Driven to Distraction
When you compare "Driven to Kill" to the preceding Steven Seagal movies it's not half bad or at least it has better editing and more action yet ironically compared to other movies in the action genre it is still a bad movie. It has a nonsensical storyline with huge gaps in the plot, massive contrivances when it comes to what the law lets happen and unfortunately a mumbling Steven Seagal who is often impossible to understand. But the irony is that "Driven to Kill" is more entertaining because it has more action but then it goes over board and turns action into bloody mindless violence which tries to be as nasty as it can, it basically goes over the top.
Former Russian mobster turn novelist Ruslan (Steven Seagal - Kill Switch) receives news that his daughter is marrying the son of his nemesis Mikhail Abramov (Igor Jijikine). Not happy about her choice in husband Ruslan heads home for the wedding but before it can take place two men kill his ex-wife and leave his daughter in a critical state. Forced to return to his old ways Ruslan sets about finding out who is behind the attack and getting revenge.
"Driven to Kill" is a simple movie using probably the most often used storyline when it comes to action movies and that is one of vengeance. The simplicity of it helps because unsurprisingly there are numerous plot holes and contrivances which would normally make it hard to follow and swallow especially as we also have a mixture of English and Russian going on. But because what we have is just a father going after who ever tried to kill his daughter it is easy to follow and in truth you end up not caring as to who ordered the attack and why although trust be told that is as over the top as the rest of the movie.
What that means is that "Driven to Kill" ends up all about the action and in away we have a bit of the old Steven Seagal back as he fights people, shoots some, fist fighting others and even finding time to create an impromptu explosive. And whilst I am sure some of the action uses a body double for Seagal not only are there more scenes of Seagal actually fighting, even running in one, but the editing is better and disguises some of the times a body double is used. But the trouble is it goes too far and it goes from delivering action to mindless violence almost seeing how violent it can get. Lets put it this way there is a scene where a man gets a gun pushes into his eye ball and his head blown out, it is just one of very visual and violent scenes which for me go too far.
The violence is not the only issue because whilst it is nice to see Seagal in more of the action scenes far too often you can not understand a word he mumbles. This is made worse because when he isn't speaking Russian which isn't too often he then has a Russian accent which makes it even harder to understand him. And to be honest whilst we have bad guys, sons of bad guys and dodgy lawyers "Driven to Kill" is all about the Seagal.
What this all boils down to is that whilst "Driven to Kill" is better than some of Seagal's previous movies it is still a bad movie and one which goes from trading on action to trading purely on violence.
