Belly of The Beast (2003)- Steven Seagal (2 ½ )

Director: Siu- Tung Ching

Stars: Steven Seagal, Byron Mann, Monica Lo

Genre: Action/Martial Arts

MPAA Rating: R (Violence, Language & Brief Nudity)

Running Time: 91 Mins

Tagline: A Father’s Rage Knows No Limit

Synopsis:

{According to IMDB}

"An ex-CIA agent's quest to find his kidnapped daughter leads him on a trail of political intrigue, corruption, danger and betrayal; he will stop at nothing to save her. "

Discussion

Let’s face it, Seagal is FAT! That is a very recognizable fact! However, the guy still keeps making movies, even more so than when he was in shape. Talking about shape, he now has a much thinner double in most if not all the fight sequences. The way I see it, he has some bills to pay, if not he wouldn’t be making these mediocre Direct to Video flicks.  

 

As an avid fan of Seagal, I never miss any of his films, even if they are mediocre or down atrocious; which seems to be the case now with most of his DTV entries. However, this one wasn’t all that bad, no masterpiece of course, but not horrible either. So let’s get into the movie, Seagal Plays Jake Hopper an Ex C.I.A agent, whose daughter has been kidnapped in Thailand by some terrorist, so it seems. Not to quote every action movie out there in history but “they just fucked with the wrong man!’ 

 

Ok it’s quite obvious that this movie has a plot similar to any action movie of the late 80’s or early 90’s: more specifically I would say its carbon copy of Commando Also we know what is going to happen next! A lot of kicking ass is gona take place! As an action buff, what more can I ask for! I didn’t put this DVD on to see a classic; I put it to see mindless action, Period. Now, this movie doesn’t go without criticizing, even if it is mindless action, there is a lot I need to go over.  Firstly, why on earth do they keep dubbing Seagal’s voice? I mean I know the guy has somewhat of a low voice, but he isn’t mute! Not just that, as I said earlier, they keep placing a double in the action scenes. One who is very thin, I say 50 pounds lighter than he is; they even place the double in scenes where it doesn’t call for one. Such as a scene where they arrest Seagal’s Character, he walks into the police station, and from behind it is soo god damn obvious a double was placed. Anyways, the most ridiculous thing in the movie is that there is no such thing as gravity here. The laws of gravity are defied countless times through the movie. Specifically at the end, where the antagonist throws an arrow at Seagal, and miraculously breaks it in half in mid air with a sword!! Cool Beans Huh?  Again, As I said, I wasn’t expecting much from this movie. It at least did the job of entertaining me, I wasn’t bored, even if the film is pretty dumb overall.

DVD
This was one of the last Seagal movies I bought original on DVD. I mostly now just get a back up copy from a friend or wait for Spike or another channel to show them.  There really is no point now in owning them.

Video:
 I found this transfer to be quite decent, being that it was probably shot digitally, it doesn’t have that many artifacts around the screen (pixilation, spots etc) from what I seen on Amazon, this title is slated for release on Blu- Ray soon. I don’t really think I would upgrade, it was a very mediocre flick. I would stick to the DVD if you are interested. But yeah, the quality on DVD was all right

Audio:
There were a lot of fight sequences in this movie, along with gunfire…but I wasn’t feeling the boast in the sound Dept. I had the volume on my Home Theater at 40, and the gun firing sounded worse than a kid’s play gun. I was disappointed in the sound mostly.

Bottom Line:

 

Ok, so I admit the movie wasn’t that good, but it is entertaining. I would say give it a shot if you don’t feel like thinking and just watch mindless absurd action where gravity can be defied

Seagal Defies gravity!

theatrical Trailer: