10: Cartels

Hello there, I'm Chris Dashing and On Trevor Dumble and we are the host of the On Sagal podcast. Once a month look at everyone's favorite quote, Matt question Mark action hero Stephen Seagal. Every episode of the show we take a look at one of mister Seagal's movies, jumping back and forth between present and past hits, hits and quotations. On this episode of On Seagal, we are taking a look at the twenty seventeen film known as car Hortels, or per the version that we watched Killing Salazar. Seventy two hours ago, my team confirmed location of Salazar.

Salazar the Boston one of the most violent cartels in Eastern Europe. Make sure we do not kill him here. I name him Alive. The body in the bag is a one Joseph Salazar. We're bringing him stateside.

What are you waiting for? Socians going what? Everyone is surprised to see me alive? The government has him DA faked his death. Salazar is going to be our star witness for the next ten years.

The cartel wants him. The cartel is gonna be able to exterminate his entire bloodline. I want him they're sitting guns, but only one man. Who the hell are you? I'm the guy you should have called when you one sideways can protect him when they called me in the Dana Joe, you're gonna live or you're gonna die.

It's time to finish what they started. It doesn't end tennis yet the man in a buddy beg okay, well allow me. Steven Seagal, George Saint Pierre and Luke Goss do' not dank you can claiming cartons rated R. Trevor's excitement is palpable. No, it's I mean, or should have say, Trevor L.

Tibaron Gumble, I am the shark. So so this movie is directed by Keanni Waxman, written by Keanni Waxman and Richard Beatty, stars Steven Seagal, sure and more I would say more aptly. It stars Luke Goss as us Marshall Tom Jensen, who is tasked with protecting L. T. Baron, the the titular Salazar character from it.

Look, you know what this movie is. This movie is um what's that movie called like sevens Smoking Aces? That's what it is. Yep, they this is I'm not the only one who thought that I was watching it. No, this is pretty much smoking aces.

So yet the character played by Luke Goss must protect L. T. Baron from a I guess you would say L. T. Baron's former right hand man from killing him.

Yeah, it's pretty much, you know, because they're all, uh, they're trapped in a hotel. No way to get out. Um, and they're trapped. We're in the hotel on the top floor, of course because Presidential stud If it was on the bottom floor, they could just you know, break a window and run away. Yeah.

There you go, pretty easy. So what did you think of Carts aka Cartels the artist known as Cartel's formerly performing as Killing Salazar. I may shock my listeners and you, but I actually really enjoyed it. Um. I thought it was a decently made, uh you know, you know, well paced little action film.

I mean, it's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but um, it was a lot more entertaining and a lot better than I gave it credit for. Um. Segal was in the film more than I expected. Hills not very much, still, not terribly too much, but enough that it's more than just a cameo. Right, He's in it more than he was in uh whatever the fuck that name.

Louis was general commander. No, no, no, a salesman. There you go. Uh yeah, I mean Luke Goss was really good. I thought, Um, I thought he made a great you know, uh action hero.

I thought he you know, was a good performance, better performance and you know you would expect from a straight to video film. I thought the action was surprisingly well done. And I thought the villain was a bit cliche. I mean, I mean, I didn't I couldn't tell the Russian accent was fake or not, because it sounded like your typical Russian bad guy portman and his and his and his and his dialogue was very kind of out of the you know, Russian gangster notepad or you are a dog. I don't like dog, Like, oh my fucking god, I say, vodka next fleet.

Yeah, like it's it it. Yeah. They're not breaking any mold here, No, it's it's not and they're not trying to and you know, it's you know, it's a serviceable little action film. And I enjoyed it. What about you, I yeah, I think probably.

You know. What helps my feelings towards this film is the fact that, you know, China salesman was so bad and ostensibly that is, you know, the last recent Sigal movie we talked about. So I think that that helps my kind of feelings towards this movie, because, yeah, there's not much to this. It is very much a smoking aces you could even say, a die Hard clone in a lot of ways, like it is a good guys in the top of the building with a you know, with a bad guy they're protecting more bad guys come to the building. It's cut and dry, boiler plate, pretty straightforward.

But like you said, for the most part, it's it's fine. It's not any It's not anything I haven't seen or you haven't seen before. But at the same time, do we really expect that it's going to be at this point? I don't know. And to be honest with you, I mean I'm not mad at it.

You know, it was a it was a entertaining enough way to spend a what an hour and forty minutes almost well, And to be fair, does it need to do more than that? Like, it does what it needs to do, gets in, gets out boom. There are a couple twists that I thought were a bit stretching credibility real ham fit. Oh god, yeah, yeah, there's like a mass there's a massive twist towards the end of this movie, like in the last five minutes that I'm like, what feels like it's there to try to get get a twist in well, and also in case this movie is somehow randomly successful, they have an ability to make another one. I mean, obviously, look, this movie came and went, it had a limited theatrical release, nobody talked about it.

It has now been four years since it came out. I don't think we're going to see Cartel's two. But you know what, there have been sequels to Seagal movies that were direct to video as well, so that's not precluding it. But yeah, it seemed towards the end it was like, oh, yeah, we'll put a twist in here just in case we want to have a sequel. And it's like, yeah, you kind of fucked up the entire movie in doing that.

It felt very last minute kind of you know, let's let's no reel of the exactly. That's not clichde at all, Like that in and of itself is cliched. No, it's like usual suspects, like and then you found out who the real bad guy was the whole time. It's don't they even reference usual suspects in this film? Do they?

I think they do. Someone says something about Kaiser Soose in the in the interview when he's being interrogated by Segal something. I think they said something about Kaiser Jose and referencing it. Um. I wouldn't be surprised, Yeah, because uh yeah, UM, because they're they're figuring out what that it.

