This Seagal's a Keeper
Top cop Roland Salinger (Steven Seagal - Driven to Kill) falls foul of a dirty partner who tries to kill him during a drugs bust. Despite suffering injuries which should have killed him Roland survives and starts training to get back in shape for work but is forced to retire. Fortunately his old friend Conner Wells (Steph DuVall) calls up and asks him to come down to Texas as he needs someone to head up his security and protect his daughter Nikita (Liezl Carstens) who was subject to a kidnap attempt. But Roland quickly realises that Conner isn't telling him everything and in protecting the party loving Nikita and her arrogant boyfriend Mason (Arron Shiver) is not going to be simple.
I've watched enough Steven Seagal movies to know that you watch one at your own risk because some of his movies have been hilariously bad with Seagal walking through the movie letting a body double do a lot of the work. Thankfully "The Keeper" isn't one of those bad ones, oh it is still only barely average but compared to some of Seagal's previous direct to video movies it is good.
Now "The Keeper" is derivative, it is basically "The Bodyguard" but done in a Seagal style which means he plays it tall, dark, silent and seriously dangerous when needs be. It strangely works as whilst you find yourself noticing which scenes are almost direct copies from Roland noticing the lousy security around Conner's home and beefing it up to Nikita having a bit of a thing for the protective Roland it is still entertaining. Basically there is enough action in there to keep you entertained with Seagal showing he still has some seriously quick hands even if the rest of him has slowed down.
In truth that more than anything is why you would watch "The Keeper" because of Seagal and the action but it also benefits from being a movie made in America rather than those movies which were cheaply and frankly poorly made in Eastern Europe. Just the simple fact that the imagery is cleaner and editing is sharper makes a whole lot of difference. Although whilst sharper the storyline sadly is looser and the first half has a meandering aspect which makes it at times feel like it is treading water, filling time because they know what they have as a main storyline wont even fill an hour.
What this all boils down to is that it should be no surprise when I say "The Keeper" isn't great. But the combination of being shot in America, sharper editing and Steven Seagal showing he's still got it when it comes to the action helps make it an entertaining movie for the big man's fans.
