Hard to Kill (9 February 1990)
directed by Bruce Malmuth
starring Steven Seagal, Kelly LeBrock, William Sadler, Frederick Coffin, Zachary Rosencrantz
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MPAA rating: Studio: Warner Brothers Script: Steven McKay Music: David Michael Frank, Marco Marinangeli Running time: 100 minutes Suggested retail price: $9.98 (US) Tags: Action; Los Angeles; Martial Arts; police Tactical strength: [5/10]
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Los Angeles police officer Mason Stone (Steven Seagal) video tapes a California Councilman Vernon Trent (William Sadler) hiring the mafia to kill a Senator. In an uncharacteristically clutzy moment, Stone makes a noise and narrowly escapes capture. Later, when Stone reports his evidence over the phone to his partren, Kevin O'Malley (Frederick Coffin), some corrupt cops listen in to the conversation. Later that night, the hit squad shows up at Stone's house and shoots Stone and Stone's wife and child. But Stone doesn't die. Only O'Malley knows that Stone's heart spontaneously restarted, but Stone didn't fully recover and remained in a coma.
Seven years later, Stone comes out of the coma and convinces nures Andy (Kelly LeBrock) that he must leave the hospital. Andy takes Stone to a country estate that Andy house sits for a doctor away on a reasarch project. The doctor conveniently decorated his estate in traditional Japanese decor plus a complete practice dojo and weight room in which Stone reconditions himself, preparing to avenge his family's deaths.
Hard to Kill follows a pattern established by many Asian martial arts films. The main character wants to avenge some wrongful death, but must delay vengance to adequately prepare his skills. Hard to Kill excludes the role of wise and trusted teacher. Stone doesn't need a teacher, just retraining his atrophied muscles. Also, as in many of Seagal's movies, Stone does not have an adversairy of equal skill. Stone occasionally must take on four or five attackers at once, but other than that, he never faces any real challenge to test his fighting skills.
As with most action films, the plot merely provides an excuse for the characters to get into fights or shootouts. The villains suffer terribly from bad-guy aiming syndrome. In one scene, six men with automatic weapons cannot successfully hit Stone's jeep at fairly close range. In fact while firing from the rear of the jeep, they manage to lob their bullets from the grassy knoll, over the jeep, and into the dirt directly in front of the jeep with a resulting explosion of dust that spouts higher than the jeep's roof. Stone, of course, can poke his gun around a corner and successfully land every shot into the assailants. Later, Stone and an assailant have a fight in a street vendor's hut. After Stone throws the assailant to the ground, the assailant pulls himself up by clearly grabbing a supposedly hot, smoking stove without even wincing. What machismo. Hard to Kill also sets the standard for many following Seagal films: lots of breaking glass. (But, to my surprise, not a single explosion. Probably not enough money in the budget for pyrotechnics.)
A moderately fun romp with plenty of action, although Seagal's character probably disables just as many people with his gun as he does with martial arts.
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