The movie takes place back and forth. Um. It starts with Luke Goss sitting um, waiting to be integrated by Segal because their mission went completely bat shit, you know, and people people died, and he's wondering what the hell happened? And then it flat so it flashes back to Luke Goss in a training facility. I'm assuming, I'm guessing he just rides it on his motorcycle and yeah, and they're they're surprisingly okay with it.

You know, just leave your bike there, follow us. You don't have to be any in your in your uniform or anything. You have a leather jacket, just follow us. Um. They're briefed on the Missig mission.

No, no, no, Um. Before that, Um, there's a scene with Salazar and his henchman. I think, well, the movie the movie opens with Salazar with Seagal's team killing you know, titular killing of Salazar, and while there ten minutes and it's like it turns out Salazar is a faked his death so that he could be caring a massive rat for the US government. Can we talk about the first scene with Salazar? I mean that was pretty ham fisted him playing chess with his henchmen like who, by the way, is played by George Saint Pierre, one of the most decorated UFC MMA fighters of his weight class of MMA period.

Uh. Not a good actor though, Yeah, he's not as good as John Claude van Dam was early in his career. I mean I kept seeing similarities. There was nothing in his performance that maybe think, oh my god, this guy's terrible. I just kind that went with it.

Um. Yeah, but they're playing chess like a villain, does you know, and they're playing against each other and he there's this thing like if something like you've never beat I've never beaten you. When you do, all of this will be orders. Yeah, so this game there can only be one king there. That's the fucking tagline of the poster for this movie.

So um it back and forth. It shows Sigal and the forces outside his house ready to strike and take him, take him down, and you know they do. Um And I think his henchman was it his girlfriend where at the beginning, Yeah, where he tells her to I know this is like a female henchman. Anyway, she gets killed in the process of the raid. Um they kill quote unquote Salazar.

Um. I think the henchman gets away. And then and then it flashes back to the briefing, uh, interrogation of Luke Goss Steven Seagal, and you know it goes to the beginning of how we talk about that real quick, let's talk about this this interrogation, because, like you said, the framing device of this movie is everything's being told in flashback. Yeah, nothing like the movie. The final scene of the movie is the most recent thing that you see in the entire movie, but everything else is pretty much flashback.

And Steven Seagal is letting on throughout the beginning of the movie that like someone was a mole, someone was a rat, weird. And what he's trying to determine is is the rat lose the rat and is it Luke Goss's character, And so the entire movie is Segal asking Luke Goss's character, tell me what happened with you that day? And I will. We can talk back and forth because of what when, what happened with me, and we can try to figure out who the mole was. And basically it's all Luke Goss is saying.

It's like, you know more than I do. I don't know anything. You know you know? And Seagal is of course getting frustrated. He has this dial like, I wasn't born at night.

I was born, I was born in the day. Yeah I was born in like they call me when the ship comes down. Yeah, I wasn't born outdoors? What does that mean? I'll give credit, you know it was he was.

It was an okay performance from Sigal. It looks like he's actually trying somewhat. He looked better when he was out in the scenes doing the because I mean, he has a okay, he has a scene, he has action scenes. He has a prolonged fist fight with George Saint Pierre, which a damn good one. I thought, well, yeah, we'll talk, we'll talk about that because it's far about that movie.

But yeah, Seagal during those interview scenes is awful. He is like, I don't know what. I don't know why someone didn't ask him to take off his leather jacket or to unzip it. But it looked like someone's dad sitting across from Luke Goss asking him why I found the dubie in your closet. I mean that's what he looked like.

He's got this like leather jacket, it's like a goatee and glasses and he's doing the low, well monotone thing. It's like this is I mean, you don't look good. It's very weird. It's just produced the film, so I'm assuming he had a lot of creative control of what he could wear. So it's not like any having to stop and how many scenes he could be sitting down?

Well, I mean Seagall has to be comfortable. I think. I think Seagal has a lot of push and pull when he produces a film. It's like that's why I think, that's why he produces films, so he can say, what you know, I want to sit down, and no one will say no to him. Yeah, remember what Brando did on the set of Island of Doctor Moreau, he sat and had someone read him the lines through an earpiece.

Well that you know, and in The Godfather you would have Robert. He would have Robert Duval where his dialogue on his on his outfit, and they would shoot um Duval from like the neck up sou Brando can read the lines off of Duval. Yeah, I mean, so it's not like it's unheard of. It's not unheard of, but it is. Uh, it's a thing that I think is now in twenty twenty one not viewed positively.

No. Um, I get, I get that's everybody has a different process, because that's you know, everybody's acting process is different. But like that to me seems a little intrusive to everybody else it does. Um, and looks Marlon Brando. So no, I mean Marlon brand I didn't the end of his career wasn't Marlon Brando?

Oh God, I mean you've seen you've seen Island of Doctor Moreau, just like I have. That movie is well the guy Well, Marlon Brando was going to be in scary movie too, until he backed out the last minute, I know, and then replaced with asshole James Woods. Um. Known asshole. James.

Oh God, we won't get into that because I'll go off on a tangent. I mean it's Part and Parcel talking about Seagal that yeah, James, M Yeah, So Seagal's like interrogating Luke Goss asking what happened with this because it's uh when they're when the when the members of the Special Horses are briefed in the hotel, they find out Salazar wasn't dead, right, and they find out that he is going to be their key star witness for the next ten years. That's the phrase they use. Ten years. They're going to use this guy for witnessing because they want to take down it's bigger than the Salazar so um.

But first they have to transport him, and so they transport him to a hotel and of course they're in the the penthouse top floor suite, and we find out that his henchman h wants to kill him because he has a key to a I think as safe for something, or say it's a safety deposit box for safety deposit box with five hundred million dollars in it, so it sounded like he was saying billion. So basically they want that key and they want control of Salazar's empire because if he has the money, he has the power. And again, everybody thinks he's dead. Exactly, the whole world thinks he's dead. And this henchman is that.

