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List Price: $9.98 | | Label: 20th Century Fox
Salesrank: 11734
Released: April 18, 2006 |
| Our Price: $4.41 |
| Used Price: $2.44 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Soldier of fortune John Seeger (Steven Seagal) is the best in the business…the business of kicking ass! When you're a mercenary, there's always going to be casualties, but no job is too treacherous for Seeger, who's blackmailed into orchestrating an impossible prison break, leading a team of heavily-armed soldiers on a deadly mission to South Africa to rescue the son of a billionaire arms dealer. But, when Seeger finds out he's been double-crossed, it's payback time, and now, there's going to be hell to pay!
Mercenary for Justice Reviews:
GOOD MOVIE 
2009-01-24 - Good movie I bought it used and shipping was great and the dvd was in great shape THANK YOU!!
a watchable somewhat entertaining effort by Seagal 
2008-12-07 - In Seagal's DTV era too many of his films suffer from poor production quality, especially sound. Mercenary for Justice is a refreshing Seagal film from a production standpoint. I appreciated the decent special effects and the fact that the dialogue was audible. The plot was pretty basic but entertaining. There were enough Seagal fight scenes to keep thing interesting. I think Seagal or someone involved in the production of Mercenary for Justice must have just seen Oceans 11. Some of the scenes, especially one where Seagal and his team are leaving the airport, try to copy the slick feel of Oceans 11 (i.e. well dressed guys walking too cool to the beat of some snazzy music). Unfortunately our bloated bad-hair-day hero is no George Clooney, but Seagal gives viewers one of his better DTV performances. Overall I give Mercenary for Justice three stars. It would be a 3.5 star movie if the plot were a little tighter. I'm hopeful that future Seagal productions will be filmed to the quality of Mercenrary for Justice. If your a Seagal fan you'll probably enjoy this film.
"Justice" Was Not Served 
2008-10-03 - "Mercenary for Justice" has a lot of things going for it: it skips the more obvious production snafus of Steven Seagal's DTV exploits, has a pretty good supporting cast to show up the star, and has an overall tone of wanting to succeed - more so than the tired, voiced-over attempts that bookend it (Attack Force, Black Dawn). On the other hand, the film suffers from a lack of focus that eventually disintegrates a promising story into little more than a wannabe-smart-but-actually-dumb vehicle for Seagal, and makes the movie's unsatisfying action content painfully clear.
The story's a bit of a doozy, but here goes: John Seeger (Seagal) is an ex-military mercenary who's strong-armed into a controversial mission by threats to the lives of his deceased best friend's family. Ordered to join a team of guns-for-hire to break a rich arms-dealer's son out of prison, Seeger is double-crossed when his bosses reveal their ulterior motive - prompting Seeger to fight back in his own way.
The film's first 20 minutes are its highlight: the massive, Black Hawk Down-inspired shootout is probably the most professional-looking scene that's ever been featured in Seagal's DTV career, and is definitely something I had never seen him involved in before. It's extremely well done for this kind of movie, and effectively starts it off with promise. Sadly, the action takes a turn for the mundane, and we're left with a remaining 70 minutes of repetitive shootouts, throat-slitting, and a sloppy hand-to-hand fight scene in a bathroom. While the gunplay remains decent, the fact that the majority of the casualties counted by Seagal are police officers, prison guards, security personnel, and various other non-bad guys puts a bit of a disappointing dent in the "Justice" part of the title. Seagal is supposed to be a good guy!
As for the acting, it's a bit of a hit & miss: without mentioning mumbly Seagal, there's Luke Goss ("Hellboy 2"), Roger Guenveur Smith (A Huey P. Newton Story), Michael Williams (The Wire: The Complete Series), Adrian Galley (The Deal), and Langley Kirkwood (Final Solution) getting a piece of the action, and they all generally do well with their roles. Still, you can't help but wonder whether a talent like Goss was miscast as a pathetic CIA producer when he's capable of kicking butt in his other movies...
What really brings the film down, however, is the plot's overcomplication: while it kind of makes sense when you think about it after the film has ended, trying to understand the motives, relationships between the characters, and exactly who's doing what is a real chore whilst watching. For example, when Seagal begins to get a few up on his adversaries, you don't know at once that he's doing it because there's no explanation to the villains' misfortunes until five minutes later. This happens more than once, and kills the satisfaction of watching the evildoers get theirs - a plot tool that's one of the few things that Seagal is really good at.
