Born to Raise Hell   Starring: Steven Seagal, Darren Shahlavi, Zoltan Butuc and Claudiu Bleont Optimum Home Entertainment RRP: £15.99 OPTD1848 Certificate: 18 Available 18 October 2010

Bobby is a hardnosed Interpol agent who loses his friend when they are caught between a group of gypsies and Russian gangsters. Determined to bring the killers to justice Bobby finds that he must make unlikely alliances...

Born to Raise Hell (2010 - 1 hr, 32 min, 11 sec) is a direct to DVD thriller directed by Lauro Chartround and written, produced and starring Steven Seagal.

Seagal has been making a living from these straight to DVD films, which are usually filmed and set in Eastern Europe. Presumably he has a big enough fan base to continue to do so, although how long he can continue to create such formulaic movies is anybody’s guess.

The plot is thin, the acting variable. Much of what occurs will seem familiar to anyone who has seen Seagal’s recent output.

Bobby (Seagal) spends his time walking around in a large leather jacket, partly to prove he’s a hard man, but mostly to hide Segal’s expanding waistline, this is also not helped by his orange tan, blacked hair and the fact that he is generally the worst actor in the film for delivering believable lines.

The film is pretty much a tick list of Segal’s latest output, so we have lots of guns, some cursing, because that’s what hard men do, a bevy of beauties, which includes the odd bare breast and an increasingly embarrassing look at his character's sex lives, made less digestible as Segal is old enough to be the actress’s grandfather.

The rest of the cast do what they can with the script which usually asks little more of them than to stand around talking in a threatening manner to each other. The action sequences are handled well and fans of over the top shoot outs should be satisfied.

The film has a choice of either an English 5.1 surround or a 2.0 stereo audio track. The only extra is the trailer (1 min, 59 sec).

Segal fans may be interested but his output is increasingly being restricted to this group, though even then they are unlikely to consider this one of his better films.

5

Charles Packer