Maximum Conviction (2012) starring Steven Seagal, Steve Austin, Michael Paré, Ian Robison, Aliyah O'Brien directed by Keoni Waxman Movie Review

Maximum Conviction (2012)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Steven Seagal and Steve Austin in Maximum Conviction (2012)

Two Steves Don't Make a Right

When they were black ops Cross (Steven Seagal) and Manning (Steve Austin) were use to tougher jobs that decommissioning a secret prison facility but work means money for them and their team. The trouble is that the simple job of transferring prisoners and closing down the facility becomes much harder when Chris Blake (Michael Pare) and his mercenaries take over the prison as they are after two female prisoners who have very valuable information. That means that Cross and Manning are going to have to kick some butt and save the day but they need to be careful as they may not be able to trust all of their team.

I guess years of watching mediocre direct to video Steven Seagal movies have had an effect on me as I no longer expect to be impressed and am more prepared for below par to be enough. So when I say that "Maximum Conviction" is entertaining it is not a declaration that this is a great movie which sees Seagal return to form rather than I expected little, got little but it filled a need for some simple action at the time.

Now the storyline is simplicity itself, Seagal and Austin play two tough sons of a bitch who have turned their training in black ops into a new career. Of course that means they are going to have to use their skills and when an unconvincing looking prison facility is closed they have to protect two women prisoners from a group of mercenaries. And that is really it other than the fact that just too complicate matters one of their team can't be trusted and there is also a far fetched aspect as well to try and make it more interesting, it doesn't.

Now the real selling point is that "Maximum Conviction" features two movie hard men in the two Steves. Now Steven Seagal has over the years relied heavily on editing to make him look good and when it comes to the hand to hand here it looks again like a reliance on editing with far too much chopping up of the action scenes. It is better when it comes to Steve Austin who looks in a lot better shape than Seagal and in fact puts in a much more entertaining performance from start to finish with a little bit of charisma.

What this all boils down to is that "Maximum Conviction" isn't a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, it isn't even a good action movie with its heavy reliance on editing to make slow hands look quicker. But it is comparable to much of what Seagal has been churning out in the last decade and when watched with low expectations it sort of works.


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