William D
This is absolutely one of the worst films I have ever seen.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
11/27/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Today You Die is a gloriously bad action film. The best way to describe it would be what would happen if you tried to splice The Getaway (1972) with Robin Hood and an urban drama and then had this bizarre concoction star egomaniac and douchebag extraordinaire, Steven Seagal who has not been relevant since the 90's.
In terms of actual quality, yes, Today You Die is a god-awful film. The writing is hilariously bad, the acting is horrid, the action is dumb and rife with stock footage, there was virtually no attempt made to make sure the stunt double and Seagal match up (During one fight scene, one is wearing a brown jacket while the other is wearing a black jacket), and it absolutely reeks of Seagal's ego which can practically blind the viewer with its intensity.
That being said, it may very well be the best Steven Seagal film I've ever seen as a B-movie fanatic (I even preferred it to the likes of the first Under Siege, Hard to Kill, and Above the Law). It's a glorious train wreck of a film that resulted in many laughs peppered with fun action scenes.
In this film Seagal plays a burglar who steals from the rich, but then after taking a cut for himself (Given the nice place he and his hot girlfriend live in), he then gives the rest to those in need. Though I could look up his character's name, I just referred to him as Fat Ghetto Robin Hood, while watching it. He's basically a cross between Robin Hood and Doc McCoy from The Getaway with a faux-urban mentality. Let's face it, you don't come to Seagal films for character development.
His girlfriend is having strange dreams and psychic visions, and begins to worry that bad things are going to happen to Fat Ghetto Robin Hood. She's basically the Maid Marian of this story, so I'll just refer to her as Psychic Maid Marian. He assures her that nothing is going to go wrong, but like character development, you don't come to Seagal films for subtlety and surprises.
He then gets involved with shady men who intend to steal an armored truck filled with cash run by a guy who is into the occult and serves as the Prince John/Jack Benyon of the story. Fat Ghetto Robin Hood agrees to do this job because he wants to save a children's hospital that's going out of business, plus earn some extra millions for himself.
So, with another man, the two infiltrate a security company and end up stealing an armored truck, but shit goes down as Fat Ghetto Robin Hood realizes it's a setup and after a chase and beating the hell out of his traitor accomplice, manages to hide the loot. But, Fat Ghetto Robin Hood ends up in prison, and refuses to tell the F.B.I. where he hid the money.
He makes his girlfriend go into hiding to avoid having her harmed by his traitorous associates and begins plotting his escape with the help of another inmate who is basically a cross between Little John and Carol McCoy, whom I shall refer to as Little Carol from now on (This accomplice is male, but the name still stands). So, Fat Ghetto Robin Hood makes a deal with Little Carol to help him escape from prison and get revenge with the promise of part of the loot, which Little Carol obliges.
Now, bent on revenge and being hunted by his former accomplices and agents of the F.B.I. (One of the agents will basically be the Sheriff of Nottingham of the story), Fat Ghetto Robin Hood will do whatever it takes to satiate his revenge.
The story is of the typical Steven Seagal feature. Revenge, a large body count, and an auto-fellatio of his ego. However, this story inadvertently becomes a parody of Seagal as an actor as it shows all of his acting and egocentric sins and somehow manages to use it to its advantage as it unintentionally turns into a terrific action comedy that nearly becomes akin to Airplane! or Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Of the personas Seagal has had over the years (Italian, Japanese, Native American, Buddhist, heart-bleeding environmentalist, so forth), this one channels his most idiotic and ill-advised...the persona of a black man from the ghetto. This has been fatal in past Seagal films, such as the horrendous Half Past Dead (Also known as the poor man's version of The Rock), but here, Today You Die turns it into an art form of Airplane!-esque quality. And yes, he speaks in ebonics...and yes, it is hilarious.
When Fat Ghetto Robin Hood and Little Carol have a meeting with an associate of Little Carol to get guns, the associate proclaims upon seeing Fat Ghetto Robin Hood is, "Walks like a black man, breathes like a killer."
Or at another point, when the two start a gang war between traitorous associates and an Asian gang, my favorite line to come from that scene is, "Fuck you, you Asian-American motherfuckers!" I guess the gang member wanted to hurl insults but also remain politically correct (Even though in real life, if two gangs of different races encountered each other like this, they would hurl epithets at one another that would make a klansman blush).
The dialogue is filled with ridiculous lines like this, giving me more laughs than most actual comedies. That's already combined with a hilariously bad storyline that copy-pastes other, far superior action films and then injects it with the bloated ego of Seagal, which manages to revive what should have been a dull affair. His ego reacts with the rip-off script like a milquetoast person smoking a whole bag of crack - the results are wild, fascinating, and many what-the-fuck moments will ensue.
As one would hope from a Seagal film, the action scenes are damn fun to watch, even when stock footage appears (The chase scene was apparently taken from a 1997 film called Top of the World, which I haven't seen. Also, at one point when a bad guy is thrown through a window, it's clearly a different guy falling from the window). Plus, when it's clearly a stuntman doing all the kick-ass fight scenes, it only adds to the hilarity of it all. It's lazy, but also surprisingly fun because of its blatant, not-give-a-fuck attitude (It's kind of like the stunt double joke from Spaceballs).
The story is garbage, the acting is dreadful, and the action scenes are stupid, over the top, and many of them feature stock footage and obvious stuntmen in place of Seagal...but I'll be damned if I didn't say I loved Today You Die. It's fucking awful...but it's a beautiful kind of awful that becomes an unintentional parody of the action genre and Seagal himself.
