Seagal's in His Own Shadow
Former government agent Jack Foster (Steve Seagal) has retired from the service and is heading to Bucharest with his young daughter Amanda (Skye Bennett) to mark the anniversary of her mother's death. But once an agent always an agent and Jack finds himself drawn in to a conspiracy when a car is blown up and Amanda is kidnapped. With a former colleague who Jack hasn't seen for a long time they try to find his daughter but it seems someone has kidnapped her to use as leverage against Jack involving a top secret toxin.
So yes I mentioned Bucharest and his is another one of those Steven Seagal movies he made in Romania and to my memory I don't remember a single one of these movies impressing. And "Shadow Man" is another one to add to that list as it is sadly another lack lustre Seagal movie which when it isn't tossing some action at us it is tossing a nonsense script at us which is not the most entertaining. In fact the most entertaining thing about "Shadow Man" is that Imelda Staunton is amongst the credits and I wonder how her agent sold appearing in a Seagal movie to her.
Anyway let me break this down; the opening minute or two where Jack is teaching a martial arts class whilst corny is entertaining; the following car explosions and car chase isn't too bad either. But then after that you can go to sleep as the focus shifts to a typical convoluted plot which involves various governments, agents, a deadly toxin and plenty of shady, untrustworthy characters. That is until the ending when we get the big action climax to wake you up again. You may think I am being harsh but the middle section of "Shadow Man" is seriously lacking with just an occasional moment where we have Seagal doing a MacGyver impression with some impromptu weapon creation using bits and pieces he finds laying around.
On the subject of Seagal well I suppose technically his performance is better than some of his other recent movies and he genuinely seems to be interested in making "Shadow Man". But at the same time this is still Seagal along way from his best and so whilst he has his moments here it is still too often the case of Seagal walking through the movie.
What this all boils down to is that judged on Seagal's early movies "Shadow Man" is weak in comparison but compared to his more recent movies which are made on the cheap in Romania it is a slight improvement. But basically that means it is yet another Seagal movie for his die hard fans rather than those looking for exciting action.
