Steven Seagal has long been one of my favorite awful actors. Ever since the opening scene of Out For Justice, where he smashed a pimp’s head through a windshield with his karate prowess, Seagal has delighted me with his putrid acting, his insanely idiotic films, his recent weight gain and subsequent kimono-dependent wardrobe, his energy drink (which my friends and I actually purchased from his website), and his pretentiousness when talking about his martial arts training and whatever Ancient Mystic Oriental item he’s discussing the merits of.
Needless to say, I was absolutely thrilled when I found out he’d be the subject of an A&E reality show in which cameras would follow him performing his duties as an on-duty cop in Louisiana (a job which he’s apparently had for twenty years). Lawman basically brings the Steven Seagal movie characters into real-life dangerous situations, with Seagal mixing his martial arts acumen with by-the-book, old-fashioned police skullcracking. It’s terrific. So I’m going to review new episodes of the show every so often, starting with its second episode, “The Deadly Hand”.
We start with the intro, which is pure gold and one of the most enjoyable aspects of the show. In it, we see Seagal jumping fences and apprehending criminals while he speaks the following voiceover: “I make a living in the movies, but for the past twenty years, I’ve also been a cop. And along with some of the finest deputies on the force, I serve the people of Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. My name is Steven Seagal. That’s right, Steven Seagal, deputy sheriff.” Fuck yeah! Let’s kick some ass!
Seagal and his cadre of physically unfit bozo cops begin with a “suspicious persons” call in a ghetto neighborhood. Seagal casually drops nuggets of wisdom like “awareness is the key to survival”. The camera also periodically gets grainy and slows down while Seagal assesses nearby people as potential threats; call it the “Seagal-Sense”.
They see a guy with a gun on the street (a “95 G”, whatever that is) and try to question him, but he takes off running. Considering the average weight of these guys, including Seagal, is around 300 pounds, he escapes easily. They recover his cell phone and the gun, and Seagal inexplicably wears Bono-esque sunglasses in the middle of the night.'
They apparently never stop working, because they’re still on duty the following morning. Seagal is going to train the others in some martial arts moves, because he’s “studied the martial arts most of his life, so he has a lot of confidence in himself”. His police brethren, however, lack his aikido skills, which could be a problem if they need to serve a warrant on Jet Li. Of course, Steven brings out his Japanese aikido student to take falls for him to demonstrate the proper way to disarm someone, as if these fat clowns are ever going to successfully use these moves. This scene essentially boils down to the cops marveling at Seagal’s basic takedown skills and “quickness”.
The boys now travel to a club parking lot, where contingents of black and white people have started a melee. The quotes bandied about by both the cops and perpetrators are great, with flimsy excuses coming from the fighters and cheesy standard cop threats coming from the officers. One gigantic tattooed black man is none too happy, screaming “Get this shit off me man!” and “I need you to take these bitches off!” in relation to his handcuffs. He then howls in pain like Chewbacca because they’re too tight. Seagal vaguely implies threats of violence and says that the arrestee is “not a very good Zen practitioner”. He is put into the cop car and kicks out the window, prompting them to use a taser on him. Seagal: “Everybody goin’ for a ride!”
1:36 A.M. Saturday: suspicious activity! Seagal-Sense kicks in, and it looks like some guys are drinking in their car! Two guys appear shitfaced and high and have an open bottle of Goldschlager in their car. Their excuses are amazing. We get the quote of the night when one of the accused muses, “I understand y’all doin’ y’all job, but right now I don’t feel like y’all doin’ y’all job!” They also find a gun (another 95 G!), but they’re amazingly not drunk and the gun is legal and registered. One of the two idiots recognizes Seagal and pledges, “I would never disrespect you!” Could you imagine actually being arrested by Steven Seagal?
Finally, we’re back at the precinct, where Seagal promises the other cops that his knowledge can save their lives. He again performs very simple “weapons retention” maneuvers while everyone stands slack-jawed in amazement.
Wow. This is ridiculous. I’m not even going to grade this, because obviously on a legitimate scale, it’s brutally awful. But as a hilariously entertaining half-hour of television, it’s hard to top.
John Lacey
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