ridiculous rating

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

A man known only as Alexander (Seagal) is a former Special Ops soldier. After a mission doesn't go as planned, Alexander goes "off the grid" - WAY off the grid as a handyman in a Romanian apartment building. After living life under the radar for a while, he becomes mixed up in a mob war between Russian and Chinese gangsters. After becoming friendly with his next-door neighbor Lena (Verdes), he becomes especially mad when her daughter Mya (Nicolaescu) is kidnapped by the super-evil baddie Mr. Chen (Ma). Alexander then teams up with a fighter named Sasha (Webster) and, after years of living a violence-free life underground, goes into full battle mode to save Mya and perhaps redeem his soul. But will it be at the cost of losing his status as A GOOD MAN? Let us see...We finally have some good news to report on the Seagal front. We actually liked A Good Man, and we believe it's his best effort since Urban Justice (2007). The vibe is quite different from the latter movie of seven years previous, as we're now deep into Seagal's Eastern European DTV phase, and he's a long way from beating up homies in the hood. One of the main reasons we can be so positive towards the movie is that Seagal is not a sadistic torturer this time out; while calling him "likable" is just a teensy bit of a bridge too far, this is the closest he's come in years, and we give him props for that. His character is well-suited for the project, a sort of wise and weary veteran who has seen it all, but who can still fight when need be. It doesn't call for him to be vicious, belligerent and brutal, which made for a refreshing change.While the voice doubles and stand-ins are still here, they seem less egregious because we were reasonably entertained by the movie as a whole. Plus, they're now an indelible part of the Seagal experience, so you might as well sit back and enjoy them. Additionally in the win column, he's surrounded by some quality on-screen talent: Victor Webster has some nice fighting moves and a good screen presence. He was last seen (by us at least) in the silly Gangland (2001), and makes a nice foil for Seagal, just as Byron Mann did in Absolution (2015). Perhaps not coincidentally, that was also co-written and directed by Keoni Waxman, who seems to have hit upon a good formula for the Seagal vehicle. Tzi Ma is also noteworthy as the philosophical baddie.As we've noted time and again, oftentimes the little kid in the action movie steals the show, and the girl who plays Mya was one of the better attributes here. You can see why  Alexander wants to save her - she's not annoying like a lot of on screen kids. The movie also tries to be topical, with Islamic terrorists and drone strikes at the outset of the proceedings detailing the former life of Alexander. Whether it's normal or not to have a 62-year-old man in the field with all the young bucks, we don't know. We'll have to consult our team of military experts. The fight scenes have some cool moments and the whole outing is not quite as stupid and brain-numbing as you might think it would be.We're truly hoping Seagal and his behind the scenes bros (he calls a lot of people "bro" in the movie, by the by) go more in this direction in the future. We hope now, after a lot of unnecessary dumbness in years past, he's finally found his niche.

There is something very creepy about Mr Segal's character being attracted to the young lead actresses character and she with him. One is 64 and the other is 29. I know it can happen but it is just unbelievable as portrayed in this film, and once there is one daft strand, the rest of the film falls and fails. This could have been a half decent film but the dialogue is poor, the acting wooden and the action scenes poor. The goodies recover from violent beatings far too easily, and the baddies always lose quickly. Why are the baddies always such poor shots. I am a fan of Mr Seagal but this film lets him down, as a few others have and I just wish he would stop making them.

After an assignment to eliminate a high-value terrorist target goes badly, a government assassin named "Alexander" (Steven Seagal) decides to essentially retire in a quiet village in Eastern Europe. However, when the Russian mob moves in and begins to do business with a Chinese arms merchant who had eluded Alexander in the past, his interest in keeping a low-profile becomes less important. This becomes especially true when the Russian mob begins to make trouble for his next door neighbor named "Lena" (Iulia Verdes) and her young daughter, "Mya" (Sofia Nicolaescu). Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this turned out to be a fairly enjoyable movie by and large. I especially liked the hard-hitting action scenes involving Steven Seagal and to a lesser extent those featuring Victor Webster (as Lena's half-brother, "Sasha"). Admittedly, however, I didn't particularly care for the ending, Alexander's low-class vernacular or the overall low-budget feel of the movie as a whole. Still, it was good enough for a rainy day I suppose and for the previous reasons mentioned I rate this film as slightly above average.

Steven Seagal returns to the screen in this story about a former black ops warrior who gets caught in between Russian and Chinese gangs in order to save the sister of his neighbor, whose brother is in debt to the Russian mob. Truth be told, while one could call this a Steven Seagal movie, his character occupies a position that simultaneously is and isn't the center of the story (much like his previous effort FORCE OF EXECUTION). However, unlike FORCE OF EXECUTION, the story is better, more thought out and has better action sequences. Even the acting is better this time around, which is a plus. Story-wise, Seagal plays a variation on the character he plays in almost every movie he makes: that of the reluctant hero. He puts himself into a self-imposed retirement after a terrorist hit goes wrong, and a young girl dies while one of the bad guys gets away. Cut to the present day, and he's living a quiet life in Eastern Europe. His neighbor (Iulia Verdes) works at a strip bar (but she's just a bartender) run by the Russian mob while her half-brother (Victor Webster) pays off a debt owed by his father. However, when some men are killed and money meant for the Chinese mob goes missing, the neighbor's little sister is kidnapped and Alexander (Seagal) goes back into action. I thought that the story, while nothing original at all, was at least executed rather well within the confines of what constitutes a Seagal movie. The performances were also decent for this type of movie, with Tzi Ma probably doing the best out of the cast. Also of note is the improved fight sequences, which aren't completely edited to hell this time. The camera-work still has a hand-held feel to it, but the action is more comprehensible than a lot of Seagal's recent DTV output and you can tell that it's him a lot more of the time. They also varied the types of fighting. Sure, they had the typical gunplay and close quarters hand-to-hand combat, but Seagal also got to use a short sword for several scenes which was a nice change of pace (and provided some gruesome kills). Still, as always it wasn't all great. This movie was filmed on the cheap in Romania and it shows in the bleak cinematography and sparse sets. There was also some digital augmentation in a few scenes that stuck out pretty badly, and a couple of obvious uses of stock footage that wasn't at the same quality as the movie itself. And while some might count this as a positive, there was a bunch of gratuitous nudity which was only in there because some scenes happened to take place in a bar. There's also an awkward "sex" scene with Steven Seagal and Iulia Verdes which could have been left out completely. When all is said and done, Seagal fans should be pleased, as this is a return to form of sorts, at least when limited to his DTV work. As always, though, everyone else should probably find something else to watch.