URBAN JUSTICE (2007) - ***

Even for a self-admitted action movie junkie like me, I don't bother with Direct-to-DVD pictures. They all usually are extremely low budget affairs, last refuge for washed-up movie stars, that produced by crews that usually lack both the talent and the vision to go beyond their circumstances. Indeed as noted Internet critic and SEAGALOGY author The Outlaw Vern laments, such productions in theory have much more artistic freedom because they cater to a specific niche genre-nerd cult, not to broad audiences like most major studio action movies. Those studios with these quickie pictures could potentially be for 2009 what Roger Corman and American International Pictures were in the 1960s and 1970s, outright but creative exploitation B-cinema.

URBAN JUSTICE has all those painful DTD filmatism limitations, but does have a very clear and concise goal as a simple straight up no-bullshit down and dirty pulp revenge actioneer, the little cheap midget cousin to Brian Helgeland's PAYBACK or John Boorman's POINT BLANK. For fans of Steven Seagal's early sleazy-but-slick fun exploitation filmography like ABOVE THE LAW or HARD TO KILL, this is his return to form. Hell, the only reason I Netflixed JUSTICE is because of Vern's personal high recommendation. That's why he's the best and most unique critical cinema voice on the Internet, for he intellectually admires the action film genre as a legitimate art. I mean the dude wrote a smart and funny if respectful book about Seagal movies!

He must be doing something right.

Anyway, Seagal himself gets JUSTICE right for he's finally not in denial about himself. Some of you may remember him back in the 1990s wearing rather colorfully loud wardrobe and large leather jackets in a pathetic egotistical attempt to hide his cheeseburger gut this side of Oprah. This was most awkwardly glaring in HALF PAST DEAD, his last American theatrical release. In URBAN JUSTICE, he sheds all that nonsense to be what he is: physically over-the-hill, and gaining in age at the same rate as his waistline.

But I really dig that element, for every gangster and corrupt cop in JUSTICE are all wreckless junkyard amateur brawlers. Seagal may have lost a step or two, but using trained-precision and wisdom from experience that only an older warrior would know, for the first time since UNDER SIEGE I actually believed Seagal kicking ass. Holy shit. I also liked that JUSTICE never bothers with explaining exactly what Seagal got all his skills from. Ex-Military? Ex-SEAL? Ex-Mercenary? Ex-Terrorist? Who cares?

All JUSTICE wants you to know is that a cop gets murdered, and daddy Seagal comes to town for the funeral. He's not seen his ex-wife in years, and she welcomes him by making him promise to kill whoever was responsible. Immediately Seagal rents a dump apartment in the heart of ghetto Los Angeles. He then promptly beats up a local hispanic gangbanger to a bloody stump, but Seagal keeps him alive to pass the word: "Tell every motherfucker on the street they're not safe 'till I find the motherfucker who killed my son." He repeats this mission objective many more times, to which I lost count, but at least keeps his word.

Sure that sounds roughly like every other action movie you've seen, but Seagal here is very literal. He doesn't care why his boy was shot, or who ordered it. He just wants the killer, nothing more. He has dealings and alliances with vicious criminals (like Danny Trejo), arguably more evil in what they've inflicted on society as a whole than that one assassin, but he doesn't care. When a civilian friend tries to persuade Seagal to quit this avenging crusade, for he'll be as bad as they are. Seagal's stone cold badass response?

"No, I'm fucking worse."

Certainly you would expect Seagal during this journey to exterminate drug kingpin villain Eddie Griffin. Yes, stand-up comedian Eddie Griffin plays a serious villain, and he's surprisingly solid and even legit menacing at times. My favorite moment of his is when after eliminating a snitch within his operation, he keeps talking and mocking the corpse for being so stupid as to get rubbed out. Who knows, maybe a risk-daring indie filmmaker or someone will give Griffin more such roles to explore his dramatic potential than say UNDERCOVER BROTHER.

But Seagal doesn't kill him, even after Griffin in action cinema baddie tradition was too busy talking to pull the trigger before he's disarmed. Seagal says he's got done the one thing he wanted to accomplish, gives the gun back, and walks away. Griffin doesn't try to shoot him in the back or whatever we usually see in such scripted situations within the genre, but instead he ends up admiring him for being so effortless gangsta. It's such creative touches to well-abused material that I recommend JUSTICE, even if what most action fans demand in their quota of shoot outs and car chases may feel underwhelmed, casualties of no money.

Maybe director Don E. FauntLeRoy's real knack isn't in action cinema per say, for I fell asleep during his finale bang bang sequence. But what kept my attention were more the quiet moments when he and crew know what they exactly wanted, without trying to be cool or cutesy. If anything his minimalistic blunt storytelling narrative somehwat reminds me of Abel Ferrera, for like JUSTICE Ferrera's KING OF NEW YORK relied more on acting and script than stylish direction or editing to tell its story, or in other words get to the goddamn point. Again like Griffin, hopefully FauntLeRoy will get more ample opportunities to flex his possible talent instead of DTD projects like softcore porn and Steven Seagal vehicles.

Though if Seagal's DTD are or can be as good as URBAN JUSTICE, I'll be there.