Customer Reviews

Today You Die [VHS]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

September 13th 2005 heralded the release of 'Today You Die', Lord Steven Seagal's latest offering to his mass of devout followers. The movie, before its release, got a bit of a reputation due to the fact that the Lord was consistently late to set, usually left early, constantly changed the script, actors, etc. I also believe that Seagal is actually getting sued for his Lordly antics.

'Today You Die' has an inconceivable plot, but I will do my best: The Lordage is an ex-thief trying to go straight so he picks up a job as an armored car driver, only he's setup by some criminal mastermind named Max to take the fall for the robbery of the armored car. But somehow or other(its never really explained), the Lord does what the Lord does and ends up with the $20 million that Max was supposed to have stolen. The Lord is captured by the police and sent to prison(with no trial mind you). There he meets his apparently new best friend Ice(former Naughty By Nature rapper Treach in a truly Oscar-caliber performance). Well, the Lord and his new bosom buddy break out of prison. Of course the evil gangsters want the money that the Lord stole from them back. But Seagal can't let that happen. Its not really about the money, but more of a moral principle-type issue for him.

Now that is a much more coherent outline of what actually happens in 'Today You Die'. There's actually a whole lot more that I left out: Seagal's girlfriend's psychic visions which mean absolutely nothing to the film, the PMSing female cop who puts him in prison and then becomes his best buddy for no apparent reason once he breaks out, the second bad guy in the film that has nothing to do with the evil Max, and the little girl at the end of the movie who nevers appears or is even mentioned in the entire film but to Seagal apparently has some important connection . This movie makes no sense at all. None.

Now, onto the Lordage: he actually looks as if he's slimmed down a bit(maybe dropping from 350 pounds to around 320). His hair is disguistingly nappy and he doesn't even bother ponytailing it; it just hangs limply over his collar in total mullet fashion. There are a couple bright spots here though: #1) there's minimal dubbing of the Lord's voice by someone else(see 'Out Of Reach' or 'Submerged' for some examples of how not to dub someone's voice)and #2) Seagal rocks a totally sweet brown pleather coat for about half the film.

With the film's excessive use of stock footage from other direct-to-DVD films, overly obvious use of a stunt double for Seagal(even in situations where no stunts are involved), horrible editing, and a completely nonsensical and confusing plot 'Today You Die' is easily Seagal's laziest film to date.

I'd tell you to save your time and skip it, but every other Seagal fan out there like me will go buy 'Today You Die' and watch it anyway. So if you must watch it, there are only three amusing things to look for: Seagal's sweet pleather jacket, the Lord talking Jive to his new black buddy, and Seagal swinging on a chandolier. Hilarious.

I love the Lord and would give him my first born, but why does he torture me with filth like this so often?

Ironic: About twelve minutes into the film, Steven Seagal asks one of the film's villains "Do I look sleepy?" Not a minute later, his girlfriend asks him "Why are you whispering?"
Feel free to chuckle.

Seagal's 22nd action feature stars him as a virtuous thief who steals from rich criminals to give to the poor. Upon the urging of his pseudo-psychic girlfriend (Mari Morrow, Nikita Blues), he tries to go clean and takes a truck-driving job from a shady fellow (Kevin Tighe, What's Eating Gilbert Grape) but is double-crossed when it turns out that the job is a heist. Sent to prison, he quickly buddies up with inmate Ice Kool (Anthony "Treach" Criss, Love and a Bullet), breaks out, and pursues his turncoat-of-a-boss amidst a scene of police corruption.

As bad as Steven Seagal's DTV outings have been, "Today You Die" is a surprisingly decent bit of action that, at times, reminded me of the fun-yet-brainless '80s-'90s action flicks of yesterday. Of course, there is no way to turn back the hands of time and yes, Seagal still looks overweight, there is some dubbing of his voice, and the extended storyline - with its truly useless ghost-story tangents and plotholes - are silly enough to kill off a few brain cells. But while "Today" doesn't match Urban Justice for style, it's better than the likes of The Foreigneror Attack Forceby leaps and bounds for choosing to focus on fun rather than pretending to be intelligent. The best example of this is probably the car chase near the beginning of the film: though it steals footage from Top of the World, it's fast-paced, exciting, well-shot, and has a few one-liners thrown in for good measure to make it one of the best classical adrenaline scenes Seagal had been involved in for a while. In addition, the handful of fight scenes and shootouts are satisfactory as well. Seagal vs. bodyguards near the beginning of the movie and the gang confrontation close to the end are particularly attention-worthy.

