it happen.  Now that we finally are back from hiatus, as I was looking for films to review, this was a natural one to come back to, especially since it has DTVC Hall of Famer Steven Seagal and blog favorite Johnny Messner.  It had disappointment written all over it, so let's see if it lived up to that... disappointment?

The Perfect Weapon has nothing to do with the Jeff Speakman great of the same name.  In this one Johnny Messner plays a not-so-perfect hit man created by the State in a dystopian post-nuclear apocalypse society run by the Director, played by none other than a be-Cajun accented Steven Seagal.  When Messner meets a woman while carrying out a hit (Sasha Jackson), she conjures up memories of a past before the State turned him into a killing machine.  What does it all mean?  Could she be the key to his lost humanity?  And could this found lost humanity put the Director and the State's power in jeopardy?

I was trying to put my finger on what was wrong with this, and I think I figured it out.  While this came out a full year before Blade Runner 2049, it felt like what you'd think the Asylum's rip-off version would be to capitalize on that, if you know what I mean.  It had that thrown-together bouillabaisse quality to it that you'd get from a Transmorphers or something like that.  Dash of 1984, dash of Blade Runner, dash of Hitman, toss in a hint of Vernon Wells and garnish with Steven Seagal, and there you go.  There were some nice action moments, but not enough to balance out a plot that couldn't decide whether it wanted to focus on the dystopian futuristic world, or Johnny Messner's character's story, and that ultimately led to all three elements suffering.  One could make the case that DTVC action/sci-fi isn't the place for a story of this scope; but I think if this is the avenue you have to take, then it's necessary to dial it back a bit.  For example, we don't need as much backstory--and sometimes less backstory can make the setting even cooler--Goddard's Alphaville comes to mind.  This film instead did the worst thing it could do: tried to split the difference, and that trick never works.  Probably the most egregious was when characters would give us plot exposition in the form of conversation, which always sounds horrible.  "You mean the thing you did because of the thing that happened in the past that we feel the viewer should know about?"  "Yes, that thing."

Another area where I feel this was sauteed in wrong sauce was in the casting of Messner for the lead.  The character was supposed to have no personality, just be a human killing machine, who then finds his humanity; but Messner's natural charisma prevented that from working on any level.  It made me wonder, the way this film seemed to borrow ideas from so many other places, if this had been made after Blade Runner 2049, if perhaps they would have made this character more like Ryan Gossling's, because I think that kind of character would have fit more with what Messner brings to the table.  The other thing was he didn't have many great fight scenes.  In the opening sequence, he just walks around with guns shooting people, which was boring.  That would have been a great place to open the movie by letting Messner get after it with a bunch of stuntmen, and in so doing, would have both asserted Messner's badassness right from the jump, and also cut the edge off of some of that plot exposition.  I think when you have a talent like Messner, it's better to adapt the film so what he brings works in it, as opposed to diminishing some of his best aspects to make him fit your film.

Seagal doesn't have a big role in this, as you can imagine, and I'm not all that mad about that.  One thing I saw in his final fight scene with Messner, is a way for his martial arts skills to translate in a more organic way beyond the slap-chop routine we've seen in more of his other recent films.  It was a lot of Aikido, throwing and redirecting Messner around, and it looked very believable.  This could be a new Seagal as an action hero.  I would definitely watch a Seagal in a Caine from Kung Fu type role, walking the earth, finding conflicts, and using an economy of movements and his opponents' energy against them to incapacitate baddies to save innocent people.  It was an element in this movie that I wasn't expecting, especially with some of Seagal's other recent films I've seen, which are more about him showing off his Seagal Lawman and Seagal Conservative Activist sides.  Seagal Aikido Expert is guy we could use more of, and his role in this film reminded me of that.

The most interesting part about this film was how imperfect the perfect weapon was.  Now, the creators of the film could argue that to the people who made him, the imperfections--in particular the fact that he could be captured so easily--were what made him perfect, because it was what allowed them to control him.  The problem is, they never really referred to him as being perfect in that way.  A perfect weapon wouldn't be dumb enough to have sex with a woman, even a long lost love from a repressed memory, in his apartment when he knows the State is chasing after him; but that's exactly what happened, all while I'm watching it and thinking "dude, you need to get out of there or you're gonna get caught!"  It's a definite flaw in your film's verisimilitude if a guy like me, with no tactical training whatsoever beyond being an avid action film watcher, is thinking your "perfect weapon" hero is making tactical errors; and if we can't believe the film's title, how can you get us to follow you when you present the idea that Steven Seagal is a futuristic dictator of a dystopian society?

Finally, we did let off a little steam with Vernon Wells as the State's official torturer.  Unfortunately no chain mail top, which was another disappointment.  The torture scene in general is gratuitous and overdone.   All this one did was prove further how imperfect our perfect weapon hero was, because he did nothing to try to escape his predicament, and had to be rescued.  I think it's bad enough to go to the torture scene well with your hero, but it's much worse to go to that well in a way that diminishes our hero's agency in the process.

I initially watched this on Netflix, but now it's only available to stream on Tubi TV as far as I can tell.  Either way, I don't think this is all that worth it, which is too bad, because I think this could have gotten there.  It never really knew if it wanted to examine Messner's character's existential crisis or the dystopian future it took place in, and the action wasn't enough to carry it in either case. 

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4616250