Looking back on it now I'm not quite sure how Steven Seagal actually became a big action star in the early 90s. It's not like he tore up the screen with his debut Above the Law or added any acting chops over the course of Marked for Death or Under Siege (okay, I admit, I still enjoy that one). So it was really no surprise when he joined aging action figureheads Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren on the direct-to-video circuit. But after watching his latest, The Keeper, as well as taking in a few of his other recent flicks I've come to realize he's probably the most worthless of the batch - though I do give him credit for poking fun at himself in The Onion Movie and his swordfight with Danny Trejo in the upcoming Machete does look pretty sweet.

Here Seagal plays Roland, a Los Angeles cop who finds himself double-crossed by his partner after they bust a money laundering operation. He's left for dead but ends up in hospital in a coma. Along comes Mr. Traitor and Roland, who's been playing possum waiting, quickly dispatches him using a gun he snuck from a fellow female cops purse. Thus, the triumphant return of mumble-a-thon acting is kicked into gear.

While getting ready to return to work, which is shown using multiple shots of him cleaning/assembling guns and tossing throwing knives with varying degrees of accuracy, he's forced into retirement. His newfound unemployment doesn't last for long when he gets a job offer from his former Sergeant (now a wealthy businessman) to become a bodyguard for his daughter. There's an attempted kidnapping, lots of gunplay that goes for overkill on the usage of squibs, and some creepy moments of sexual tension between Seagal's fifty-something Roland and his early 20s charge Nikita (Liezel Carstens). There's also a long-winded scene where Roland tails her boxer boyfriend that ends with a successful kidnapping of Nikita leading to a bad finale where our wrinkly hero storms the bad guy's abode to save her.

And speaking of the bad guys - they're generally just here to get their asses kicked every once-and-a-while because, otherwise, there's no real effort to define them in any way. There's also not nearly enough action sequences with plenty of boring dialogue scenes while Seagal's "acting" consists of him looking at the ground most of the time and having the charisma of a brick. Which is why it's harder to believe that co-star Carstens actually turns in a worse performance not even having enough talent to be convincing when acting drunk.

It's really getting tiring ragging on all these piss-poor DTV Seagal flicks but after sitting through Into the Sun, Driven to Kill and this I've come to the point where it's almost a game to see if they can get progressively worse. These are prime examples of the lazy approach taken towards low-budget action flicks lately and through The Keeper's 94 minutes I kept considering turning it off and putting on one of Cirio H. Santiago's numerous Roger Corman produced efforts to see prime examples of how limited budgets, recycled footage, stilted acting, and goofy plotting can still amount to a whole bunch of entertainment. Certainly a lot more entertainment than anything this bland and boring stinker can offer.

Director Keoni Waxman doesn't show much of a knack for staging action sequences despite churning out some b-level flicks in the past but I suppose Seagal, as the co-producer, was happy with his work since he also helmed the same year's A Dangerous Man. Most recently he teamed with Steve Austin for Hunt to Kill. (Chris Hartley, 8/30/10)

Directed By: Keoni Waxman.
Written By: Paul A. Birkett.

Starring: Steven Seagal, Liezel Carstens, Aaron Shiver, Luce Rains.