August 23, 2019
So here’s the deal: my dad really, really enjoyed watching dudes beat the shit out of other dudes. Me? I was always more of a Steve Martin man from the jump...but that’s not to suggest I was above stepping out for an action flick from time to time. Hell, my entire torso is tattooed with quotes from Point Break! (“You want the ultimate?...”). Of course...this is completely untrue...but maybe I could save some dough and get that pink surfboard tat I’ve always wanted. While my dad was happy to check out the latest Die Hard or Schwarzenegger offering or what have you...he mostly preferred a, shall we say, lower tier of action film. The ones with names like Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, or Steven Seagal on the marquee. I can’t tell you how many times he would bring home Bloodsport or Delta Force and sit there and howl with delight when some dude got his arm/leg/neck/chest snapped in half. “Oh ho ho! That’s one bad hombre!” he’d shout at our 14-inch Toshiba TV. I certainly wasn’t immune to the low-rent charms of these flicks. I learned early and hard that when you are a 12 year-old dude hanging out with other 12 year-old dudes you’ll get a much better reception if you show up with a copy of Cyborg than if you show up with a copy of, say, Roxanne. In an era that celebrated ultraviolence, misogyny, and casual racism there’s one film that’s so over the top (not to be confused the Stallone arm wrestling movie Over the Top...which we’ll talk about in due time) that it stands head and shoulders above the rest. It’s called Out for Justice. It stars sexual harassment yoda and current Russian ambassador to the US (seriously) Steven Seagal...and it is fucking BUH....NANAS!! I’m guessing what happened was this: at some point in the 1980’s someone wrote a Sidney Lumet-inspired screenplay wherein an Italian vigilante police officer hunts a former boyhood rival-turned out of control cop killing criminal during one long, blood-soaked day in pre-charcuterie bar Brooklyn. Think Dazed and Confused but with a super high body count and no tunes or (intentional) jokes. Steven Seagal then got ahold of said screenplay and thought it would be the perfect vehicle for him to do his pony tail swinging, nut-kicking thing. First, though, he watched the The Godfather, listened to one Frank Sinatra CD, and ate at The Olive Garden a shit ton so he could really FEEL what it’s like to be Italian. The finished product goes something like this: Out for Justice opens with a quote from legendary playwright Arthur Miller...so right away we know this is gonna be some highbrow shit, right? Right. Steven Seagal is detective Gino Fellino (bah hah hah what was Eddie Spaghetti too one the nose?). When we first meet Gino he’s working undercover with his partner Bobby Lupo in a neighborhood of Brooklyn that is clearly downtown Los Angeles. “Yo Bobby...whasssamatta? You got personal problems or sumthin’?” Gino asks. Bobby assures him that he does not and promises him that he will definitely not be murdered in the very next scene. The fellas are supposed to be watching a drug bust or whatever whatever but Gino spies a pimp about to go all “bitch better have my money” on a young lady. He decides to nuke the drug bust and go have words with the pimp. “Hey ace-hole...you like beatin’ on women? Why don’t you beat on me?” The pimp has a go at Gino but Gino knows Aikido or some shit so he snaps the pimp’s neck and then throws him through the front windshield of not one but TWO cars. Cue opening credits! Across town we meet Richie Madano, played by not-that-legendary growling, glowering character actor Bill Forsythe. Even though Richie looks kind of like Chris Farley in a Freddie Mercury costume, we assume he is the bad guy. We assume this because he has a safe full of guns and money and is smoking an uncomfortable amount of crack cocaine. He tells his crew of track suit-wearing future Soprano’s extras that if they stay by his side for the entire night they can help themselves to the contents of the safe (note: the majority of this film takes place during daylight hours...but who am I to break balls?). Cut to: somewhere in actual Brooklyn Bobby Lupo is out for an afternoon stroll with his aqua net wife and six children. Richie rolls up in a bitchin’ red Camaro and proceeds to shoot Bobby like 15 times in front of 300 people (please don’t quote me on these figures). The Camaro pulls over a few blocks away so Richie can smoke a little more crack. The lady in the car behind them starts honking the horn...which is a completely reasonable thing to do when there’s a crack smoke-emitting Camaro holding up traffic. Richie jumps out of the car, grabs the lady, and blows her head off! It is friggin’ bonkers! Gino gets called to the scene by the chief of police and man who shot his scenes on lunch break from Law & Order Jerry Orbach. Here I should note that Gino wears some sort of official police beret and a black vest with a plunging neckline throughout the entire film...which is fine I guess...it’s just that NO ONE ELSE on the force is dressed like that. Maybe all of the action takes place on some sort of “Hawaiian Shirt Friday”. Right so Bobby is dead...Richie done did it...and Gino tells J O-Bach that he’s the only one who can bring Richie down. “Oh! You know I’m da only one gonna catch dis fuckinguy! Just gimme an unmarked and a shotgun!” So he does. He gives him those things. Meanwhile over at the mafia mansion (tons of mahogany, men sipping espresso with the pinky finger in the air, “O Sole Mio” pumping on the soundtrack) Don Vincenzo or Don Vesuvius or Don Vittorio or something is none too pleased with Richie spilling blood on the streets all willy nilly. They arrange a sit down with Gino because he’s hella cool with everyone. Cops...crooks...it don’t matter to the Gino. They meet up for a beeg-a bowl of pasta fagioli and a Spumoni dessert and Gino promises to