This is the George Saint Pierre character. So essentially, George Saint Pierre hangs out in the lobby of a hotel half of the movie basically, and then he has two fight scenes and that's it. I mean, George Saint Piter of all the people in this movie, who probably cash the easiest paycheck, seal George George Saint Pierre. Yeah, I mean he did one fight more than Sigal did. And uh yeah, I mean he basically has his hench his gunmen do the work for him.

Yeah, there's I don't know how many. I don't know how many. I counted, like dozens and dozens of like masked henchmen wearing skull bandana masks. Yeah. Basically, I mean they're being pandemic safe, so profs to them.

Yeah right, um, but pretty seventeen they were forward thinking. But you know, though, for like a lot, for a lot of this movie's run time, though, I just don't find a lot of the action that interesting. It means it's just okay, right, Like there are scenes where it's like ly on when the bad guys break into the penthouse and you have a shootout in the penthouse, it's just kind of boring. It's like, do I think the action scenes could have been a little more understandable? Because people are getting shot left or right?

You don't know what the hell is, who the hell's got shot, and who the hell's dead? Who the hell is you know, you know all that. And it wasn't paste very well with the shootout scenes. I will give you that, But I mean they're standard. That is that is literally all you can say.

They're standard shootout scenes. I mean I wasn't like pissed off or annoyed by them. They were serviceable, like, Okay, this is an action scene to get us to the next scene. I will I will say though, like for me, it watching a movie like this makes me really appreciate something like under Siege, you know what I mean, Like it really makes you appreciate a movie where the director has an eye for action. Like as much as I don't like someone like Michael Bay or Zack Snyder, Wow, because of the lack of substance to their films.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you that they don't know what they're doing visually for the most part. Editing is a different story, but visually, for the most part, Michael Bay, Jerry Bruckheimer, Gore Verbinski, Um, Zack Snyder, they all have a very good and the Lake, Tony Scott, yeah, and for and Michael Mann and Steven Spielberg to some extent, and George Lucas. I mean, I still maintain that The Rock is one of the most well made action films ever made. I love The Rock. That is Michael Bay peak style.

But the action was still you know, recognizable, you knew what was going on, and it wasn't excusing um in this it's boring. It's well, actually we're rephrase that. It's not boring. It's it's not very interesting. It's just exactly like what you said, it's just standard there is it is.

It is like if you told someone take this camera, point it in that action and film what these two people are doing, don't do anything else. Don't don't I mean manimal mode or anything the film. For the credit I'm giving it, I will say it didn't really take that many chances. Um, you know, I even with a twist at the end, like and the twist again is so terrible twist. Yeah, there's a couple of twists in there that I kind of rolled my eyes at.

Well, the they essentially the two the two big twists almost come back to back, right like in two vaccines, and they they have no bearing on anything. The first one has no bearing because you're like, who was who was helping them this whole time? Well, it was the random bell Hoop character. Yeah, we'll get to him in a second. Um.

And then the bigger twist, which I think we need to give. Let's address this one and then we'll talk about the even worse one. One of the his special the female special Forces. I forgot if it was special Forces or their US Marshals US Marshals, I'm sorry. The female US Marshall turns out to be Salazar's sister.

Yeah, And that comes up out of fucking nowhere. And they try to add flashback scenes that make it, try to make it come together. It's like, oh, he did say that about her. I'm like, well, that's what are you talking about? What it does is it?

It does that ship where it takes a line that did not seem to be at all ambiguous or have any sort of like hidden meaning. They force it Toppy and they force it. They go, well, didn't you understand, And it's like no, because because it was like they didn't say it that way. They didn't even deliver the line that way. No, he didn't know, and neither force it to mid She.

I mean that they forced to quote unquote makes sense to the film. Yeah. And what's even less believable, the character's name is Amanda Chavez. And then they go, her name is Amanda Chavez Salazar. Okay, she is clearly Latino.

Yes, she is Latino. She is not a Russian character's sister. No, what are you talking about? Movie? Like, they figure she's she looks ethnic ethnic enough to pass for Russian, to which I call fucking bullshit.

She's very clearly not like it's the twist is so tacked on that I genuinely feel like it makes no sense and it almost makes me Yeah, I mean she is shot in the film, but not fatally, so you know she's gonna come back in some aspect later in the film. Right. Um. The rest of the rest of the of the of the US Marshal's Um, there's I forgot the ones name. He's like supposed to be the leader, um telling everybody what your MIC's out.

Dude, there it is again, I can't hear you. The character's name is sconycon Yeah. Yeah, he's somewhat likable. I mean he's yeah, I sure. I mean again, this movie is it's it's just okay.

Like again, I like you mentioned, if we're going to talk about a lot of this movie, a lot of it doesn't have Segal. So the stuff that has Segal, like you've said, is is pretty good, except for his interrogation scenes, Like I mean, it has more Segal than I expected it to have to be honest. Yeah. Yeah, And you know, given how Vernon has talked about some of the more recent stuff that he has seen when we spoke with him, I'm surprised, given what we've seen, what he has said, and my personal internalized expectations, I'm surprised that we saw him doing anything other than sit behind a desk. I mean, he gets in on the action a few times, which I was raiding the building, and towards the end of the movie, I was happy to see he had his gun.

He was shooting motherfuckers, he was taking people down, he had he was using his his fighting, which I was afraidly we're only going to have that one small scene of fighting where they bring the guy out that um Luke Goss character thought was dead and that guy thinks Luke Goss is the trader or the rat, and so um Stephen Seagal uses some of his fight techniques to take him down and to restrain him. I thought, is that going to be the only Sigal thing We're going to see in this film? You know? Shockingly it was not what it was. We get to see Seagal face off against George Saint Pierre, and I guess what is the climax of the movie?

