Hard to Kill

Hard to Kill casts Steven Seagal as Mason Storm, a tough detective who’s attacked and left for dead after uncovering damning evidence against the mob and a high-ranking senator (William Sadler’s Vernon Trent) – with the story picking up seven years later as Mason comes out of a coma and embarks on a bloody campaign of revenge. It’s a fairly ludicrous premise that’s employed to impressively entertaining effect by filmmaker Bruce Malmuth, as the director, working from Steven McKay’s screenplay, delivers a briskly-paced thriller that’s been punctuated by a number of exciting fight and action sequences. Seagal’s surprisingly compelling performance certainly plays a key role in cementing the picture’s success, as the actor generally does an effective job of transforming his fairly one-dimensional character into a sympathetic, engaging figure. (It doesn’t hurt, undoubtedly, that Seagal’s hand-to-hand prowess elevates even the most mundane of combat interludes.) And although the film’s been peppered by a handful of eye-rollingly silly or obvious elements (eg Mason’s relationship with his coma nurse, Kelly Le Brock’s Andy), Hard to Kill mostly manages to come off as an impressively efficient thriller that ranks near the top of Seagal’s mostly inept output.

*** out of ****