Just rewatched Steven Seagal's Above the Law...
 

....and I just cannot believe how charismatic, believable and a breath of fresh air he was back then.

Compared to the muscleheads like Stallone & Schwarzenegger, here was this guy who was thin & had receeding hairline. Yet Above the Law showed Seagal was probably the real thing...he knew aikido and showed how to kick ass graciously, he spoke fluent Nihonggo (Japanese), and held firearms like he knew what he was doing. Plus there was an enigma around Seagal (perpetuated mainly by himself) that he was indeed a former CIA agent, and a bodyguard for several big name politicians. He actually looked cool...and it made a lot of moviegoers look forward to his next film.

Above the Law also had incredible fight scenes (of which I recall were praised by martial artists everywhere due to its realism), and most of all, he showed his vulnerability. This is probably the one of the few movies where his character does get beaten up (well, he was tortured). In Hard to Kill, he was presumed dead yet resurrected as an invincible revenge-seeker. In Executive Decision, he was only there for 10 mins (to the delight of moviegoers).

Kinda wished Seagal never strayed from how he started.

I think Above the Law was his best movie

I personally liked Hard To Kill. But I think he was most brutal in Out for Justice.

<i>Out For Justice</i> is my fave: "Anyone seen Richie? I'm gonna keep coming back till someone remembas seein' Richie"
To Gina Gershon: "I'm surprised you can still eat with that mouth" :lol:

<i>Marked For Death</i> gets props for having Keith David at his side.

I miss the days when we could see limbs getting snapped in movies.

This thread is timely, I just suffered through one of his latest DTV films "Out of Reach." It was just plain horrible and I used to be fan of Seagal back in the day...

Yeah once Warner jumped ship on him, his subsequent films went directly to unwatchable.

Unfortunately, Seagal became twice the man he was.
His first 3 were his best.

I liked his Under Seige movies.

I liked "Under Siege".

And i'm not just saying that because Erika Eleniak got topless.

His first 5 movies were solid. Things started going downhill with On Deadly Ground.

Under Siege was awesome

"Ryeback is just a cook...."

Interestingly enough, I just noticed that Seagal is listed as a producer for Under Siege 3

One thought he could fly the other thought he was invincible.

i love how corny and interchangable his 3 word movie titles are:

"above the law"
"hard to kill"
"out for justice"
"marked for death"
"out of reach"
"on deadly ground"

It's almost comical

His movies aren't so bad but I think his best role was in executive decision and no not just because he died. I thought he did a great job as a supporting character and fit the role really well. In fact I'd rather see him do more stuff like that than playing the same CIA agent/navy seal turned lone badass he is in every movie

I liked a Steven Segal comparison in that now defunt DVD magazine, (the one that ripped a bunch of people off), anyway the blurb was pretty funny because they broke down all his roles like this:

Steven Segal is ______ a ____ that doesn't play by the book but gets results.

Pretty funny when any of his movies is interchangable with that sentence.



I still like some of his movies though.

I agree with most of the posters. Seagal was pretty cool back in the day. His first few flicks were good fun action movies with a lot of broken limbs. Above the Law, Hard to Kill, Marked for Death, Under Siege, Out for Justice and Under Siege 2 were all enjoyable. After that, things went downhill fast.

He went downhill when he got into his environmental kick.

Then you would like Ticker. Not the best film for anyone involved but still very watchable.

Marked for Death was probably his best. Beating up a bunch of Rastas.

Under Siege was his best movie, but after that, he pretty much sucked. All the old ones..Marked for Death, Above the Law, Out for Justice were terrific.

Both his career and Van Damme's seem to have mimicked each others.

Yeah but Van Damme's problem was the coke. I doubt he was thinking straight when signing up to films. At least he seems to be on a slow but steady comeback with films like In Hell.

I sure hope the Seagal of yore comes back because I still dig his old films and only watch his new films cos I remember what once was and keep holding fast to the hope that he'll be awesome again.