If you love B-movies, Today You Die is a must-see. It's a film where you force friends to watch it with you and watch as they gawk at its awfulness and have many good laughs. It's a truly special kind of awful.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/26/23
Full Review
Audience Member
With a desire for cheap Steven Seagal fun, Today You Die sounded like the right path to take.
It's safe to say that I expected little from Today You Die because there are not really that many Steven Seagal films that amuse me and yet I constantly find myself on a search for the ones that do. Considering that Today You Die fits into the criteria of being one of Steven Seagal's mid-2000's direct-to-DVD action era which proved to be an unsatisfactory status for films such as Out For a Kill and Into the Sun, there was honestly not much I could make myself hope for. Alas, I still had a desire to see Steven Seagal in action and so I pushed to see Today You Die. But I was correct in my first guess because Today You Die essentially adhered to every convention in the DVD case. I would say every convention in the book, but Today You Die does not have the literacy of a book.
Steven Seagal delivers a performance as lacklustre and generic as you would expect from him in such a limited film, and as a result he does not have the strength to carry the film alone. Luckily, someone was smart enough to try pairing him up with a stereotypical African-American badass for comic relief and gave the role to rapper Treach. Treach isn't perfect, but he has the charisma which Steven Seagal is lacking in. However, Treach is wasted because he could have supplied a sense of comic relief to the story like Ja Rule did in Steven Segal's 2002 film Half Past Dead, he is instead used significantly less than he really should have. The film is left in the hands of Steven Seagal and director Don E. Fauntleroy, though neither of them really succeed in making anything out of the film. This is partially because the story itself is as generic and weak as you would expect, and yet Don E. Fauntleroy gets so bent on taking itself seriously that he loses sight of the fact that Today You Die should have been a guilty pleasure if anything. Neither of them seem bent on creating effective action scenes. Steven Seagal tries at some moments because he shows that his martial arts skills had potential , even if it is all a little bit familiar. But still, there ends up being minimal creativity in the action in Today You Die because it just goes in circles.
The action scenes in the film are all shot wrong. Much of the time, they film from the face of Steven Seagal which prevents viewers from seeing what he is actually doing as a means of getting involved in combat, and at others he is shot from behind which shows off none of his physique and isolates the action to the distance. It takes very little time before viewers are confronted with this, and considering that the only people watching a film like Today You Die are the most die hard Steven Seagal action junkies, they are more than likely to be disappointed that he spends most of the film hidden beneath poor lighting, facing away from the camera and engaged in action scenes which focus more on his face than his abilities. Even the action scenes which do not directly involve Steven Seagal fail to ignite much joy. The artificiality of the explosions in the car chase scenes are so obvious that they almost create unintentional humour. I emphasize the word almost because they are not close to being funny as it is just say that as a fan of good action films I must condemn myself to watching features this poor and Steven Seagal must insist on making them. Frankly, Today You Die is just a reminder that Steven Seagal has lost touch with his roots as there is no honour in the action skills he displays on this film, nor is there enough of a budget for him to go into the fun sense of overdrive he achieved with Under Siege and On Deadly Ground. As any genius can tell you, the one thing that audiences would be hoping for potential from in Today You Die is simply the action scenes, but the fact that Today You Die makes minimal use of Steven Seagal's martial arts skills and then goes and butchers them even further with poor technical qualities just proves to hammer down every nail on the coffin that is Today You Die. Like I said, the plot in the film takes itself too seriously. And because of this, Today You Die does not succeed as being so bad its good in any area. Even though On Deadly Ground is one of Steven Seagal's most critically panned films, at least it had fun action, a sense of passion and the unintentional comedic value of Steven Seagal's poor Alaskan accent. Since Today You Die follows such a generic path, there is nothing for it to be proud of as it just reinforces the notion that Steven Seagal is a washed up action star whose lack of involvement in any role ensures that his career has nowhere to go anymore. His once notable action hero persona is no longer an iconic appeal, and now he is just a man who has gotten old and is trying too hard to live in the past. Well, fans of his have to live in the present and witness what he has to offer them now. He offers them Today You Die, and the only thing that actually dies in this film is his credibility because if that wasn't already establishes by his previous outings, then it is now.
So Today You Die is as poor as you would expect from the standards of direct-to-DVD low budget Steven Seagal action films which pays not credibility to the once popular star of the film and buries his lacklustre performance beneath a weak plot and action scenes which are choreographed poorly and butchered by a lack of eye for imagery.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
01/27/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Today you diet This film should be retitled because Seagal does not do his fight scenes in this film it is his double. Do not watch this cheap action flick.
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
01/22/23
Full Review
Audience Member
I quite enjoyed this Seagal movie It flows very well with action and good supporting roles, worth a watch.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
01/24/23
Full Review
camille l
On pourrait y croire pendant pres d'une heure, a ce Today You Die. Pour son troisieme DTV de 2005 (dont le tres bon Into the Sun), Steven Seagal tourne pour la premiere fois sous la direction d'un futur collaborateur prolifique, Don E. FauntLeRoy et le resultat n'est pas pathetique, loin de la. Il est juste insignifiant. Les scenes d'action, plethoriques, sont aussi generiques que les acteurs secondaires ou la musique, concentre de tout ce qu'on a deja vu chez Seagal. Le scenario n'est pourtant pas plus nul qu'un autre et Treach est excellent en sidekick comico-badass. Mais la derniere demi-heure est en trop et le manque de budget du film se voit comme le nez au milieu de la figure. Un coup pour rien.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
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