Best Served Cold

In this seasons must see futuristic crime action thriller, Steven Seagal delights in his portrayal of a brutalistic future where the punks are armed, maniacal and numerous.

Background and Context

Seagal wrote, leads and directs in this complex thriller, resurrecting the character Jonathan Cold from the revered and critically acclaimed films The Foreigner (2003) and The Foreigner: Black Dawn (2003).

In an interview with the Independent, Seagal revealed that the choice to bring back Cold was tough because of the danger of tainting his past work.  "Cold is an established character and people really connected with his depth and complexity - Not wanting to disrupt those energies and memories in people's mindboxes leant me towards ditching the idea entirely but then Zen Master Xi Ju Kendo suggested I ressurect Cold, 120 years in the future and I thought, yeah.... yeah"

For those not familiar with The Foreigner and The Foreigner: Black Dawn, an excerpt of some of the finer moments in the film...

Merideth Van Aitken: Do you have a family?

Jonathon Cold: Yeah, I have a brother.

Merideth Van Aitken: Older or younger?

Jonathon Cold: ...Wiser.

Jonathan Cold: You see, in this business... the keys to the kingdom is weapons-grade plutonium. If you ain't got that, you ain't got shit.

Best Served Cold

Th Year is 2122 and New York City has been reduced to a cess pool of low down dirty punks who peddle crack to kids, set fire to grannies and get up to no good from Broadway to the Bronx.

Terrified and at the edge of his wits, the Mayor, Brian McHonor (Brian Blessed) becomes desperate for a hero to restore some municipal order and put down the Wild Rhino gang that are the dominant force on the streets.  McHonor is approached by a young brilliant but controversial scientist, Professor Honey Brains (Alicia Silverstone) who has used reverse polametric energy fields to create a machine able to replicate humans from single cells.

McHonor and Brains make a complex moral decision that changes the future of the planet.  In the face of overwhelming evil and criminality, they bring back the one man, they think can save the city from hell, Jonathan Cold.

The only issue is that the process or replication is not quite perfect and so Brains fine-tunes the rebuilt Cold with some robotic limbs and computer hardware, wired directly into his brain, giving Cold a heads up display of the world.  When Cold awakes, he is furious.... Angry at being resurrected and even more furious when he finds out that the leader of the Wild Rhinos is the great grandson of the man who killed him in treachery back in the Bolivian rainforests in 2021.

The Major immediately makes Cold his Head of Justice and Judge Jonathan Cold is released onto the hard streets to deliver his justice one punch at a time.  Working his way through the various layers of the Wild Rhinos with their colourful clothes and inexplicable domains, Judge Cold eventually has to face down their lethal leader, Black Dyper (Val Kilmer) in a fight to the death for the sake of Town Hall.

Thankfully, as well as Brains on his team, he has more support in the form of Detective Trippy (Andre 3000 from Outkast in an acting debut) a wise cracking cop with fast wits and faster reactions.

If you have no respect for the law, if you have a mohican in the colours of the rainbow but sport an uzi, if you threaten Colds great great granddaughter; then you better be ready, because this judge believes justice and revenge is Best Served Cold.

Mirror, Signal, Outmanouvered

This Autumn, Steven Seagal writes, directs and stars in the action drama, Mirror, Signal, Outmanouvered.

When the team of CIA Black Ops operative, Captain Jack Dagger (Seagal), are compromised on a mission in deepest Glasgow, Dagger is forced to retire in disgrace.  Taking the news badly, he hits the bottle and falls back into a sullen existence as a driving instructor in Maine.

However, the circumstances of the mission failure and the stain it left on his impeccable service record remain troubling to Dagger.  One day, his peaceful, if not settled, life is turned upside down as a face from his dark past turns up and asks for lessons in three point turns.

Sergeant X-Signal, an old CIA buddy who led the team supporting Dagger's team in Glasgow from Langley, has some alarming news.  He suspects that Dagger was set up by an undercover Al Qaeda cell seeking revenge on Dagger for several punks that he had previously put in the ground.  If the CIA has a mole, Sergeant X-Signal cannot flush it out because he is simply too close to the organisation.  

Working together, X-Signal and Dagger decide to seek and destroy the infiltrators relying on their special ops skills and some pretty flimsy evidence.  Thankfully, they are joined by Candi Mirror (Kim Kardashian) the only other agent they can trust inside the agency.

Check Out Time

In this Autumn 2014 release, Steven Seagal stars, directs and provides life guidance to all crew on the set of Check Out Time.

