Exit Wounds (2001) Warner Bros./Action RT: 101 minutes Rated R (pervasive strong language and violence, drugs, nudity) Director: Andrzej Bartkowiak Screenplay: Ed Horowitz and Richard D’Ovidio Music: Damon “Grease” Blackman and Jeff Rona Cinematography: Rick Pagano Release date: March 16, 2001 (US) Cast: Steven Seagal, DMX, Isaiah Washington, Anthony Anderson, Michael Jai White, Bill Duke, Jill Hennesy, Tom Arnold, Bruce McGill, David Vadim, Eva Mendes, Matthew G. Taylor, Paolo Mastropietro, Shane Daly, Drag-On, Jennifer Irwin, Christopher Lawford. Box Office: $51.7M (US)/$79.9M (World)
Rating: ***
Shall we start by addressing the elephant in the room? No, this isn’t a fat joke about Steven Seagal, but it’s hard not to notice that he’s put on weight since his heyday in the 90s. The makers of Exit Wounds do their best to hide it by shooting him mainly from the waist up and with tricky editing during the fight scenes. Unfortunately, they can’t hide how much he’s slowed down since the days of Hard to Kill and Under Siege. One thing hasn’t changed though. He still can’t act worth a damn. He still has the emotional range of a marble statue. It’s more noticeable now that he can’t depend on his physical skills to carry him through his movies.
In its defense, Exit Wounds is the last decent Steven Seagal movie. After following it up a year later with the lame Half Past Dead (a PG-13 Seagal movie?!), all of his starring vehicles went straight-to-DVD. Oh, here I go getting ahead of myself and off-topic again. I’m supposed to be talking about Exit Wounds, a Detroit-set/Toronto-shot cop movie stylishly directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak (Romeo Must Die). It’s good, in general. It delivers plenty of action and violence. It has a better plot than most of his other movies. It doesn’t get weighed down by the star’s environmental concerns or his massive ego. Although there’s never any doubt on anybody’s part that Seagal is the star of the picture, he doesn’t monopolize the whole movie this time. His co-star rapper DMX gets equal billing and screen time. I’m actually surprised at how good it is.
Based on the same-titled novel by John Westermann, Exit Wounds has a ponytail-less Seagal playing Orin Boyd, a reckless street cop who doesn’t play by anybody’s rules. His reward for saving the life of the Vice President (Lawford, Blankman) from an attack by right-wing militants in the opening sequence is a transfer to the worst precinct in Detroit, the 15th. He’s told by his new CO Mulcahy (Hennesy, Law & Order) that his lone wolf tactics will not be tolerated under her watch. He gets himself into hot water almost immediately when he unknowingly ruins an undercover operation to bust reputed drug dealer Latrell Walker (DMX).
After a mercifully brief stint in traffic, Boyd is assigned to investigate the theft of $5 million in herion from an evidence storage facility. He’s partnered with George Clark (Washington, True Crime), a young cop who admires Boyd’s reputation very much. They focus their efforts on Walker and his fast-talking sidekick T.K. (Anderson, Me, Myself & Irene) who are doing business with a ring of dirty cops that includes Montini (Vadim, G.I. Jane), the cop running the undercover operation to bust Walker. Boyd begins to suspect there’s more going on than meets the eye, especially when he can’t turn up any background information on Walker.
There’s more shooting than hand-to-hand combat in Exit Wounds. That’s not to say we don’t get to see Seagal fight. There’s a decent early scene where he makes short work of a gang trying to steal his ride. The scene where he fights a bunch of bad guys in the back of a speeding van is cool too. At the end, he gets into a “sword fight” with one of the main villains. Although exciting, they suffer a bit from the overediting.
Ultimately, Exit Wounds is one of Seagal’s better movies because the plot takes a less predictable route. Unlike a lot of action flicks, you don’t know where it’s going from frame one. Take Walker. On the surface, he may seem like just another urban drug dealer. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to tell you he’s not. There’s a higher purpose for his criminal actions and behavior. On the other hand, it’s easy to pick out which of Boyd’s colleagues are mixed up with the bad guys. Even the surprise twist in the climax isn’t all that surprising.
For the most part, Seagal sticks to what he knows in terms of performance. He stands with his arms folded and says menacing things in his customary monotone before beating the hell out of every scumbag in close proximity. Only this time, there’s a self-deprecating quality to it. A lot of the time, he wears a smirk that tells us he’s privy to the jokes about his “acting” and doesn’t give a s***. DMX does the work as a character that may or may not be a bad guy. He has some cool martial arts moves too making him a worthy adversary for the star.
Exit Wounds has a sense of humor uncommon to Seagal actioner. Tom Arnold (True Lies) provides great comic relief as a talk show host Boyd meets in a mandatory anger management class. He has a penchant for getting into fights, on and off his program. Anderson is also funny as T.K., the loud-mouthed sidekick to DMX’s straight man. Michael Jai White (Universal Soldier: The Return) does good work as a fellow cop who appears to have Boyd’s back. Hennesy is very good as the tough, flinty commander who refuses to take Boyd’s crap. It’s great to see veteran actors like Bruce McGill (The Last Boy Scout) and Bill Duke (Predator) in small roles.
I originally planned to star my review of Exit Wounds by asking this question: After dealing with Axel Foley, RoboCop and Action Jackson in the 80s, hasn’t Detroit suffered at the hands of wild, destruction-prone cops enough? Then it hit me that it wouldn’t be applicable since it was actually (and noticeably) filmed in Toronto. Either way, Boyd certainly leaves quite a path of destruction in his wake. What I’m getting at is this. Exit Wounds is a good cop movie. It’s slick, stylish and fast-moving. It’s a good choice for a Saturday night action flick.