Yeah, and it was a I thought it was a good fight. Yeah, But here's the here's the kind of fucking strange thing in this movie. Okay, Luke Goss is what in this movie? He's the primary protagonist, right, Why is Luke Goss not fighting George Saint Pierre because Segal's the producer? Well that's while I appreciate and agree with you, that is not the answer that makes sense if we're talking about in the logic of the film.

It doesn't have to make sense. It's it's well, it doesn't make sense because Seagal should never have been the one fighting the films villain that should have been the protagonist of the film. I mean, Luke Goss is you could tell you know Luke Goss is perfectly capable of handling a fight scene because they show it in the film. He's fighting like all the time. And Luke Goss fighting GSP is still unbelievable because I know how talented GSP is as an MMA star.

But it's even less believable to watch Steven Seagal whoop George Saint Pierre's ass. I have to admit I don't know much about UFC fighting Um. George Japierre only sounds a little familiar to me. I don't watch it. All I know is that Joe Rogan likes it a lot.

Well, he's a well he's a commentator. Yeah, he's a commentator, and he's he also doesn't he also fight sometimes? No, I don't know. He's he's he's a workout bro. He's a cool guy, super cool.

Are you being sarcastic? Being facetious? Jesus not on the list of people that I am sitting here advocating people go listen to their show. Well he just got COVID, so good for him. I'm sure he took ivermectin to get better.

Yeah, well, bunch of fucking sheep eat your animal drugs. Yeah well it's apple flavored, so I mean, of course it is. Oh god, thank god we have editing functions so we can edit the shit out. But I as as as good as I found as entertaining as I found the scene between Seagal and George Saint Pierre, I could not suspend my disbelief as much as the movie wanted me to. I think they made the guy who turned out to be the rat.

They made him more of a of a formidable villain than he needed to be. Oh, Mike Darryl, the Mike Darrow, it's like, and part of me was thinking, oh, of course he's the rat. A fucking course, the guy's the rat. I mean, it was pretty he's not. He's an extraneous character who'd adds nothing to the film.

Of course they're going to make him the fucking rats. And he shows up at the beginning, puts them onto the mission, and then leaves, and then comes back. Gee, I wonder why, Yeah, wonder why he's there? And then you know that's Luke Goss's main fight. They just switched it, had Luke Goss fight George Champierre and have Seagal fight um Darrow the d EA agent, or did the bad us Marshal?

Did Darrow think he was going to get the five million or just like part of it or something? I guess. So that's kind of what I picked up for the movie. It's not because that's the only remon he's helping him, I assume. So I assume that George Saint Pierre would give the crooked d the crooked US Marshall character a cut of the money, of course, for helping him kill or let him know where the shark is.

Yeah, and you know, I mean that was one of the twists. I thought, oh god, they phoned that. They basically handed that to us on a platter. I look, I haven't particularly he wasn't a particularly threatening until he starts whooping Luke Goss's ass all of a sudden, unbelievably, by the way, I'm sorry, I don't believe that he got that many things on Luke Goss. I think my issue with that in and of itself is just this idea that there needed to be a character other than George Saint Pierre for Luke Goss to fight, because Steven Seagal had to be the one to fight George Saint Pierre.

So it just it it falls flat because again that's predicated on a twist mattering. Well, they tried and think it does well. They try to and they try to make um Salazar a anti protagonist, anti hero kind of person kind because he's like, you know, go with me, I will, I will. You know I can't do Russian act sent I can show you, you know, how to get out of the hotel safely, you know, the exit, because it turns out that is it is his hotel. He owns the hotel.

Of course, Um, of course he does, um, because that how else would they know every nook and cranny at the hotel, because you know, if he didn't own the hotel, it would just be ridiculous. Right, Um, let's get to um the ell boy because the third twist or fourth luck yeah, because they're they're up at the top floor. Luke Goss sees this guy on the balcony on the phone and Luke Goss, you know, suspects. You know, he shouldn't be there. Well, he shouldn't be there, you know, because it's supposed to be clear, didn't They say the building was supposed to be empty of people, and yet when you see the lobby, there's people, there's guests coming in and out.

Yeah, yeah, I think so fuck Like, I was so confused. They go the hotel's empty, they closed it down, there's nobody here. And then then the next scene, here comes the Ukrainian football team, which is the you know, the bad guys into It's yeah, it's the It's what they said in the scene before that, there was going to be nobody at the hotel, and yet there's the cots at the desk and everything else. I didn't understand. Why did they need the disguise they're terrorists, Just break into the fucking place, and you know that's what they ended up doing.

Anyways, Yeah, they ended up just you know, they ended up clearing the bottom floor because everybody else left. I think, um, but let's get back to the bellboy. They see him on the balcony. They you know, Luke Goss of course, is you know, meaning to be suspicious because nobody's supposed to be there. He's talking on the phone to a friend of his and smoking a joint.

And they make too big of a deal out of a guy smoking a joint. They make too big a deal out of this joint. Bro, You're gonna fuck this whole thing up for us. Yeah, And they make too big of a deal out of him having a joint. It's like because Luke Goss, Because Luke Goss brings it back to his partners and they're like, that's weed, And I think they were suspecting that he was smoking it or some shit like that.

I'm trying to fuck us up already. Like, it's a tiny fucking joint. I don't think it's going to ruin an operation. You know what I find funny about this entire movie. This entire movie is predicated on the idea that the US Marshals are so bad at their job that they couldn't background check to make sure that one of these people that they send on this mission isn't related related by related biologically.

Not his wife, because his wife gets murdered in the movie because she was the leverage, but his fucking biological sister, and they sent her to protect him. What they don't docs very well in the film, do they get I guess not. But it's just that is like if you I'm not even sure I can really get over that, Like that is something you're mentioning all these things, not that you're mentioning these things. I'm like, yeah, that is a little ridiculous. Um, if you suspend disbelief enough, you can get through this movie.