The supporting cast also works well: the aforementioned names are alert and add to the plot, with Treach being my personal favorite of the rappers-turned-costars Seagal has had. Sarah Buxton (Devil's Highway) and Nick Mancuso (returning from both Under Siege movies) also do well as respective good & bad cops. Again, the messiness of some of the subplots have real potential to drag the movie down for untolerant fans: few examples better showcase the convoluted writing process of Seagal's DTV pictures as the inclusion of this movie's spiritual/magic concept that has absolutely no relevance to the story and goes absolutely nowhere...but if you're willing to take the overall decency of this picture with a grain of salt, it can be an interesting addition rather than a maddening distraction. Fans thirsty enough for something halfway serviceable from the man's DTV career should find "Today You Die" a passably enjoyable bit of violent fluff.

This is one of Seagal's better DTV titles. It features some cool action sequences and tons of classic Steven Seagal charm. He and Treach make for a particularly fun pairing and play off each other nicely. Unlike many of Seagal's earlier DTV movies, this one gives him plenty of nice character moments. The tone of the movie is much more fun and in keeping with some of his best movies like Hard to Kill and Out for Justice. If you are a fan of Steven Seagal as a personality, then you will really enjoy this movie. I give a lot of credit to the director Don E. Fauntleroy. He also directed Seagal's very best DTV movie, Urban Justice. He knows how to stage a nice action sequence and use Seagal correctly. I hope they make more movies together in the future!

Much like Into The Sun, this had all the ingredients for a Seagal come back but yet again the producers of yet another Seagal movie miss the opportunity to deliver a great Seagal action thriller. The movie is again handicapped in the same manner as Into The Sun and Submerged by the recurring problem of what appears to be Seagals disregard of the script or perhaps due to the lack of a script where he seems to make up his own dialogue to fill out a scene. It's as if the camera is turned on and Seagal makes it up as he goes along, conversations involving Seagal and other characters make no sense or have any relevance to the story at hand. In Seagals recent movies there always appears to be a scene which is simply there to give Seagal an ego boast. "Walks like a Black man, breaths like a killer", what was that all about?? The main armored car chase scene is lifted directly from another film made 10 years ago and also the open scenes of The Order with Van Damme is used as the opening scenes in this. I also think though I might be wrong but all the aerial shots of the prison and the prison structure itself looked the same as those used in the Wesley Snipes movie Undisputed. Seagals body double is ever present as usual, Seagals line delivery at times is terrible, yet another muddled and confusing plot and character relevance to the story, Seagal love scene!, fake back drop special effects and bad acting from allot of the supporting cast members are all here present and correct as has become the norm with Seagal movies of late. However it's not all bad, this is a big step up from Submerged, there is no voice dubbing, there are flashes of the old Seagal when he sticks to the script and does his own fight scenes which the two while he is in prison appear to be all Seagal and he is looking in better shape than his last few outings. For me, it was worth the rental as it's not all bad but it did feel very flat and uninteresting while watching it. In Seagals post Exit Wounds years, for me Belly Of The Beast is the mark to aim for and his best since Exit Wounds, with Half Past Dead, Out Of Reach and The Foreigner(<-- I know people may want to decapitate me for saying that but I like The Foreigner!) following behind. The worst for my viewing pleasure has to be Out For A Kill, Ticker and Submerged(although enjoyable in a it's so bad it's good, kind of way). I'd put Today You Die and Into The Sun in the same box as missed opportunities for two excellent Seagal movies.

This movie was good all the way through, from the start to the end. The plot was easy to follow. I do not rent or buy movies to sit back and try to be a movie critic. This movie is well done. Just sit back and enjoy. By the way the little girl that you see at the end of the movie also appear at the start of the movie.

OK so he always wears an overcoat or jacket (and probably a girdle underneath) but for fans this movie is fun.

That's all I have to say - it gets your attention and the Aikido is passable.

