|
Another Alcatraz action flick… Undercover
FBI agent 'Sasha' (Steven Seagal) is slowly working his way
into the inner circles of a crime ring with the help of a
member of the ring, Nick (Ja Rule). When Sasha gives Nick
a ride back to his salvage shop as they discuss a job for
Sasha, the FBI shows up. Sasha's FBI contact, Agent Williams
(Claudia Christian), confront's Nick about his involvement
in the ring but Nick pulls his guns and refuses to go willingly
despite Sasha's pleading. The result is a gunfight that ends
with Sasha saving Nick only to be shot by his own contact,
Agent Williams. ***
Even though Sasha technically dies,
he is resuscitated and eventually ends up in 'New Alcatraz',
which is just old Alcatraz with some fancy technological gizmos,
where Nick ended up. Trying to regain his confidence with
Nick, Sasha again befriends him. But all of the undercover
agent stuff is swept under the rug when New Alcatraz comes
under attack. ***
As it turns out, a man named Lester
(Bruce Weitz) stole $200 million in gold from the U.S. government,
was caught, but never revealed where he buried the gold. In
the process of stealing the gold he accidentally derailed
the train and killed several of the guards. Now he is going
to be the first person to be put to death in the stylish new
death chamber on New Alcatraz island. Come to witness the
execution is Jane McPherson (Linda Thorson), a relatively
young Supreme Court Justice, because she was the one that
sentenced Lester during his trial. ***
As it so happens, there are others
that want to know Lester's secret and are willing to go to
great lengths to find it out. A group of greedy ex-soldiers
led by 49er One (Morris Chestnut) and 49er Six (Nia Peeples)
break into New Alcatraz to stop the execution of Lester and
force the location of the gold from him. Everything is going
fine until their helicopter pilot, who gets caught in a storm,
crashes into Alcatraz. Now the 49ers (the bad guys) have to
take Jane McPherson hostage and get the FBI to send them a
helicopter so they can escape. ***
But the one thing they didn't count
on was Sasha, who blows his cover with Nick to help save Jane
McPherson and prevent the 49ers from getting the gold. ***
Normally movies are much easier
to summarize, in large part due to the fact that they make
logical sense. This movie, on the other hand, makes virtually
no sense. Let me just point out some of the jumps in story
logic: (1) What does Sasha, an undercover agent, do for Nick?
(2) Why does Nick decide to have a shoot out with the FBI?
(3) Why does Sasha save his life? (4) Why does Agent Williams
shoot Sasha? (5) How did Sasha get his titanium knee that
causes such a fuss but doesn't seem to prevent him from flying
through the air on chains and jumping off 20 feet ledges?
(6) How did Jane McPherson's bodyguards get their guns back?
(7) Why does Sasha have to use the helicopter headset to communicate
with the FBI when there are hundreds of phones in the place?
(8) Why does Agent Williams happen to be in San Francisco?
(9) How come the only thing the inmates do when they are freed
from their cells is play basketball? (10) Why aren't there
more inmates than just the ones on E-block; all of about 20?
(11) Why does the New Alcatraz armory, which isn't locked,
have 50 caliber machine guns and Uzis? (12) Why can Sasha
take 15 kicks to the stomach and not flinch but when he slaps
someone else on the head they're out cold? And on, and on,
and on... As I said, there is no real logic to this story.
***
You could essentially summarize
the movie as The Rock meets Under Siege. Are there any surprising
twists to the movie? No. It is painfully obvious that the
49ers are coming after Lester. It is also obvious that Lester
will divulge his secret to Sasha and then kill himself when
the time is right with the 49ers. It is also obvious that
Sasha and his band of merry inmates who seem to be more skilled
at playing Nintendo and painting than using guns are bound
to kill the highly trained 49ers who also happen to be wearing
body armor. ***
In short, the movie is full of
holes, there are no surprises, and it is really just a combination
of past action flicks. This is a remarkably lame movie. But...
there are some new fight scenes! For instance, have you ever
scene people fight while swinging on chains suspended from
a ceiling? Or how about inmates jumping off second and third
story jail balconies while firing Uzis? Of course, there is
no room in the world that has 15 to 20 thick chains suspended
from the ceiling just for the heck of it and jumping off one
of those balconies would break your legs, but it was still
cool, right? Well, not really. The action/fight scenes weren't
even that entertaining. ***
One last thing about how horrible
this movie was and I'll stop. Why did Steven Seagal agree
to let them use so much rap music? He isn't a rapper. He isn't
hip. Sure, Nick and Twitch (Kurupt) are rappers, but Twitch's
role was silly and Nick wasn't very convincing and neither
of them actually had to do any acting. Perhaps the rap music
appeals to the people that the producers think will enjoy
this film or maybe they think that by incorporating black
rappers the movie will have more appeal to blacks. I hate
rap music and found it obnoxious and find most rappers to
be horrible actors (Kurupt was definitely not an exception).
And the final scene with Twitch talking to his girlfriend,
that was just the icing on the cake for why this movie should
go straight from the production room to the trash. There are
much better action flicks out there - don't waste your time
on this one.
|
