Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Not knowing anything about this film I tuned in because of Steven Seagal, but it was quite the disappointment. I like to see him do his martial art moves to take out the bad guys, but there was none of that here. In fact, a minor twist in the film makes it look like Seagal's character Jonathan Cold, is a bad guy himself. I knew it couldn't be, and when it looked like CIA operative Stuart (Tamara Davies) was about to get taken out, he had to blow his cover to make the save. So I saw that one coming.Just like I saw the ubiquitous coffee mug as a plutonium smuggling device whenever McCabe (David St. James) made his way through the security screener. I must be seeing too many of these kinds of flicks, there didn't seem to be any surprises.The only thing is, and I've wondered about this before, but how do small time terrorists expect to get away with stealing a nuclear weapon, much less building one themselves? I guess we're approaching the day when something like that might be possible, so who knows? In the meantime, it's not likely we'll ever see Jonathan Cold again. Let's hope his self-exile at the end of this story keeps him under wraps for good.

BLACK DAWN is the sequel to THE FOREIGNER that nobody asked for. Steven Seagal returns as special agent Jonathan Cold, who must tackle a terrorist gang with plans on America. As anybody familiar with Seagal's work over the last fifteen years will know, this means that there's lot of low rent dialogue, doubling, cheesy action scenes, and general inanity.Half the cast have British or foreign accents and seem to be struggling with the dialogue they're given. Seagal appears constipated throughout and is obviously doubled in all of his fight scenes. The film as a whole lacks the kind of familiar faces that show up in a lot of his other work, so it's more tiresome to sit through. It does pick up at the mid point for a surprisingly well mounted truck chase before descending back into ineptitude afterwards.

"Black Dawn" is one of the weakest Seagal movies. This is a sequel to "The Foreigner". There's no reason to make this except that it's another paycheck in the big man's pockets. In my opinion, Seagal will probably never make another good movie like "Marked For Death" or "Above The Law". Those days are behind him.The "plot" is about Russian gangsters in Romania who have a nuclear device. Jonathan Cold (Seagal) has to stop them. Seagal is barely in this and he doesn't do anything, and I mean ANYTHING: fighting, acting, or exercise He has to find better scripts, or at least a director who needs to realize that Seagal is the draw, not some nameless Romanian.For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

Black Dawn starts at a Federal Prison in Utah where rouge CIA agent & nuclear weapons expert(!) Jonathan Cold (Steven Seagal, also producer) breaks international arms dealer Michael Donovan (Julian Stone) out. Impressed with Cold's efficient work Donovan offers him a job, a job to oversee his buying a new nuclear weapon from some crazy scientist dude & obtaining the plutonium to power it. Jump to Los Angeles where the deal is to take place & where CIA agent & Cold's friend Amanda Stuart (Tamara Davies) has Donovan's brother James (John Pyper-Ferguson) under surveillance, however when she is caught by Donovan's men Cold has to blow his cover & rescue her. Now the Donovan's have plans for a nuclear weapon & the equipment to build it that they intend to sell to a bunch of Russian suicide bombers who intend to become marters when they blow Los Angeles up, that is unless one-man army Cold can stop them...Directed by Alexander Gruszynski this was actually a sequel to Seagal's terrible earlier straight-to-video/DVD action thriller The Foreigner (2003) a couple of years previous in which he played CIA agent Jonathan Cold racing across Europe with a deadly package, so Black Dawn which is titled The Foreigner 2 in some countries moves the story to the US & is the sequel no-one wanted. The plot is short on action & Seagal fans looking forward to some of his trademark martial arts fights will be disappointed as there isn't any, the too complex for it's good plot is all over the place, completely fails to engage or grip & is pretty standard action thriller fare without much action or many thrills. There's this really dumb twist at the end when some guy we have only seen once is revealed to be behind it or something yet for some reason he is there to start the bomb & kill the Russian terrorists, why not just let the Russians start the bomb & blow themselves up & like just make sure your out of Los Angeles well in advance? Why stick around to potentially be blown up in a nuclear holocaust? If Donovan was going to double cross the Russians why was he so bothered about finding the real plutonium? Just give them vials of water or something, how would they know? Open them up & have a taste? I don't think so. The pace is alright & it keeps moving along but the plot is weak, predictable & the character's are forgettable.The action is pretty poor apart from a reasonable car chase involving a huge dumper truck which is quite good & probably belongs in a better film than Black Dawn. The only fight scene in Black Dawn sees one of the worst body doubles ever stand in for Seagal who is fat in this, in fact he is really fat & out of shape in this. This fight is filmed so you never see Cold's face but the stunt doubles body is all wrong & you can just tell it's not Seagal. Other than that it's just a fairly dull succession of shoot-outs between people. There's a big CGI computer effects explosion at the end but if it really was a nuclear bomb there would have been an electro magnetic pulse which would have shut down all electrical equipment including the helicopter Seagal was flying & thus send him crashing into the Ocean but Black Dawn isn't that concerned with factual accuracy.With a supposed budget of about $15,000,000 Black Dawn looks alright, it's a little flat & forgettable but the production values are decent enough. The acting isn't great from no-one of any interest & Seagal again seems dubbed a lot of the time.Black Dawn is a poor action thriller that fails to deliver on any count, it's dull & boring & utterly forgettable. Not quite as bad as The Foreigner but not too far behind it.