Brotherhood – True Justice: Brotherhood (2011)

Directed by: Lauro Chartrand, Wayne Rose | 86 minutes | action, drama, thriller, crime | Actors: Steven Seagal, Meghan Ory, Warren Christie, William ‘Big Sleeps’ Stewart, Sarah Lind, Hiro Kanagawa, Warren Takeuchi, Frank Cassini, Byron Lawson, Vincent Gale, Johnson Phan, Sôtarô, Paul Boyle, Mari Takino, Allen Keng, Greg Zach, Elle Buckle, Chelsey Reist, Gregory Fawcett, Jovanna Huguet, Alex Mallari Jr., J. Anthony Pena, Lee Tomaschefski

Actually, Steven Seagal has never changed. No, over time he approaches the success of ‘Under Siege’ (1992), a huge blockbuster at the time, less and less, but his films today are not spectacularly different in structure. The old aikido master is not as fast as he used to be, but he can still unleash his weapon like no other. That’s also one of the few positive aspects of his current stream of films – current indeed, because his last two, ‘Brotherhood’ and ‘Urban Warfare’, are so obviously the same cloth that it is difficult to tell them apart. to be.

In both, Seagal plays the old hand Elia Kane, formerly commando and general mourner, but now working as a detective for the Seattle Police Department. Both films, which share almost the entire cast of supporting characters in addition to the main character, have a plot that is hardly worth summarizing. ‘Brotherhood’ revolves around gang warfare between Japanese and Mexicans, in which space is exchanged for a bank hostage situation that allows a flood of anti-Wall Street rhetoric into the film and serves no other purpose. It is of a depressing level: a mess, overflowing with clichés and plot holes. Both films are two pieces of a television series stuck together, and it turns out in the very messy course of both titles. Moreover, it remains rather ludicrous to see the martial arts virtuoso playing an old, wise detective who suddenly has to rely on his sharp insights. That never becomes credible.

But the story is secondary in a Seagal film: it’s all about the action. It doesn’t get much better than that. Seagal himself will turn 60 next year and will no longer be the illustrious martial artist of yesteryear. He must therefore rely on firearms suspiciously to keep Seattle safe. Unfortunately, it doesn’t get much more spectacular here, probably due to budget constraints – it is typical in that regard that Seagal is a co-writer, producer and therefore protagonist. It is admired that Steven Seagal continues to make fanatic films, but with small budgets a high degree of inventiveness is required to make an action film splash off the screen. Here, however, it is limited to a single shooting, which makes the narrow hour and a half that the film lasts even a long sitting.

Steven Seagal is a cult hero that still appeals to the imagination of many. He was recently allowed to play his honorary role in Robert Rodriguez’s most recent semi-successful ode to the b-movie, ‘Machete’. Sylvester Stallone’s ‘The Expendables’ proves that there is still an acting career for action machos at age: every action hero except Seagal (Stallone himself, Lundgren, Jet Li, Statham, Willis) was allowed to show up for a while, with enormous financial success. Seagal was missing there for a pretty clumsy reason: he can’t get through a door with one of the producers. Perhaps that’s one last chance for Seagal: don’t take yourself too seriously, and nurture and cash in on your cult hero status. Until then, unfortunately, his work is probably of this deplorable level.