Exit Wounds

Having successfully repackaged Jet Li for American audiences in Romeo Must Die, Andrzej Bartkowiak now turns his attention to an action star in much greater need of help -- Steven Seagal. The director doesn't quite succeed in repackaging everyone's favorite sneering Buddhist, but he does coax a better performance from Seagal than we've seen since his gig as SNL host in the early 90s. Having lost the ponytail and several pounds, Seagal once again finds himself playing a cop out for justice who frequently has to go above the law when he's been marked for death and put under siege on deadly ground, only to prove extremely hard to kill. The twist this time is that he finds himself in a contemporary world that doesn't understand the necessity of police brutality (imagine that!). So he gets demoted to traffic cop and put in anger management classes, where he has to sit next to Tom Arnold. Eventually, he discovers a massive conspiracy and prepares to clean it up, but the fun stuff is all in the down time, during which every character treats him like an utter buffoon. It comes off as long overdue penance for past sins, and Seagal bears it well, though not exactly with a grin (he hasn't added any facial expressions to his repertoire). Standing in Seagal's way this time are charismatic rapper DMX (the only person worth watching in the rap documentary Backstage) and ubiquitous comic actor Anthony Anderson (of Big Momma's House, Romeo Must Die, and about five other movies last year). It's a bit of a stretch to buy DMX as a computer expert (though possibly no more so than Ving Rhames in M:I-2 or Sandra Bullock in The Net), but he makes a formidable challenge for Seagal, and shows the chops to become a cinematic hero in his own right someday. And the plot features a surprising number of twists.