Beyond the Law is not the early 90s Charlie Sheen action-thriller, but rather a 2019 suspense yarn with some action in it featuring Johnny Messner as a former crooked cop whose son is murdered and he wants answer. The murderer is played by Zack ward, aka Scut Farkus, who is crime boss Steven Seagal's son. With Messner and Seagal on a collision course to wackiness, we also have DMX as the detective on the take trying to stand in Messner's way. The real problem though is, Seagal, as the baddie, always has it in his contract that he can't be beaten in fight, so how does Messner vanquish a baddie he can't beat?
I don't know what to make of this movie. The cover told me all I needed to know, right? The actor with the most screentime is always the one furthest to the back on the tin, so I knew going in this was a Messner movie instead of a Seagal or DMX movie. That then leaves us with the issue that we only have Seagal and DMX in this to splash on the cover and make the movie worth more to the studios--I mean, would I be reviewing this right now if Messner was front and center on the cover with Zack Ward? Maybe not; or maybe I am because maybe the people who made it are getting the word out to people like me so we can sell it for them. I would love to sell a Messner vehicle to people as a Messner vehicle, as opposed to killing it for another lackluster Seagal performance.
That I think is what makes this the worst, this cynical aspect where Seagal needs to be unbeatable, so the film had to come up with a way for him to lose without him losing. Is it worth it that much to get his face on the cover so people like me will review it and say "save your money"? That's what the DTV world has come to though; and while maybe we could say it's always been that, that the only difference now is instead of me seeing Seagal on the cover on the video store racks, I'm seeing Seagal on the cover in a thumbnail on my VOD rental selections, but there's something about this that feels more crass. The reality is we didn't even need Seagal in this, Zack Ward was plenty bad enough as the baddie, Seagal's inclusion just weighed it down; but from the cynical VOD standpoint, it doesn't matter, because Zack Ward standing where Messner is, and Messner standing where Seagal is, and Seagal nowhere in the film, means fewer VOD rentals, so it's better to make the overall film suffer, because the film itself is no longer important once we've already plunked our money down to rent it.
All that being said, I want to get into Messner in this. Why is it that every cover he's on has him with this look on his face like he's a teenager whose mom just told him he can't go anywhere until he's cleaned his room? And why do all the roles he's in feature him as this personality-less protagonist, when his IMDb photo has him with a monkey on his shoulder? Why can't he have a film that showcases both his action chops and his personality? Why can't he have a wisecracking buddy cop movie? Pair him with Michael Jai White or Byron Mann, and give us 88 minutes of fight scenes, shoot-outs, and great one-liners. This is another movie where we feel like we're just scratching the surface of Messner, and I think part of the reason for that is the studios are afraid to make the movie I described, and instead need to pair him with people like Seagal and Dolph. The studios need to trust us as a movie audience more. If you make the Messner movie, we will watch it.
DMX, like Seagal, isn't so much as wasted in this, as we're wondering why he's here. Other than a scene where he's at a bar asking for a full bottle of Hennessy, and the bartender doesn't get what he means, and he keeps saying "just give me the bottle," there's nothing particularly DMX about his role. He's really just there to be on the cover to get us to rent it in the hopes that it will be Exit Wounds 2. On the other hand, Zack Ward really delivers as the baddie, kind of the way Tim Abell carries Sniper Special Ops despite Seagal being on the cover, Ward carries Beyond the Law from the other side. Again, it's more of that cynical side where Messner and Ward were all we needed, but the studios don't like a move with just them on the cover, so enter DMX and Seagal, which gets me to review it and other people to watch it. On the other hand, this only has 14 external reviews on IMDb, meaning maybe Seagal is hitting his saturation point with these, and even the lure of a potential Exit Wounds 2 wasn't enough.
Finally, this film was directed by James Cullen Bressack, who is know more for his horror films. For me, I remember when he was first starting out, I was on a mailing list he had to get the word out on his early movies. The problem for me was, his films were too extreme for my tastes personally, and I didn't think it was worth it for both me to put myself through them if they made me that personally uncomfortable, and worth it for him to have me review a movie that wasn't made for me. Just the same, I wanted him to be successful, so to see him here directing this movie was really exciting for me as someone who hoped he'd do well. For that reason, I decided to include this shot above instead of a screen of DMX. To me it felt like the shot of a director trying to make the best of a film he was given that was beset with many limitations. It's too easy in the cynical DTV world to focus on the bad and turn up the snark, and miss some of the good that comes out of movies like these, like Messner and Ward's performances, or Bressack as a young director trying to put his stamp on a film that isn't his own.
And on that good note, it's time to wrap this up. I think as part of a streaming services you already have, or on Hoopla for free, this is worth checking out. Beyond that, it feels like we're playing into the forces that turned this movie into what it was, that every rental makes the studio think they're right by having a less-invested Seagal with his script demands or a DMX whose part could have been played by anyone in this just so they could be slapped on the cover; but by the same token, by skipping it altogether, you miss out on Messner, Ward, Bressack, and others who did their best to make this beyond just an enticing cover for a VOD rental.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11161374
No comments:
Post a Comment