Seagal leads in the role of Chet McCody, a hotel manager in Chicago, leading a peaceful retirement after years serving as a captain in a covert US Navy SEAL team.

His hotel is honoured to be hosting the Republican Conference and with the president and other dignitaries in attendance, it is a high profile affair.  Leading the security detail is McCodys old comrade from his Black Ops days, Colonel Gus Screech (Sir Alex Ferguson) and their relationship is strained.  McCody knows that Screecher abandoned him and his crack team in the mountain passes of Chile in '94 and left them for dead.

The conference is going well until the third evening, when at the honorary dinner, a lavish affair; a huge cake, meant to be a gift to the president from the Republican party, suddenly bursts open to reveal IS fighters intent on taking the entire conference hostage.  Incredibly, every single member of the waiting staff is also an IS fighter and it quickly becomes clear that the security breach was not due to Screech's incompetence but his complicity.

The security services are disarmed quickly and the hostages all gathered in the main hall.  The building secured, the terrorists supply their demands to a weary Chicago hostage negotiator, Charles Slippers (played by Idris Elba).  They want a golden helicopter, the release of 600 IS freedom fighters and a nuclear warhead to fly back to the Iraqi-Syrian badlands with, oh and some KFC.

The presidents life is in danger, is American justice and freedom going to give in to evil?  Not if McCody can help it.  When he saw the cake split, he immediately went to ground, using his expert knowledge of the hotel layout and abnormally large air ducts to move without trace about the hotel. He manages to team up with bellboy FastX, who loves to rap (Jamie Foxx) and hotel guest and Senators daughter Foxy (Taylor Swift) He also makes contact with Slippers and they begin to take the terrorists down, one punch at a time.

In climatic scenes, McCody must face down his adversary Screech.  On the hotel roof, the two settle some old scores in a good old fashioned knife fight.

If you are an Islamic State fighter, if you plan on terrorising McCodys hotel then you better make sure you are ready for... Check Out Time.

Games of Hunger

In Steven Seagals latest venture, he acts, sings and directs in Games of Hunger, name still in dispute with Lions Gate films.

The year is 3010. The Earth has been decimated by years of intergalactic warfare and following the Saturn conflict the human race is enslaved. The overlords are led by Emperor Karcheaturghh (played by Dale Winton), a bloodthirsty half-ling with a penchant for board gaming. He is helbent on turning Earth into a gigantic manufacturing warehouse for his home planet of Aldic. With humans dominated, each continent is separated into a specialism. Australasia- Agriculture; North America - Mining; Europe - Christmas Wrapping and Batter based Foods.

Roaming the Pyrenees is a grizzled war veteran, Saffron Bullet. Saffron served from 2971 to 2974 as a simple rifleman in the brutal Uranus conflict, otherwise known as the flaming undercarriage. After a series of successful battles he rose through the military ranks, garnering respect from his men but jealousy from his peers in equal measure. Yet, this rising star felt his wings clipped when a visit to the local library turned messy. After being accused of unpaid fines a row erupted the likes of which had never been seen before nor likely again. Even now, 25 years on, Bullet cannot hold a book without crying, screaming or punching out in agony. Kindles are his only solace.  Saffron cannot stand the imposed imprisonment of the human race and yearns to strike back.

To prevent distraction to humans, Karcheaturghh creates an annual set of deadly games whereby 12 killers are placed in an enclosed environment in the wastelands of Humberside and must fight each other to the death. Not with weapons but with popular board games created in the 20th century. Bullet volunteers and must fight for his life (and his honour) with only a Sudoku puzzle to defend himself.

Bullet soon befriends a straight talking street thug with an IQ of 152, Kunx (played by Stephen Fry). Knux comes from the tough talking streets of Basildon and soon these buddies form a bond based on their mutual love of Monopoly and Top Trumps. They set about teaming up to survive. A rival gang, led by Travis Balthzar (played by Steve from Coronation Street) pick off the weaker contestants leading to an ultimate showdown. This is not before an inexplicably hot woman, Foxy (played by Janet Street-Porter) bursts into the game and throws herself at Bullet. 

'I want you Bullet goddamn it' said Foxy.
'Is that you talking or the vicar with the lead pipe in the conservatory?' questioned Bullet.
'Does it matter' replied Foxy throwing the board to one side and revealing the fact she had been naked all along
'Checkmate' responded Bullet.

