Ruslan Drachev is a retired Russian gangster, now a novelist, who returns on the eve of his daughter's marriage to the son of a prior criminal colleague. This happy event turns suddenly ugly when unknown gangsters kill his ex-wife and critically injure his daughter. Drachev comes out of retirement to hunt down the men responsible...

Driven to Kill (2009 - 1 hr, 38 min, 07 sec) is a direct to video action thriller directed by Jeff King.

I have to be at a loss to find much to say that is complimentary about the film. The plot is paper thin, if you don’t spot the bad guy in the first fifteen minutes then hand back you annual cinema pass. The acting and action is slightly below that of a made for television movie and the star, Steven Segal, is getting past his prime for playing this kind of heavy with any real conviction.

Drachev ploughs his way through swaths of bad guys, generally dispensing terminal justice, along the way his potential son-in-law joins in trying to get a slice of the revenge for himself, which endears him to his violent father-in-law. The script is a paint by numbers affair and most regular movie goers and indeed most fans of Segal movies will know where the story is going pretty quickly. That’s not to say that the film is all bad. It holds no pretensions to be other than what it is, a no brainer action movie with lots of violence, it just isn’t a very good example of this genre.

Although the film is a Blu-ray, there is nothing special going on here and Segal fans would probably be better off buying the DVD version. There was nothing in the films presentation which reminded me that I was watching a high definition disc. Audio options are limited to stereo 2.0 or a 5.1 DTS Master Audio Track, though neither track really packs any punch/ The film is presented in 1.85:1 aspect ratio. To confirm the cheapness of the production, if watching the film had left you in any doubt, the disc only has a single extra, the original theatrical trailer (2 min, 27 sec).

One for Segal fans, but if I were you I’d save some money and buy the DVD.

4

Charles Packer