Following Jean Claude Van Damme’s dramatic and award-winning return to the big screen in JCVD, Steven Seagal is bound to do exactly the same with his latest action packed comedy drama - Commandos in Surrey.
Seagal is Chad Doubleshot, a tough cop who lives the high-life, fast cars, fast broadband, fast women – he has it all including a huge futuristic apartment in downtown Leatherhead.
When some no-good punks knock off the local Odeon, Doubleshot is first on the scene. The raid on the Odeon is only a cover-up for a larger plot to install mind-control devices in every cinema in the Surrey area and create an army of criminals from the locals.
Seagal makes a few calls to some friends to reunite the “Burgundy Cobra 5” – an elite squad of the hardest, toughest men to fight in northern Moldova. These include U-tube (Roddy Piper, WWE), Kay-FC (Ross Kemp, Eastenders) and Har-Vesta (Richard O’Brien, Crystal Maze).
When they get together in Doubleshot’s futuristic ammo-bunker in Ranmore Common, they use the hi-tech computer to work out that their old drill sergeant Dr. Sprite Haribo (Terry Wogan, in his 8th collaboration with Seagal*) iss behind the criminal gangs.
The team ‘suit up’ with high tech, improbable and incredibly futuristic kit from the secret compartments Doubleshot has installed by local contractors within the bunker and prepare to protect every Odeon, Cineworld, Vue and Empire cinema in the county and take Haribo down.
One-by-one the Burgundy Cobra team are picked off by Dr Sprite Haribos relentless men, until one final showdown in Cineworld, Dorking. Jonathon Ross says the following of 'Commandos in Surrey':
‘I’m personally mortified that Seagal can continue to churn out films like this at such a high frequency. Although I staggered out of the press-viewing with my eyes feeling brutally raped, I couldn’t help feeling a mixture of 'somewhat impressed' yet 'sheer loathing' for the incredible volume of product placements crammed into this 86 minute steaming pile. Apart from loosely names characters that echo big brands, the final yet predictable blow executed by Seagal makes full use of a bag of Butterkist popcorn and a Black and Decker powerdrill. Ironic really that the film centers so much around cinemas and their security, yet the film is destined to be a straight to DVD flop. Avoid, Half a Star.
*Terry Wogan has produced Seagal’s Top 7 album (in Latvia and Upper Volta) ‘Love is a Desert Eagle with a Golden Trigger’, and also stared alongside Seagal in ‘Live 2 Kill’, Kill 2 Live’, Kill 2 Live 2: Killing to Live’ and ‘Kill 2 Live III: Killing to Kill to Live Again’. They also advertised Chupa-Chups together across the Indian subcontinent.
