{"id":2153,"date":"2024-08-08T02:48:27","date_gmt":"2024-08-08T02:48:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2153"},"modified":"2024-10-14T14:33:16","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T18:33:16","slug":"hard-to-kill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/08\/hard-to-kill\/","title":{"rendered":"Hard to Kill"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Hard to Kill <\/strong>(1990)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 96 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, strong violence, brief nudity, sensuality)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Bruce Malmuth\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Steven McKay\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: David Michael Frank\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Matthew F. Leonetti\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 9, 1990 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Steven Seagal, Kelly LeBrock, William Sadler, Frederick Coffin, Bonnie Burroughs, Andrew Bloch, Branscombe Richmond, Charles Boswell, Zachary Rosencrantz, Lou Beatty Jr., Nick DeMauro, Nick Corello, Justin De Rosa, Stanley Brock, Evan James.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $47.4M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0Hard to Kill<\/strong> is one of the dumbest action movies I’ve ever seen. To say it requires suspension of disbelief would be both obvious and a vast understatement. I\u2019ve seen some dopey premises in my life, but this one takes the proverbial cake. This thing has more plot holes than the Chicago garage where the infamous 1929 St. Valentine\u2019s Day Massacre took place has bullet holes. They\u2019re big enough for Capone and his entire mob to fit through too. They should have called it Hard to Swallow.<\/p>\n

\u00a0That master of ass-kicking Steven Seagal stars as Mason Storm, an L.A. cop who uncovers a conspiracy involving the Mob and up-and-coming politician Vernon Trent (Sadler, Die Hard 2). He\u2019s spotted while videotaping a clandestine meeting. Storm gets away, but corrupt cops show up at his house later that night and shoot him and his family. He miraculously survives after initially being pronounced dead, but is left in a coma. To keep him safe, his commanding officer O\u2019Malley (Coffin, Wayne\u2019s World) orders hospital staff to keep it quiet. He\u2019s admitted to a coma center as a John Doe. Nobody but O\u2019Malley knows he\u2019s still alive.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Seven years later, Storm wakes up and tries to tell his nurse Andy (LeBrock, The Woman in Red) he\u2019s in grave danger if he doesn\u2019t get out of there now. She doesn\u2019t listen, of course. Instead, she inadvertently informs one of the dirty cops that Storm is still alive. They send somebody to finish him off. Naturally, he gets away with some help from Andy who hides him from the bad guys while he recuperates enough to go get his revenge.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In one of the movie\u2019s hardest to swallow plot points, it takes Storm only days to fully recover from seven years in a coma, a feat he accomplishes with acupuncture, Chinese medicine and homegrown physical therapy- i.e. punching a board until it breaks. YEAH, RIGHT! There\u2019s a lot in Hard to Kill <\/strong>that\u2019s hard to swallow. For example, how could a man as powerful as Trent NOT know of O\u2019Malley\u2019s deception? He must have eyes everywhere. Surely, somebody at the hospital or coma center would have leaked the information for a price. Now answer me this. Why does it take so long for EVERYBODY to realize Trent is the voice on the tape? He utters the same phrase he uses for a campaign slogan. I can\u2019t believe not a single person put it together in all that time. And just how is Storm able to maneuver himself around the corridor with a mop mere moments after waking up from his coma? His muscles would be too atrophied to move a finger much less his whole upper body. One last thing, is EVERY cop in the LAPD dirty? If you go by this movie, YES! I counted three clean cops and one ends up dead inside the first 15 minutes.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Okay, so Hard to Kill <\/strong>isn\u2019t a great movie. It isn\u2019t even a particularly good one. It\u2019s as idiotic as action movies come. It seems to me it was made to appeal to the low IQ demographic. At least director Bruce Malmuth, of the 1983 3D spy comedy The Man Who Wasn\u2019t There, keeps things moving along at a decent pace. That is, once Seagal\u2019s character fully recovers his physical abilities and learns a startling piece of news from O\u2019Malley. Once it kicks into action mode with Seagal beating the stuffing out of every bad guy in sight, it\u2019s fairly entertaining.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In his second movie, Seagal shows us what to expect from him as an actor. A typical performance basically consists of him stand there with folded arms and inscrutable facial expression reciting dopey dialogue like, \u201cI\u2019m gonna take you to the bank, Senator Trent. To the blood bank!\u201d When provoked, he will commence to beating down bad guys in a most painful way. His best kill in Hard to Kill<\/strong> is when he rams a broken pool stick in a goon\u2019s neck with the parting words \u201cF*** you and die!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0In these scenes, Seagal shows signs of life which is more than can be said for his female co-star. LeBrock is beautiful, no question, but she can\u2019t act to save her life. She used to do commercials for Pantene shampoo where she asked us not to hate her because she\u2019s beautiful. Fine, is it okay to hate her because she can\u2019t act? She and Seagal have zero chemistry onscreen which is confounding given that they were real-life husband and wife at the time. Sadler does good work as the weaselly villain.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I realize that silly action movies like Hard to Kill <\/strong>aren\u2019t made to stand up to close scrutiny. You can\u2019t always apply logic or ask the questions I posed earlier. However, you\u2019d think writer Steven McKay would try and close some of the more gaping holes. To be fair, it\u2019s not all his fault. The studio demanded a shorter cut prior to release. It was heavily recut and re-edited which may explain a few of the narrative issues. Either way, it contains a lot of scenes of Seagal beating up bad guys. That\u2019s what everybody came to see.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I suppose it would be accurate to label Hard to Kill <\/strong>a bad movie, but it\u2019s a good bad movie. It\u2019s laughable when its hero isn\u2019t pulverizing bad guys including one played by awesome character actor Branscombe Richmond, veteran of several B-level actioners- e.g. Firewalker, The Hidden, Action Jackson, Cage and The Taking of Beverly Hills. Stupid but fun, Hard to Kill <\/strong>isn\u2019t too hard to take.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hard to Kill (1990)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 96 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, strong violence, brief nudity, sensuality)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Bruce Malmuth\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Steven McKay\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: David Michael Frank\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Matthew F. Leonetti\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 9, 1990 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Steven Seagal, Kelly LeBrock, William Sadler, Frederick Coffin, Bonnie Burroughs, Andrew Bloch, Branscombe Richmond, Charles Boswell, Zachary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3016,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kick-ass-actioners"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Hard-to-Kill-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2153"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3017,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2153\/revisions\/3017"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}