Urban Justice [HD]

Welcome back Mr Seagal, we've been expecting you.
While Urban Justice is not without it's problems, the most obvious being the embarrassing DVD cover art, this is the first Steven Seagal film since Exit Wounds to actually remind me that at one point in the action movie world, Seagal was one of the action kings. It's a low budget DTV and as such it suffers. Most notably the script with some dreadful dialogue scenes also interior locations looking like the cheaply dressed sets they are and second rate actors filling out the cast. Concentrating on Seagal, he delivers in the action department. His fight scenes are all Seagal, no body doubles in this one. Arm's and necks are broken, opponents are thrown across rooms and into objects, Seagal is fast without speeded up camera tricks making him all the more believable. I can't remember the last time I saw Seagal lift his leg above knee height, in Urban Justice he kicks several opponents and actually kicks one opponent in the face. I also did not see the large gut so prominent in past DTV's...

Fans, the waiting is finally over
Like most of you reading this review, I am a dedicated Seagal fan who has watched every one of those heinously awful direct-to-DVD things he's been making for the last five years, desperately hoping the newest movie would finally be THE ONE to usher in an entirely new Seagal era. I have loyally watched each film, disappointed to new lows every single time, sighing with disbelief yet also wanting to believe: "One day...one day he'll finally make a great movie again."

Granted, Urban Justice in not a great movie, and I hesitate to call it even a good movie, but compared with those bewildering grade Z letdowns of the last five years where the entire movie should have been left on the cutting room floor, Urban Justice is practically Oscar material.

For one thing, Seagal is actually acting in this one. You can see he's actually TRYING, for a change, to make a movie, instead of standing around like a cardboard cutout. You can actually discern some of his personality...

Big improvment
Seagal's recent direct-to-DVD movies have all been more or less bad. At best they have been watchable. When Mercenary for Justice came out, I thought it couldn't get any worse and then he proved me wrong by doing Attack Force. Many of the movies have suffered from incoherent scripts, bad dubbing (Seagal's character changing voices from one scene to the next) and lack of fighting scenes. I'm glad to say "Urban Justice" (aka "Renegade Justice") departs from this trend. The story is pretty straightforward and there are several scenes where Seagal gives the bad guys what they deserve. The movie is not without flaws (such as a couple of annoying supporting characters and cheesy flashback sequences, and the script could have used some tweaking) but it is definitely a step in the right direction for Seagal. I think most of his remaining fans will...

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