But the problem is, well, not much. Just get through it. I think you could enjoy it at house. I can suspend disbelief to a point. The problem with this movie is I think it's almost too much.

And that's self inflicted. It's those these constant twists. Yeah, it definitely pushes the my disbelief factors, like, oh, it's just oh, give me a break, his sister. I mean, yeah, it's it's it's too much. And at the end another thing that well, I don't know if it disbelieve because Luke Gos ends up with the key at the end, he lets them go.

Well, he still thinks that the female agent that he you know, kissed right before the kind of climax of the film. He still thinks that she's being kidnapped by Salazar. It turns out she's just leaving with them because she's his sister. Oh yeah, because they had that Kaiser. So's a moment of oh my god, what did he What does she say?

She's like, he says, I'll do anything to get her back, and he's like, I hope so, And it's like, what is he gonna go kill Salzar? He's gonna go work with Salazar. Salazar gave him money. I don't know, Yeah, I don't. I don't understand what this movie was.

Even if even if he almost kissed her, they didn't set up a potential romance at all. No, it's it's basically it fails to becktel Test immediately. Because she's in the film, she's a female agent. Of course they're gonna have to hook her up with the lead mail for whatever reason. No chemistry whatsoever, no purpose, no chemistry Whatso the steamer they are about to kiss, I was like, don't shoot fucking do this.

They have kids sit in the basement of the building. But it's like that it's not much. No, it isn't. She's a female character in an action film and the lead character is an attractive male. Put two or two together.

Apparently screenwriters. She's a lead, she's the second lead. She's the only female lead in the film. Of course she has to be with the other lead. It's a low budget action to be honest, she doesn't really have that much dialogue either.

She's given almost nothing to do. No, she isn't she's she's there to get shot, be out of commission for most of the film. Then to find out she sALS our sister. She is like the Bellboy. The Bellboy is just a throwaway character you until just like you think he's just like this comic relief character they put in the film.

Turns out nope, he's working with the he's working with the bad guys. And she as a character that you think is just supposed to be the love interest, turns out that she's Salas our sister. It is so lazy, It's so unbelievably lazy. Yeah. I don't expect much from these movies, but I don't need these movies too complicate themselves beyond need Like it's this is needlessly complicated and needlessly twist heavy.

Um. Yeah, the twists were unnecessary, to say the least. That Bellboy character could have been exercised and nothing would have been lost. Not did they have to show Why did they have to reveal him? And he doesn't do anything.

He does not do anything, even as a bad guy. He doesn't fucking do anything exactly. And he's like, he actually does nothing. He's revealed to be working with the bad guys and that's it. Nothing.

He doesn't try to fight anybody. He doesn't like anything. He's wait, the right the bellboys? What well? And the fact that they make such a big deal out of the fact that it's like they're like they pull open the card door and there's the bellboy and he's like sorry, man, it's like what who the fuck?

What? So what Like Yeah, it's like what, okay, you work with the bad guy? So what were you doing like relaying information to him the entire time? Like are you telling him where we are? I don't know.

Yeah, I could not, for the life of me figure out why. I have no idea, no earthly goddamn I. Even as a comic relief, he was he was pretty bad. I mean he's only not his only enough to be even comic relief. His only um thing we're supposed to find funny is oh my god, he's smoking pot.

Yeah, whoop you fucking do? Especially even in twenty seventeen that was like, so he's smoking a joint. So Keyanni Waxman, great name. By the way, we are going to be watching a lot of Keianni Waxman's films. Oh, he's a Segal regular, hunh.

Keianni Waxman is a film director known for his work with Segal. Segal said, I think that Keioni is one of the brightest young men out there. I think he's a very good director. I think he has a wonderful story mind, which is important. In other words, he doesn't just have to film what's on the page.

He understands what's on the page. I think he's a wonderful director who understands editing, looping, dubbing, mixing, folly. He just understands all that stuff. He's a very he's a great friend, very ethical, and very moral, to which Keyannie replied, you're not helping. I don't need your endorsements.

Yeah, so he Yeah. By the way, Keyanni Waxman sounds like a name for if they made a biography film but they couldn't legally use Keanu Reeves his name, they would just change it to Keyanni Waxman, Keyanni Waxman. It sounds like a surfer name back. It does. So he would start working with Sigal in two thousand and nine, and he would work with Sigal all the way up until Cartels.

So we have a fair amount of Keyanni Waxman films that we will be checking out. I mean, he's not a he's not a terrible director, but he's not a very good writer. He is stunningly competent. It's a competent lead directed film. That's what I'll say.

It's not a competently written film. Not a a problem. I mean, I will give Keyanni Waxman credit for how good the film looks for the most part, but it is not a well well written film. Um. And I'm gonna give he's not filmed with him, has other credits, but those credits are not any sort of like world renowned things.

I mean, he's just a working screenwriter. Um. Can I talk about something? When Seagal and George ship are first fight, they fall off this balcony to the floor like this is this is a pretty high fall. Seagal gets up nothing, brother, huh, he no sells it?

Brother? Now he gets up like it wasn't even a fall. He's like, he's like, it's almost like he fell out of his chair and got up. Yeah, that's what we call Saint Pierre selling. George Saint Pierre sells it a little bit more, yeah, but not by much.

And those flat backed flat back bumped up the ground like they fucking they hit the ground hard on their backs. Like yeah, they should be either paralyzed or dead. Yeah. Like and plus George Saint Pierre takes a lot of fucking blows in this film. I mean he falls, he Segal hits him and falls into a glass table.

Nope, nothing cuts him. Um they someone someone needs to tell George Satan. Someone needs to walk George Saint Pierre through how to Die in an action movie, because the facial expressions that he was made when he dies were absolutely wild, almost like he was smiling. Yeah, because it okay, And I would have loved if that had been him. He was like a sadistic villain who like took pleasure in pain like that.

