Kill Switch (2008)

That was an excellent one.

I gave it a 7.5 out of 10

disgusting, overrated, pointless

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

If you like him throwing people around and subduing villains this gets my thumbs up!!

Oh my. Seagal had his share of duds, but this movie is just too much. Seagal plays this cop that sees things that other don't, behaves like a professional even over focused on his job (and with a mumbled accent) - and on the other side he is the worst in action sequences ever seen (and he has an obvious unlimited supply of handgun clips).He not only hunts down one serial killer, but suddenly there is a side plot with a second one, which sometimes becomes the first one. Plus there is a female FBI agent that probes his "over aggressive" cases. And his "wife" that feels unattained. Did I mention the same flashback about something in youth that is probably played 10 times? The plot goes in so many places that you wonder what is really going on. Then the action scenes: they drag on, as if (just for example) someone falls down five stairs hard one after the next - and still has the power to fight for minutes. I also wonder where this city/place is where this movie is located: it looks and feels like a grim place without hope and every second guy is a sick madman; with a police force thats is clearly clueless and useless.Seagal gives his usual wooden performance and the others just drag by. Isaac Hayes is a nice touch, but wasted. The most embarrassing thing about this movie is: Seagal wrote it himself.3 of 10. If you really need to watch a direct-to-video movie from Seagal, grab one of the newer Keoni Waxman. They make - at least - sense and are way less confusing.

Set in Memphis, Tennessee, Kill Switch is the story of one Jacob (Seagal) a cop who will use any means necessary to get the information he wants. Plaguing the city is a serial killer named Lazarus (Filipowich), who leaves clues which must be deciphered at the scenes of his crimes, which means Jacob must go to the library to try and figure them out. Meanwhile, another scumbag, Billy Joe Hill (Collie) is causing mayhem on the streets as well. Jacob is also busy fighting the traumatic memories in his head, but he has his partner, Storm (King) and his pal The Coroner (Hayes) to help him out. With the pressure mounting and the body count rising (mainly because of Jacob) who will finally flip the KILL SWITCH? Another year, another Nu-Image Seagal. Frankly, we feel that Kill Switch is one of the worst latter-day Seagals. It's filled with stupid quick cuts and herky-jerky camera moves that are likely to give you whiplash. The "fight scenes", such as they are, are repetitive, overlong and poorly executed (but to be fair, they can be unintentionally funny, more on that later), and the plot is nothing you wouldn't see on any TV procedural. Seeing as Seagal's name is Jacob in the movie, perhaps the closest parallel is Jake and the Fat Man. But in a wild twist, Jake IS the fat man. What a mind-blower.It's important to remember that this movie came out around the time that Seagal's reality show Lawman was hitting the airwaves. So we get more police work from a guy with an absurd "Southern" accent. And seeing as Seagal managed to write the script, other characters call him "a genius" among other compliments, although evidence of genius, or even mild intelligence, are not really on display. Seagal could have written anything for himself, but he chose to make Jacob a horrible torturer, just like the character he plays in Driven To Kill (2009). There's no possible way an audience can like this character as he's brutally, mercilessly, amorally, unnecessarily torturing his victims. Adding a miscast Isaac Hayes as The Coroner (Seagal didn't even bother to give him a proper name) and a partner that looks like a bloated Philip Michael Thomas (interestingly enough, he's played by another 3-named guy with the name "Thomas" somewhere in there - maybe Seagal thought it WAS PMT and got confused) don't help matters.And as for the fight scenes, oh dear...what appears to be happening is Seagal just stands there, while stunt doubles Nicholas Harrison and Dian Hristov (we feel their names should be known to the world, as they are the ones doing all the work) don over-sized leather jackets and ridiculous wigs and pretend to be Jacob. The way this is all edited together is laughable. It's so blindingly obvious it's not Seagal, a child could see it. Who do they think they're fooling? And the real crime is that the scenes, especially the first major one in the bar, go on for a ridiculously long time, leaving the viewer ample opportunity to see Harrison and Hristov. If the fight scene had just been "quick and dirty", as they say, not to mention edited properly, there's a strong chance we wouldn't notice the stunt doubles. But no, it's almost like Seagal wanted us to see them.If you always wanted to see Zodiac (2007) but with ridiculous hair, here's your movie. It would be interesting for Seagal to try and play a character that is even a little bit likable. But no, it's just editing a guy jumping out a window 17 times and tacking on a completely nonsensical ending. Do not engage this Kill Switch.For more action insanity, drop by: www.comeuppancereviews.com

Shoot the editor. No, really. This is the worst cut film in the history of film cutting. A linear mosaic, it reads like a bar-code scanner being run over a cubist painting by a dervish with St. Vitus' dance. Using the stuttering "ner-ner-ner-ner-nineteen+ visual cut'n'paste once - even twice - throughout the whole film would be acceptable, if a little gimmicky. Using it as the default widget in every fight scene - not only for cuts, but to highlight random fist impact frames - is just naffly tasteless, like some prat holding the camera on the diagonal to be "cool."Was this cut on a suite set up for an MTV job with all the presets set up for hip-hop gangsta rap and then operated randomly by a blindfolded passer-by? This level of medium intrusion is criminally incompetent, and has made what was probably a fairly bad but entertaining project into a completely rubbish unintelligible piece of pointless drivel.I was looking forward to a bit of mindless, gratuitously violent entertainment - why else would I have watched a Big Steve film? I think I saw some, but I was so dazzled and wrong-footed with all the smoke and mirrors that I'm not really sure. Frustrated. I am.Technical rant over.Everything else I want to say has already been said throughout this thread, which makes better viewing than the film.Go watch Death Wish 2 instead. Probably just as bad in most ways, but at least you can see what's going on.Bah!