Out for Justice (1991) is probably my favorite Steven Seagal film of all time beating out Above the Law and even Under Siege. Why? Because it's liquid action. From beginning to end we have great one-liners, non-stop beatings, and many many clever methods of inflicting pain upon others. Steven Seagal plays a renegade cop who is given an unmarked and a shotgun to find and kill Richie because Richie did his partner, Bobby Lupo. From that simple premise, you have a couple of plot turns involved, but those aren't important. In fact, the plot is so bare-bones in the film that you could hardly say there's a plot beyond "Steven Seagal wants to kill Richie and will stop at nothing to do so." There is a plethora of great lines and terribly written dialogue--the two aren't mutually exclusive ("Anybody seen Richieeee?" "Yo, f*cknuts!" "You see, those bullets could have saved you a lot of pain.")--but that's part of the charm. This is definitely Seagal's most brutally violent of his films, but it is also his most entertaining and stream-lined action film. Steven Seagal knifing a man's hand to the wall with a cleaver, Seagal creating a weapon out of a cue ball and napkin and pounding the crap out of many bar patrons, Steven Seagal with a pump-action shotgun firing three times in a row without pumping, then shooting across the room with such masterful precision to blow a man's leg off but not the other. This is action. Despite being made in 1991, it is very much a product of the 80s.
Review of Out for Justice
