Seized has Adkins as a former special forces guy trying to live a quiet life in Mexico, which just never seems to work for these former special forces guys, and sure enough, a big drug cartel head, Mario Van Peebles, kidnaps his son and forces him to take out Van Peebles's competition. The question is, can this paint-by-numbers plot that we've all seen plenty of times before be elevated above it's paint-by-numbers-ness by Adkins, Van Peebles, Isaac Florentine's direction, and DTVC 40 Club member Art Camacho's fight choreography?
And really that was the only intrigue in the film once we understood what the plot was going to be, and I think I can give this a yes... kinda. The action sequences are everything you'd want with Adkins in the lead, Florentine directing, and Camacho choreographing. There's one near the end where Adkins has his hands taped behind him that's particularly inspired. By the same token, we've seen this film plenty of times before--I mean just the same year Adkins had Legacy of Lies, where he was ex-special forces being forced to work for the baddies, only it was is daughter that was kidnapped; and then Debt Collectors he wasn't ex-special forces, but we had the same construct, this time with he and Louis Mandylor's boss as the one kidnapped. Yes, this movie may have done better to mitigate the issues that come with this construct, but I think we still have "the son was kidnapped at the 13-minute mark, what are we going to do for plot for the next 75 minutes beyond 'give me my son back!' 'I will if you do this job for me!'?" I guess a few sweet Adkins action scenes isn't a bad way to pass the time though.
This is twenty for Adkins here on the DTVC, and I think if anything, this one solidifies him as the man right now. I also really loved that Florentine decided to allow Adkins to be a Brit, which he seldom does. Hopefully in future collaborations Florentine sees how much better that is, and, other than the Boyka movies, he goes with it. Out of his 2020 films, as of this writing I still haven't seen Dead Reckoning, but I've heard bad things, so I feel safe in saying I think this was my favorite of those. In fact, I think if I put all of his films from 2018-2020 together, this might be third for me after Avengement and Accident Man. On the one hand, that's great that this is third among 13 or so films for me; but on the other, this had its flaws, and there is a sense in looking at all the others from those three years that there is an issue of quantity above quality. I went back through some similar stars, like Dolph and Seagal, and really, other than Ron L. Marchini's unmatched run of 7 fun movies in a row, no one can put out a bunch of films and not have duds mixed in, so I think in Adkins's case, maybe the fact that he's able to pump out as many as he can and not have as many duds as other stars is the thing to hang his hat on? That and his too sweet actions scenes in this film.
Before I saw that this was available on Netflix, my next Mario Van Peebles film was going to be The Exterminator 2, which I watched some time ago for the Robert Ginty episode of the podcast I did with Ty and Brett from Comeuppance Reviews, so that's still coming, but I decided to bump this up in the review queue. What I appreciated here is, this is exactly the kind of baddie an actor of Mario Van Peebles's stature could have mailed in, because we've seen it myriad times here from other people--Bruce Willis?...--but because he didn't it added a level of quality to the film beyond your standard DTV yarn about a former special forces guy whose child is kidnapped and the guy is forced to do bad things. I think that, along with the other factors I mentioned above made this a fun time; it does feel weird though, doesn't it, to be applauding someone for doing their job and not mailing it in? I guess that's where we're at in the modern DTV world, but I think it's also testament to who Van Peebles is as a consummate professional.
We're already at paragraph six, and I'm finally getting to the film's one Hall of Famer and 40 Club Member, Art Camacho. This is film 47 here, so he's closing in on the hallowed territory of the 50 Club, which currently only has two members in Dolph and Gary Daniels. As I mentioned above, here he's involved in the film as fight choreographer, and the work is exemplary--again another element that elevates this beyond a plot we've seen so many times before. The question then is, is the 50 Club on the table for him? If you follow his Instagram page, he posts a lot of great behind the scenes stuff from what he's working on, including some R. Ellis Frazier joints; plus we have some PM Entertainment flicks that he worked on that we still have to review, so I imagine 50 is around the corner for him, it's just a matter of when we're able to make it all happen.
Speaking of R. Ellis Frazier--who was executive producer of this--I decided to spotlight one of Frazier's mainstays, Luis Gatica, who played one of the rival cartel heads. I generally watch an R. Ellis Frazier film for whoever the main lead is, like Dolph or Gary Daniels, but Gatica always turns in a solid, professional performance that brings a depth to whatever role he's playing that helps overcome any shortcomings the production he's on might have in terms of budget and resources. Had this not been directed by Isaac Florentine or starring Adkins and Van Peebles, Gatica probably would have been Van Peebles's part in an R. Ellis Frazier-directed version of the movie, so seeing him as a smaller baddie role in a way felt like we were wasting his talents; at the same time though, that skill of providing depth to whatever role he's playing took this small part and made it something more than "Cartel Leader no. 4." I'm sure as long as R. Ellis Frazier is making movies, Gatica will be working in them, so I know this won't be the last time we see him. Here's to you Mr. Gatica, you're one of the great ones.
And with that, let's wrap this up. As of my writing this, Seized is available on Netflix, but who knows how long they'll keep it up for, so get in while the gettin's good. If you remember last week, Larceny has gone MIA since Netflix decided to take it down, so you never know with them. And also if you remember last week, I was contemplating dumping my Netflix subscription because of how they dump movies. They must've been listening. "We can't lose Matt as a subscriber! Let's put Seized up and see if that keeps him for another month." All right guys, you've got another month out of me...
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7221772
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