In all, I'm not surprised that Seagal and director Don FauntLeRoy pulled off Urban Justice as their next attempt, for "Mercenary for Justice" showed a lot of promise. Alas, that's all it really is - promises that aren't fulfilled. I wish very much that a different writer had been hired - I have no doubt that the plot could've been delivered better by somebody who had done more than work on short films before he undertook a full-length feature. For what it's worth, this one's staying on my shelf...but it doesn't stand a good chance of overtaking any other film up there anytime soon.
Let's give Segal a mulligan on producing this one. He was distracted by the on-set buffet!
2007-12-17 - We, Sid the Elf, are worried that Steven Segal, the early favorite for a 2008 woody, will take a reduced acting role in the new B he's now producing. Don't do it Segal! Sid needs you in Unintentional Comedies like fans of your smooth ballads need you to keep pumping out albums. Yeah, albums. Segal actually took time away from his lucrative film and competitive eating careers to make sweet sweet baby-making music.
This is why Mercenary for Justice fell short of Sid's lofty expectations for a Segal flick. He just wasn't in it enough. This movie had a killer ending, which was the only part of the plot that revolved around Segal, of course that might be because the man has his own gravitational pull at this point. There is one point when they show him from a profile view in a suit. He has a distinctly white Biggie Smalls on the cover of Life After Death vibe. Which brings up another point. Since when did Segal start talking like he's black? I guess all those years of working with illustrious actors such as Treach, DMX, and Ja Rule have taken their toll on our favorite portly-size action star. Segal is like aging adult-film star at this point. The camera angle has to be perfect, and the action better be sped up to keep the viewer um...interested. Like we said in our Urban Justice review they need to do some very fancy camera work to make a 285 pound senior appear to be moving quickly.
So, Sid's final thoughts: this is a movie that makes no sense whatsoever. But, if you're looking for a movie to pop in and get some unintentional comedy laughs at, look no further than Mercenary for Justice; starring Steven Segal, his huge pot belly, and his Michael Myers wig.
Whoa......a level of shame that must be witnessed 
2007-02-08 - Seagal shows no signs of stopping his domination of the direct to DVD bad action movie market with his 40th film in about three years. They keep showing these babies on cable, and after recently catching this, I was more shocked than from the last Seagal flick, a similar fare (title unimportant) from only a year or two past.
It must be seen to be believed. If you ever saw any of Seagal's classic bone-crunchers of the late 80s and early 90s, which while ridiculous, at least had some good production values and some level of technical competence, then you can appreciate how bad, how shameless, how...unbelievably shameless it all is. I really think with the way these films look and the way they're presented...he should just have his own weekly TV series on primetime, with the same plot (ex-CIA guy, blah blah blah, grunt groan snap). These films really look like bad primetime shows about...fat, ex-CIA 'operatives' who come into all kinds of violence one way or another. There is a slight measure of fun, some self-reflexivity to the work, the filmmakers knowing that anyone morbid enough to watch knows exactly what a Seagal films is...but then, these movies make Out For Justice look like John Huston.
You can while away some time watching how fat Seagal is, how he continues to adapt the long, leather coat (I like how they embrace his now trademark hands-over-the-belly fatman stance on the artwork), how he is unable to do the most basic stunt (anything involving a jump, or lifting his leg greater than 20 degrees). He was constantly using stand-ins and stuntmen for everything over 10 years ago...now it's comical. The tricks they employ to literally hide him from scenes is fun to watch and note. The extreme close-ups so his massive, tanned face engulf the screen, and always with the long coats (the coat is always on, even in the occassional medium shot of the expanding, receding star). Yes, he's been fatter, but Seagal isn't going to wow anyone with a fight scene...since, well, he doesn't appear to be in the fight scenes (save for aforementioned tanned closeups). Perhaps those mob ties are not gone, because he is working at an alarming rate as if to satisfy a debt to someone culled from one of his earlier classics.
There is nothing to discuss. Seagal can only be applauded for this campaign, the man is making tremendous money with no concern for shame, dignity, etc. Plus, he's a renaissance man, touring with his band, being a lamai, and releasing his own energy-spiritual product thingees.