There were way too many inconsistencies that make you question why certain things are put in the film that don't mean anything, and yet there are things that must be missing because it didn't make any sense.

I gotta say though, I believe it's time for Steven Seagal to retire. Either that, or get some exercise and eat right to slim down a bit. Maybe then, he can get about another five years of action film appeal. This "The Biggest Loser" candidate needs to improve his health before he worries about making a movie that may put a little extra "fast food funding" in his pocket.

This is one of many Steven Seagal films that seem to just go right to video instead of being a theatrical release, and this is rightly so. I suppose someday, they will release a special Steven Seagal: 10 movie: direct to video: box set, and they could only hope that it might sell for maybe ten dollars.

Love Steven Seagal have most of his movies Trying to get all of them

Today You Die (2005) is a crime thriller set mostly in Nevada, and features action star Steven Seagal as man looking to turn his life around, but instead finds himself the pawn in a criminal conspiracy. While low on the credibility scale, this is still an entertaining direct to video release.

Seagal is Harlan Banks, a criminal type who arrives in Las Vegas, with his girlfriend Jada (Mari Morrow), looking to get a fresh start. A man named Max Stevens (Kevin Tighe) sets Banks up with job driving an armored car. While making a pickup of cash, Banks' partner Bruno (Robert Miano), guns down some security guards, and forces Banks to take off, with the cops giving chase.

The money disappears, and Banks claims to have lost his memory, when questioned by agent Rachel Knowles (Sarah Burton), and agent Saunders (Nick Mancuso). Banks ends up in prison, and does a favor for a con named Ice Kool (Anthony `Treach' Criss). In return, Kool allows Banks to join him in his escape attempt, flying out of the prison in a helicopter. Banks and Ice Kool team up to find Max Stevens, and hopefully the missing cash.

As in previous films, Seagal is doing the interracial buddy thing again. Seagal and Treach don't quite make the ideal pair, but they get on well enough, enjoying several fascinating discussions together. The dialog tries to be hip, but is pretty awful. Unfortunately Las Vegas isn't featured to very good effect, as more time is spent in behind bars in prison. Seagal has really bad haircut, and is doubled in his hand to hand fights. The first of several Seagal features directed by Don E. Faunt LeRoy, the film brings in a number of subplots, like rival gangs, corruption, philosophical baddies, psychic visions and altruism. It is a confusing mix that doesn't quite gel, but the end result is people getting shot up, and things exploding, on the way to Banks and his pals skirting a murder rap, and living it up on the stolen money.

First let us, Sid the Elf, explain that title. This film stole the basic plot principle from Redline that maybe if the audiance is confused enough, they won't realize we shot this movie with recycled footage, a few thousand bucks, and no permits. Then, they wanted to name the film, "You Talk Too Much," but they couldn't get the naming rights from the almighty Death Ring. Rumor has it that the sticking point on that was Seagal wouldn't pony up the cash to buy Chad McQueen a rhinestone studded leather vest with "Chad" adorning the back. Oh well.

Honestly, Sid wouldn't be able to give a coherent summary of the plot for this one. That could be because there was no plot. Or, more likely, Seagal messed this one up real bad. Let us explain: It is widely known that the producers of this film sued Seagal for showing up eggregiously late for filming and changing the script on the fly. Sid's theory is that Seagal concocted a brilliant plot for the flick, but his wonderful ideas didn't across because he was trying to dispense them to the rest of this wonderful cast through mouthfuls of his ever-present White Castle Crave Case and quart of Wild Turkey. This movie was so great that it would be covered in the first week of Action B 101 at Sid the Elf University. It was so great that it has a DMF(Don Mattingly Factor) and a KHF(Keith Hernandez Factor) of one. It was also so great that it garnered the famous Robert Downey Sr. apperance. And it was so great that it deserves Drive-In Totals.


2 arm snappings

6 nice explosions

8 songs that sounded like 80's songs and/or Journey to the West Soundtrack ripoffs

1023 shots fired

1 exploding chopper

1 B ripoff of a 2Pac song

1 killer mullet on the giant head of Cool Papa Seagal himself...

...and 43 homoerotic looks/exchanges between Seagal and Treach