But he wasn't written that way. He was just written as he was just written as villain could jumped to ben Damn. So we got George Saint Pierre. And by the way, when Seagal the final blow ends up being just a stab in the neck, that stab did not slow push into the neck. That was not believable.

Looking in them slight, it looked like he was doing you know how as a kid you would stick something behind and make it look like it's in your neck. That's what exactly, That's how it looks. Yeah, like the George Pierre falls and is gurgling blood and smiling, it's yeah, it's again, It's it's funny. This is a very kind of by the numbers action movie. But there are some weird There are some weirdo things in here that kind of make it not fun.

But like the way George Saint Pierre dies, I think is amusing. The screenwriting was strange. The version that I watched, with the subtitles that I watched, I think I was probably more amused by that than anything else. Yeah, I mean, because we hadn't talked about. The version that you and I watched was Aalentian It was in Italian.

It was called Killing Salazar, which is the overseas title for the film, and it had subtitles. It had Italian subtitles, and then the version that I watched, I put English subtitles on it, and those are open source subtitles. And the subtitles, like we were talking about before we started recording, changed words to be unoffensive. They mean the same thing, but it's worded differently. It's not about derogatory.

I tried another subtitle. Um. The something I ended up using had the words exactly as they're said, but all the swear words had like you know, you know how in when you're censoring a swear word online you put you know s star start right. That's what they did in the film. But sometimes you watched in the Virgin that I watched, So the version that I watched was different from the one that you The subtitles that you had were different from the ones that I had.

Yeah, like I said, I have changed the words. I don't know. These these were verbatim the words that were said in the film, and um and start them out exactly and uh, because there were scenes in the film where the characters speak Russian or Spanish or whatever and it's and it's not subtitles. And if I didn't have the subtitles on, I wouldn't know what the fuck was going on. And the beginning of the film, there's a scroll that's an Italian and if I didn't have the subtitles on, I wouldn't know, So I wouldn't have known who who this sala is, our guy is, or what he does if I hadn't read the subtitles.

So I mean, I mean that is the problem. Idio. You probably don't have that problem. Yeah, we probably don't have that problem in the cartels Us version. So this is just killing you know, if you want to go see the film, I'm sure whatever version you watch will be fine.

We watched an Italian version. I do want to point something else out, and this is something we kind of have joked about a little bit, but looking at the poster for this movie, you know what, I think these movies should be called as opposed to like direct to streaming red box action movies. This literally looks like something that is meant to get people to rent it by either accident or because they know Stevens at all. Well, red box is only what a dollar I think dollar fifty. I have no fun.

It's something some guy would like, let's see what's dude leaving Walmart or Walgreen would rent it along with whatever his wife wanted, go home, crack open some Miller lights, watch what she wants. When she falls asleep, he gets to watch this movie. It's entertaining enough boom bang action, whoopdie do. That's like, that's that is pretty much the description of the film. Entertaining enough, what bang who do?

Yeah, Like, I just look at this movie. I look at a lot of the posters for a lot of these streaming Seagal movies, and they all look the same. Lens flare, kind of lighting effects, seal at the center, the floating heads. Yeah, like yeah, yeah, they're they're just kind of like there or you know, kind of action pose. And it's like but it's always kind of the three, you know, it's in man, it's they all look the same.

I hope that they stand out enough to be memorable. But like this and some of these other ones that like if you just go on Seagals filmography and look, a lot of them are just the posters look the same. And I'm just sitting here thinking to myself, Oh God, I really hope that they are better, like they do more to differentiate themselves from one another than this one did. Because yeah, I think what we need is a Drew Strewsanne or a Stephen Chorney to design a Segal poster to to just it would have been Undersiege, right like, oh god, yeah, that would have been the movie to get a Drew strus And poster, right, Oh god. I mean that poster for Undersiege is iconic as fuck.

It's a great poster. I like. Actually, I like Understiage two Dark Territories poster too, where he's hanging on to the side of the train and holding up the gun. Yeah, well that's a good poster. Well.

Look, I think everybody who listens to this show and or listens to my other show knows why we love under Siege two. It's not just because of Seagal. I mean, well, I mean, but we loved that movie before we met Richard. So I loved it before I met you or Richard. Yeah, it was.

It was a seminal. It was a seminal theatrical growing experience for me when I was growing up. You know. The other reason we like it because it is better than the first one. I think it's much more novel than the first one.

It's it's a lot, it takes a lot. I mean, remember how we're talking about stretching like believability. I know under Siege two does that, but for some reason it does it so well, we just don't mind it. You know why you don't mind it in under Siege two is because under Siege two is a movie where the villain is trying to destroy the world. Therefore, believability just kind of goes out the window.

For me, It's like James Bond, right, Like, I don't need James Bond to be rooted in reality. He's a world trotting secret agent. I don't need him to be dark and gritty. Come on, no, I mean, fuck it, I mean Casey Rode a chef. Yeah, that's what I mean.

I love that, like I love I do love realistic action movies. I do. I like Casino Royale, I like Batman Begins, I like, I don't know. I mean, I don't want to keep naming them because we could go on all afternoon. But the movie like this, like Cartels, it's trying to do what under Siege two did, but without any of the flare, without any of the kind of tongue in cheekness of it.

It's just like very villain, well, the villain, the stakes of the villain aren't very high. It's just he just wants, you know, five hundred million dollars in control of his drug cartel. I'm assuming he's a drug dealer. Yeah, they never really get into that much. Like I said, when we when we end up talking about under Siege two, it's gonna be a long episode because we got a lot to say.

Yeah, and it's gonna be a good episode. Also, the other thing about a lot of those early Sigal movies is that we kind of haven't really talked about. In this movie hilariously tries to convince us of this. All these movies look like they were filmed in fucking Romania because they were film Well, I mean it's cheap to film. I'm assuming that's why they do it.

