Despite having a Polish director and a star, Steven Seagal, who was granted Russian citizenship a few years back, Exit Wounds practically counts as Canadian.
The 2001 action effort is filmed in Toronto, Hamilton and Calgary, has Jill Hennessy, and has exterior shots of the country’s national broadcaster, the CBC, and also prominent visuals of three iconic brands including favorite quick service resto, Tim Hortons. The icing on the cake? A brief discussion of the “greatest” athletes of all time, including, appropriately enough, a Canadian advocating on behalf of Wayne Gretzky, aka, The Great One.
And Exit Wounds, is good, if not great. Still, the flick represents the last, best, real movie Seagal ever made, before being banished to Euro purgatory – and not for being #meToo’ed, but for eating his way out of mainstream releases and for, by all accounts, being a pompous self-mythologizing ass-hat.
In this one, he’s a rogue cop instead of an ex-special forces op, displaying the acting range of, um…a child’s walkie-talkie if you’re familiar with his career.
Because he uses unorthodox means to save the life of the VP, and risking his own in the process, instead of some kind of medal for heroism, he’s banished to the red-headed stepchildren of Detroit police precincts, the 15th, which despite having commemorative cufflinks, is full of corrupt bad apples.
There, he has to suss out who he can trust, and to do so by being his usual Squinty McGee self. Tom Arnold, a chattering AM television personality, helps Seagal’s character gain intel about a heroin syndicate, with ties deep behind the Thin Blue Line.
But thin Seagal ain’t. This is a point of demarcation for our man Seagal, after which he never refused seconds and started to drape himself in ponchos to cover his exploding girth.
Regardless, he kicks a lot of ass here, including wiping out a multi-ethnic gang that was breaking into his ride, making unibrows black and blue and battering a bunch of ‘roided up bouncers too for good measure.
*** (out of 5)
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