catch Richie and teach him “the price of our blood”. If that sounds like a snappy title for a movie it’s because it is the title of a movie. In particular: this movie. Well it was supposed to be called that but dickhead Seagal said he only acted in films with 3-word titles, shit you not! His next film: Under Siege. Madonna mi dis guy essa stugots! So Gino’s on the hunt but first there’s bizarre incident where some knucklehead throws a German Shepherd puppy out the window of a moving station wagon. Gino decides to keep the puppy and name him Corraio like the kid in the not-yet-released A Bronx Tale (or was that Collogero? Whatever.). The puppy remains forgotten in Gino’s car for the remainder of the film... almost quietly asphyxiating to death. There’s a super long “Gino searching for Richie” montage set to the 110th best Beastie Boys song “No Sleep Till Brooklyn”...where Gino drives around a Willamsburg waterfront that has tons of barrel fires and not a single Whole Foods. Gino spots Richie and they have a car chase that’s reminiscent of the one in The French Connection but directed shittily. Richie leads him to a butcher shop and instructs his evil henchmen to chop Gino into gabagool. Gino puts a hatchet through a dude’s arm and kicks like 20 dudes in the nuts. Gino-1, Bad Guys-Zero. Gino decides to pay a visit to to Richie’s pops...and holy pope on a rope!....it’s totally Uncle Junior from The Sopranos!! What’s up, Uncle Ju! What’s up is this: Uncle Junior has a totally bunk Italian accent that he thankfully did not bring with him to HBO. In a film full of every hideous Italian stereotype you can possibly name this scene somehow manages to stand out: dark apartment, Mario Lanza on the victrola, rotund Italian mamma with her head wrapped in black scarves...clutching rosary beads. “Oh Gino! My boy essa good-a boy! I feed him a nice-a bracciole...but he take-a-the-drugs-a!” Gino says he’s gonna kill Richie anyway...so there’s that. While Richie holes up with his former prostitute friend played by future 20 time Emmy winner Julianna Margulies, Gino pays Richie’s brother Vincent a visit at his forward-thinking underground barcade. “Anyone know why Richie did Bobby Lupo,” Gino queries to no one in particular. Vincent calls Gino a “big fuckin’ mamaluke” and offers his bar patrons, who are somehow all evil henchmen of various stripes, a thousand bucks if they can get Gino’s gun and badge from him. Gino proceeds to kick every man at the bar in the balls and snaps about a baker’s dozen worth of arms. He even does a pool cue battle with the resident asian martial expert (every action movie has a character like this). Everyone is getting antsy to get Richie off the streets...and I’m getting antsy for this flick to end. Did I forget to mention that Steven Seagal released an album called Mojo Priest that contains a song called “Talk to My Ass”....and that Rick Derringer called Seagal “the hottest white bluesman alive.” If the man who wrote “Rock n’ Roll Hootchie Coo” says it then it must be so. ANYWAY...Gino goes to shake down Richie’s sister, played the eternally badass Gina Gerson. Gino asks her how she’s doing and she replies “hey, I can still get it wet.” 12 year-old Danny Tebo turns to his dad and asks him what she means by that. His dad’s eyes widen as he stares at the floor and pretends to not hear my question. Not much comes of that so Gino breaks into Bobby Lupo’s desk, where he finds a gigantic bag of cocaine (like...you could fit a turkey in this bag) and polaroids of Bobby balling women who are not his wife and are definitely maybe also Richie’s girlfriends. So it all makes crazy sense now! Gino goes to visit his estranged wife and son (did I forget to mention them? Ahh shit). He tells some super boring ass story in Italian. “My poppa...he wass a poor man who deliver the vegetables. The neighborhood kids say vaffanculo Mr Felino. The show-a him a-no-respect-a” ZZZZ...don’t bore us, get to the chorus! Eight bad guys bust into his place mid-Italian tale of woe but Gino shotguns them all to death. It’s pretty grizzly. Meanwhile Richie is back at Julianna Marguiles’ joint furiously puffing down crack. He promises to call Willie the Pimp to send over his best broads so his non-dead henchmen can have a party. First--if that’s a Frank Zappa reference...awesome! Second--These evil henchmen have spent the last 6 hours fighting endlessly with both fist and gun. I’d probably just want to call it a night, know what I’m sayin’? No matter though ‘cuz Gino comes blasting into the joint, killing every last one of these jedrools. Gino takes a bullet in the stomach...but unlike former Red Sox slugger David Ortiz...who spent 2 months in the hospital after sustaining a similar injury...Gino just shakes it off like it’s a bruised funny bone. Eventually it’s time for the final showdown between Gino and Richie...which isn’t really much to look at...because my man Rich is fuuuuucked up! Besides being fat and out of shape dude has enough blow in him to give a blue whale a coronary. He’s super outmatched. Gino lets him take a few mercy swings before pinning him to the ground and stabbing him in the eye with one of those rabbit ear wine keys! He pumps a couple of bullets in him with one of the mafioso’s guns...just to be super duper sure he’s dead. Gino and his wife reconcile and take their new puppy to the Jersey Shore to celebrate the murder of like 45 men (no idea what happened to their kid). They run into the guy who threw the puppy out the window and, you’ll never believe it, but Gino kicks him in the balls! Never...gets....old!! The end. Oh wait....the credits roll over scenes from the movie that we have just finished watching. It’s there that I noticed that “kid in the alley” was played by John Leguizamo! Totally missed that! And one of the stuntmen was Kane Hodder...which mean that Jason Voorhees of Friday the 13th’s 7 through 10 was in the flick!? Mind: blown.