But they all look like Romania. Yeah, it's it's very much. It's very much like we get at tax credit. We can film there. It's cheap, we can get it done bing bom boom within a couple of weeks.

Yeah, it to me is it to me is very funny because the thing that I worry about with these movies is them all looking the same. And I know that that's going to be the case in a lot of these movies cases because they are filmed in Romania, Bulgaria, Eastern New York, China. Yeah, they all look the same. They're all like Eastern blockhousing, giant concrete buildings. I mean, at least at least with uh, with why are you forgetting um the one we ended up really liking, Oh, Attrition, Attrition.

At least with attrition. The visuals, you know, didn't look like um they were filmed in you know, Bulgarias. They were interesting visuals of the city of I think it was like Japan or China or something like that. Forgive me, I'm sounding incredibly No, I think it's I think it was somewhere in Southeast Asia, and you know, and they were interesting. You know, it wasn't you didn't You didn't get the you didn't get the path, like, oh, they're just filming it here because at tax credits they actually put the culture into the film, because that's what Sigal's character was.

Yep, this film. They're in Romania because it's cheaper to film, and apparently the Russian owns property in Romania. I guess sure, why not. Let's let's let's just believe that and that that I can easily like let go. I'm like, okay, well he owns property in Bulgaria and whatever or Romania whatever.

Um, I don't know. I just there's so much about these movies that, like I'm sitting here just having seen Beyond the Law and General Commander. This movie feels just like those movies in a lot of ways, Like it's made but little bit more palatable because Seagal is in it more. He is in it more than he's in either of those movies. I like, I still stand by it's a watchable, um time waster.

I mean, but it's it's not expect that's not some sort of like glowing and it's but it's not meant to be sure I'm point yeah, I'm just saying to the fact, like if you if you want to spend an hour forty minutes to watch this, you won't be disappointed. Um you may laugh at some of the laughable, but you won't be mad that you watched it. It's you know, it's a lot of his straight activity. It's a lot you know it. It's a level above China salesman.

It is of eleven. Let's put it this way. Of the things we've seen so far, be it beyond the Law, General Commander or China Salesman. I'm leaving Attrition out because Attrition doesn't have guns. Attrition is not a action movie in the same sense that these three are or this one.

This is the best of the four that we've seen so far. Um. Yeah, like I said, it's competently directed. Um, Luke Waxman actually made got something. Keani Waxman got Siagal to do something.

I mean, Luke goss Um was a likable, you know, route fable. I guess is that a word action hero. Luke goss did a great job. Um, I was better than Johnny. He did a better job than Johnny Messner did, which is the only other close comparison that we have, because that's another movie where Seagal's not the lead.

You know, I think they use Seagal more than his usual straight to video stuff. Well, the stuff that we've seen. I mean, I can't comment on anything. I feel like Segal was trying. I feel like Segal was trying to act here, even though you didn't think it was a very good performance.

I feel like he was trying to come off, you know, like a grizzled old you know, grizzled US forces are you know whatever, who's you know, just seen it all and just wants to get answers. And he does a competent enough job. Um so, I mean, I can't be mad at it. And his fight scenes are are enjoyable to watch. They're not You're not sitting there like, oh my god, it's fat Segal trying to fight someone you don't you don't I mean I kind of was like that.

But that's also because they had him fight George Saint fucking Pierre. If he was fighting that dirty US marshal, I would agree with you. I have a hard time suspending disbelief on George Saint Pierre. I maybe it's because I don't know much about Joy Pierre. That's fair.

If you don't know much about Georgan St Pierre, you might find the fight more believable than than Chris did. Like I didn't know much about him. I'm not, like I said, a big UFC fighter, you know, but the fight out thought was believable enough, you feel, right between Tyson and Seagal believable. Yeah, I don't even know that. This like small little fight they had, but I'm asking, like, did you find that believable?

Yeah? Actually, I mean I would agree. I would agree with you. These are two men. I'm assuming they're around similar ages, there are similar points in their careers.

I can believe that those two will you know, decent fight. Um, I agree. I just I think for George Saint Pierre, imagine it this way. Watching Seagal and George Saint Pierre fight in this movie would be like if you were watching Seagal fight Mike Tyson five years past his prime. Okay, you'd be like this.

You'd be like, this guy was just doing the thing that he's known for and is decorated for within the last five years. I I cannot buy this legit old man fighting him. I can agree with you on that, Yeah, I can. I can say that. Um yeah, But like I said, I wasn't looking at the fight thinking this is so fucking unbelievable other than the fall from the from the balcony show on their back.

Um, come on, so I'll at least act like you're having a hard time getting up off the floor. He just gets up like he tripped. Um. I think ultimately was something like this, Like you've said, you could do much worse. Oh, you can do a lot.

I've seen worse. I've seen worse action movies than this. You and me have seen both seen worse, and we've seen the same worse. Yeah, well, I look, I think China Salesman is in a league of its own. Like China Salesman is is one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

It definitely is one of the worst times I've ever seen. I never want to see it again. I wanted to burn in the fiery pits of film. Hell. You know, a Chinese propaganda nonsense is just it wasn't even well done propaganda.

No, No, it was not. It was. I think it was very obvious it was propaganda. It's a good thing. I wasn't comparing this to China Salesman, which it's not the reason I somewhat enjoyed it.

It wasn't because I was comparing a child's mother. It was just because I was clearing my head with all. Like I said in previous podcasts, when I watched a Cigal film, I clear my head and I go in with no explications whatsoever. Yeah, I don't even and synopsises for these movies. I didn't read one review.

I didn't read one. I read a brief synopsis of the film, which didn't really explain much. But that's all I did. I you know, I didn't look at batter reviews or any you know, commentary on it. I just sat and watched it knowing nothing and was pleasantly and you know, surprised by how much I someone enjoyed it.

