Deadly Crossing

Deadly Crossing

Steven Seagal is back, sort of...

This DVD is a bit of bodge job, supposedly a mini TV series called Southern Justice that is now apparently being released straight to DVD in 6 parts. Therefore Deadly Crossing is two episodes edited together to make a feature length film - and also explains why during the opening credits Seagal is credited with writing part 1 and is a co-writer for part 2.

So what's the plot? Well, Seagal plays a zen-like cop called Elijah Kane who leads an elite undercover team of detectives in Seattle. The city is seeing an influx of violent and ruthless drug dealers and Kane's team are battling aginst the odds to rid the city streets of this narcotic menace, by any means necessary.

As with any new TV series, there's a new addition to the team which is the usual way of introducing the characters and the scope of the programme. The other characters are a mix of non-descript characters who presumably would have been fleshed out a little more in later episodes. As it is, you don't really get to know anyone well here and you don't really care either. The behaviour of some characters also changes within the space of ninety minutes and there's no real feel for why, so you're not really sure if all the good guys are good and there's no resolution to this either.

Gil Bellows now seems to on a run of playing angry foreign villains badly and so here he is again, this time playing a scruffy angry Russian who is chauffeur driven in a limosine with a bad accent. I'm not sure why Bellows has been cast this way, but it doesn't work.

On the plus side, the picture on the DVD is quite superb and I actually thought I might be watching a blu-ray. The editing style is quite good as well, although moving from tracked aerial city shots to rural locations is pushing it a bit. There's also a choice of 2.0 Stereo and 5.1 Surround soundtracks, although this release also falls into the habit of having the 2.0 Stereo as default - seen this on quite a few recent straight to DVD releases.

Despite this, this 'film' is a bit a hodge podge mix that ultimately is a bit of a let down.

Avoid.