Pistol Whipped

Pistol Whipped Description

Steven Seagal muscles his way through Pistol Whipped, another brutal action flick. This time Seagal is a boozing, compulsive gambler forced by a mysterious stranger to assassinate mob guys and corrupt cops. Naturally, this makes it hard for him to be a doting father to his adoring young daughter. Pistol Whipped has some twists to its plot, but this is all moot--you either like Steven Seagal or you dont. If you do, this is one of the better of his straight-to-video oeuvre. Seagals attempt to be tender is laughable, but the story isnt completely predictable, the supporting cast isnt bad (Lance Henriksen, Aliens, brings some elegant menace to the proceedings), and though the martial-arts scenes are brief, theyre not as choppily edited as in some of his other movies. If you dont like Steven Seagal, youll find his bloated, wooden presence as repulsive and hateful as it was in every other movie hes ever made. He has two expressions--squinty and scowly--and theyre increasingly difficult to tell apart. His one cinematic quality is a lumbering menace, and for his fans, that seems to be enough. For them, Pistol Whipped has plenty of lumbering and scowling on display.