It's a it's a it's a two and a half star action film. So ponytail yes or ponytail no. I'm gonna go ponytail yes on this um because I'm I'm gauging it on if a regular, you know, casual viewer would enjoy the film, and I think they might enjoy it, you know, I don't think, let's face, a lot of casual viewers aren't a criticals we are, don't see the flaws as much as we do. It has to do a lot less for them to be entertained exactly, and I think they will do just enough for them to enjoy themselves. So I'm giving it a pony telout.

Yeah me too, I think I don't look I don't again. I will be so curious when we're done with this show, when we hit the moment where we catch up with ourselves. I'm going to be so curious to see where we come down on these direct to streaming movies, because so far, so far, we're taking count right now, Beyond the Law was just okay. General Commander was just okay. Attriction was pretty good.

China Salesman was a fucking nightmare. This movie was just okay. I will tell you right now. Even with just these movies the way that they are, I am surprised how not bad these are given what my expectation was. Yeah, me too, I'm surprised that they're they're, you know, competent enough, watchable enough.

They're not Schwartzenegger movies. They don't they don't much. They don't ask much of the of the viewer. They're like, you know what this is. It doesn't pretend to be more than it is.

I think that's what my problem with China Salesman was. It was pretending to be something that it ended up not even trying be. Oh again, China Salesman is literally a bait and switch. Like again, I will stand by that that movie should never have gotten released. People should never have paid anyone who paid money to see or rent that film should have been refunded because they paid to see five minutes of a two and a half hour goddamn movie.

I saw it for free and I'm still feeling ripped off. Yeah, and look, we're entering now in an area with Segal's films, where again, I don't even know some of these other people in these movies that we're gonna watch. It's not even like GSP. It's like again, we're going back to Segal is literally the only one in the movie. They might be stars of their perspective, countries that they're from, maybe, but yeah, nothing I've really heard of.

No. I may have heard of like a couple because I've seen them in like bit parts in character character actors that I've seen in other films. But that's about it. Yeah, but the next film, I'm interested. I'm interested to see what the rest of these streaming movies are.

We say this every show, but I'm so excited to see where the rest of these go, because I'm hoping they're more like Attrition, which they kind of have been so far. There's I would rewatch Cartels if someone wanted to. Yeah, I mean, if someone said, hey, can we watch Cartel I'm like, oh, sure, we'll would be. I would ask, hey, have you seen Attrition or have you seen any of have you seen any of these other Seagal movies. This wouldn't be at the top of the list, but it wouldn't be at the bottom either.

Like solid middle. It's a solid middle. Yeah, I agree. So what are we talking about On the next episode, Trevor, we will be talking about the environmental Seagal classic On Deadly Ground and may or may not have had two hours excised from the end of it, where Seagal goes on a two hour rant about environment toalism. Let's let's not spoil it for the listeners.

We'll get to that is there, Dan, It's not there. Don't go watch it looking for it. Okay, it's just it's not there. Just the heads up. Oh, it's one of the great missing footage of Hollywood.

You know. It's the footage from Magnificent Anderson's the lost ending to Fucking Citizen Kane and the two hour xize speech from on Deadly Ground. I'm just looking forward to seeing Michael Kane b A Villy And you've never seen On Deadly Ground, right, No, I haven't. This is gonna be a new one for me, and I'm excited. I'm really excited it had they Yeah, it for me, And you know, we talked about this with Verne a lot.

We're going to talk about it a lot on the next episode. I've actually talked about this movie on my own show. On Deadly Ground and Fire down Below for me, along with Under Siege, two are the Sigal movies that are the most intriguing because, like Verne said, I will echo it one hundred percent, they at least on Deadly Ground and definitely well, definitely on Deadly Ground, but also Fire down Below are very personal films. I mean only Ground is singles only directorial um venture, So yeah, it's deeply personal to him. So I think on dead I think I'm really excited to hear what you think about on Deadly Ground because it is a trip.

It really is. Yeah. Um, when you say director, it reminds me. Did you ever see that mad TV skit with Steven Sigall? I think I know what is it?

Um? Is it with him? Or is no? It's with us Will Sasso? Right right?

No, No, not Will Sasso. This is before Will Sasso. It's with Brian Callen um and he's directing a film about uh oh god, about the uh I forgot the name of the case. But it was where the black teenagers wanted to go to the school and George Wallace was forbidding, you know, trying to get them to not Selma. No, no, no, not Selma.

It's a different one. Oh, I know what you're doing. But where the kids were like escorted to school by exactly. Yeah. Yeah, there's that famous there's that famous scene in Forrest Gump where Forrest gold mayam you dropped your book.

It's that so and Seagal's playing Seagal Brian Callen as Seagal. He's directing the film and basically doing a Robert Downy Jr. And putting and doing the film in blackface. Oh my god, I will next one is on Deadly Ground, and I cannot wait because it is It truly is a strange, wonderful, little weird ass Steven Seagal action. Oh and I can't wait to watch it because I know you have amazing taste in film.

Yeah, that's uh yeah, yeah, So Trevor, where can people find you when you're not here? You can find me on Twitter at bad Vertigo Instagram at mad Vertigo and you can find me once once a month. I believe on the Culture Cast with my friend here Chris. Stash you and where Chris? Where can people find you?

C stashu dot com. C stacchiw dot com is my link tree. That's where you can go to find out more about the shows that I'm on. And that's it. I do the Culture Cast Scary Stories.

We tell all kinds of stuff. That's where you can find that. You can find a show on the internet at on cigal dot com. You should also check out Verne's book, Cigology. You can get that on Amazon Prime for both your kindle or a physical copy.

And you know what, Verne's awesome. If you haven't listened to our episode with Verne, go check that out. Under Siege. We talked to like two and a half hours about Segal under Siege, all kinds of stuff. But yeah, if that's something you're into, awesome.

If not, just keep listening to this show. I'll catch you on the next episode.