The Seagal Switch
I've said it before and I will say it again Steven Seagal once had the potential to be a big action star but then for whatever reason he started appearing in movies which basically traded on his name. The irony of this is that Seagal has appeared in so many direct-to-video stinkers that where once you would watch in hope of some old style Seagal action you now watch purely to see how bad it can be. Take "Kill Switch" which Steven Seagal also wrote, here we have an action thriller which is more messy than thrilling and the editing is so poor that it doesn't take a genius to realise that Seagal isn't really do the fight scenes. It means that one of the things you watch "Kill Switch" for doesn't even exist which makes it one of the most pointless of Seagal's movies.
Jacob (Steven Seagal - Flight of Fury) a Memphis detective is on the case of two sick killers, there is one who plants explosives in his victims chests and a serial killer known as Lazerus (Michael Filipowich) who leaves coded messages next to their victims. But the killers are not Jacob's only problems as he is also haunted by the murder of his brother as a child. With the FBI involved monitoring how Jacob works because of his violent nature and women he knows being targeted he must work quick to deal with both the killers.
So here we have a storyline with a lot going on starting with the fact that Seagal's character Jacob is haunted by the death of his brother when he was child, murdered in the woods by some sick pervert. We then get the sick killer Billy Joe who likes to kill women with his first target having C4 planted in her cleavage, the guy must be one hell of a surgeon as there was no scarring from placing the C4 there. And then we get a serial killer who is taunting the cops with coded messages and is targeting both men and women. Oh and just for good measure the FBI are called in, partly to investigate the serial killings but also because Jacob's methods of getting confessions is deadly.
The trouble is that it means a lot is going on in "Kill Switch" but not much happens and one thing you hope to happen, Jacob finding closure over the murder of his brother by getting that sicko doesn't happen. It is a case that Seagal has tried to cram a few set ups in but then fails to do anything with them another than filling in the gap from start to end with some action. As a thriller it is dull and even the whole aspect of Jacob trying to solve the cryptic messages is not only routine but dull.
But the big disappointed here is basically Seagal starting with the fact he adopts such a thick yet wrong accent that it borders on the offensive. Yet it gets worst because of the simple fact you watch a Seagal movie for him kicking butt yet it is plainly obvious that the majority of action scenes have a body double doing all the butt kicking with just shots of Seagal's face thrown in every now and then. It makes "Kill Switch" lack any credibility and it's not helped by the fact the action for the most isn't that spectacular and occasionally more blood thirsty than impressive.
What this all boils down to is that "Kill Switch" is depressingly bad even for a direct-to-video Seagal movie. The fact it's not Seagal in most of the action scenes really spoils things because to be frank it is the reason you would want to watch this in the first place.