'Wrong Game Fool' shouted a concerned Knux. 'Humankind does not have a hope'

'Snap' uttered a bewildered Bullet.

As the other contestants fall Knux and Bullet find themselves heading for a deadly showdown with Balthazars crew. With rain pouring out of the sky the enemies meet under the glow of a red stained moon. 

'This gets settled tonight' shouts Bullet.

'How?' replies a rattled Balthazar.... 'Chess, Droughts, Jenga?'

'We are going old school...... 

'No, not.......'

'Damn right Balthazar.  Like men.  With honour.  It's how my daddy would have wanted things. Knux, Pass me the Buckaroo'.

Who will survive the ultimate test between two of the deadliest warriors the earth has ever seen. Tune into Sky Channel 456 at 00:45 to find out.

Between The Lines

This September, Syfy Hd is set to premier the latest Steven Seagal thriller, Between the Lines, in the prime 11.30pm slot.

Seagal plays New York traffic warden Kirk Torpedo a former special forces Captain who went on to provide personal protection to the president.  Torpedo was the best of the best of the best of the goddamn best, an expert in Japanese martial arts, fluent in 48 languages including Sentilese the little known dialect of North Sentinel, an island that has resisted outside influence since the dawn of time and he is also able to read minds and move objects through telekinesis.

Seagal has been retired from his high action high pressure job for ten years following an attempt on the Presidents life which left his partner dead and left a bullet lodged in his own brain as he dived to save the President from the assassins fire.  He now plods a downtown traffic beat, dishing out tickets, gifting Haiku poems to local shopkeepers and plays chess with old Jewish men in the park.  He drinks heavily, enjoys heavy metal and loves a workout on the heavy bag.

Torpedo finds his peace disturbed one day, whilst busting a punk for Violation Code 67, parking in front of a pedestrian ramp, which carries a penalty of $165; he witnesses a kidnapping across the street, leaping into action he sprints across only to have to seek cover under gunfire.  Unperturbed he moves forward again but comes under further sustained fire and it is only his ability to achieve a higher state of mind, calming each limb and nerve ending and effectively slowing time, a technique taught to him by ancient Tibetan monks in the Meili Xue Shan mountains, that means that he is able to dodge the flying bullets.  His bravery although admirable does not stop the punks from escaping and as it later transpires, their prize was the Senators daughter, Mary-Jane, who they plan on holding as a hostage and treating with menacing potentially sexual looks and curled lip grimaces, the low down dirty suggestive punks.

What Torpedo witnesses and the subsequent refusal of any authorities to take him seriously is puzzling.  When however, he receives a warning threatening his life, etched into the bonnet of a badly parked Chevrolet Impala he is drawn further into the conspiracy and feels compelled to put his special forces training to immediate fist throwing action.

The punks he is choosing to confront are dangerous Yakuza criminals hellbent on reducing New York to cess pit of violence but thankfully he has his parking attendant buddies, fast talking Lowjam (Pitbull in an acting debut) and stunning but deadly Lollipop (Abi Titmuss) along for the ride.

The authorities will not condone his actions because Torpedo is a known renegade, always doing what he has to do to bust those badass motorists.  Yet, Torpedo also knows he is the only one that can save the girl and make sure those Japanese punks are issued with his very own style of ticket, a violation code XXX takedown.

This autumn, as the tickets and the punches fly, Torpedo is trafficking trouble to the Yakuzas.  He is the only hope Mary-Jane has and she can only hope that he is prepared to act.... between the lines.

Reviews

The Guardian: I am not familiar with this genre of film but that is because I have walked on warm sand with the sound of gentle waves lapping at the shoreline; I have felt the soft caress of a woman and her warm cotton top against my trembling skin and I have brushed a tear from the cheek of a child as it looked me in the eye and smiled.

The Times: The film is a marked improvement on Seagals last efforts, The Zero Clock and Jesus Christ McCutlass!! but only in the way that having your eyes gouged out by a crack whore is better than being buried alive and on fire.

The Scunthorpe Trumpet: Magnificent, the attention to detail in the accurate portrayal of life on the gritty streets of New York for an everyday ex-special forces / presidential bodyguard / martial arts expert / traffic warden is exceptional.  Although I fear that the 40 minute diatribe at the end delivered straight to camera on the perils of packing a trailer on your sports utility in an urban area felt a bit too much.

Excerpts

Lollipop: Help me, ah help me

Torpedo: I am here Sugar Plum now kiss me, ah kiss me

Lollipop: Ah Torpedo