User Reviews

So I just watched this tripe, and I gotta say, if Seagull isn't wearing the same Jacket and lame turtle neck as his last 8 films I'm seeing things.

But seriously, this is hardcore manure action, obnoxious and stupid. Maybe as a laugh you could say brilliant. I mean it's anyones guess whats gonna happen to Steve's partner after he states he's expecting a baby. Your Dead. LOL.

There is a scattered plot between two mobs that means nothing and also Segal's standard fight sequences are nothing new and defy gravity and physics. His writing is atrocious and his tired persona once again truly degraded another level here, this one shouldn't even be released on Betamax(c).

Here we go again, another Seagal DVD, made in Romania where low taxes mean it's cheap to film there. Steamroller Productions/Voltage Pictures have been cranking out these low-budget, time-killers quickly and because I've been watching Seagal's movies since I was a kid, I can't resist renting them, when they pop up at the video store.

Born To Raise Hell is not an improvement over Seagal's recent DVD releases but it does have its good points. It has a more structured plot and better music than some of his previous work. The fight scenes were a little short but adleast Seagal was more involved in them than his body double. The obligatory climactic fight was also over pretty quickly and the main bad guy didn't meet a very satisfying death. The shoot-outs were okay. I liked the gun-smoke in the air during the climactic shoot-out, but there was absolutely no recoil or kick when Seagal fired his shotgun. For such a powerful weapon, this looked a little odd.

These formulaic films always leave room in the budget for a small explosion or a car crash or both. In Born To Raise Hell a balcony blows up sending two guys to their death and as far as stunts go it looks okay.

If you didn't like the look of Seagal's previous DVD efforts, then this movie will not win you over. If however, like me, you've become used to the look and style of these films, then you know what to expect. So just go along for the ride and take it for what it is. A low-budget, formulaic Seagal action film.

The Storyline--Seagal is a drug enforcement agent in Romania. He's going after a fairly sadistic mid-level drug trafficker, named Castel, who enjoys bashing, raping, robbing and killing rich people. Using information from a low-level dealer and also a high-level trafficker, Seagal closes in on Castel. As expected in these type of films Seagal's partner is killed, making his mission more personal.

I'd also like to mention Seagal's body double again. I've noticed in a lot of these DVD's that Seagal will be talking to somebody, then a rear head camera shot will reveal the body double, before the camera cuts back to Seagal's face. You don't need sharp eyes to spot this because the double's hairstyle never quite matches Seagal's hair. I'm pleased to say that in this movie the double is less obvious because Seagal wears his jacket collar pushed up. This hides the neck and hairline making the double less of a standout. This was a good move on the production teams part to help hide this annoying problem. There is also a little bit of voice dubbing in the film, mainly at the start, but adleast the voice sounds similar to Seagal, unlike some other films of his.

P.S---I hadn't watched Seagal's first movie 'Above The Law' in quite a while, so I decided to put it on the other night. I noticed that his hair looks like it's balding from the front, his hair also looks very thin. His hair these days is very thick and full as if he's wearing a hair piece or uses spray on hair, maybe he had some kind of surgery? His hair is just so thick and fake and he doesn't have the high forehead, thinning hairline that he had back in 1988.

Also in 'Above The Law' Seagal sure could run and he looked thin, healthy and fit. Nowadays he can only manage a short lumbering jog and his face and stomach are bloated. Sometimes his face is so puffed up that it looks like he's had an allergic reaction to some bad shell-fish.

Well enough about that. Lots of people put on weight as they get older.

I like Seagal and I'll continue to watch his DVD's and other projects he brings out. He is less than a year away from turning 60 years of age and I wish him all the best for his future endeavours.

Born to Raise Hell is set in Romania where tough American narcotics cop Robert 'Bobby' Samuels (Steven Seagal) works for the International Drug Task Force in an effort to stop the flow of illegal drugs & the revenues created by it funding terrorism. After a routine drugs bust Samuels is given the name of local drug lord Dimitri (Dan Badarau) who supplies several large scale dealers with their drugs, one of whom is the crazed & sadistic Costel (Darren Shahlavi). As Samules & the task force close in on them Dimitri & Costel start to turn on each other in order to save themselves & things get personal, eventually Dimitri & Samules form an uneasy partnership to take Costel & his gang down for good...

Directed by Lauro Chartrand this Easten European set crime thriller not only starred Seagal but he also produced & wrote the thing as well, I have to say I found Born to Raise Hell a throughly dull way to spend 90 minutes. All the usual low budget Seagal ingredients of recent times are present & correct, a cool sounding but meaningless title, a tough cop character, a few European bad guy's & lots of slow motion during the fight scenes. The plot, as it is, is rather dull with Seagal basically just tracking a couple of drug dealers who end up fighting between themselves & Seagal sort of steps in to pick up the pieces & sort everything out. There isn't much of a cohesive story, Seagal just sort of wanders around & crosses paths with the two dealers every so often, the film has no real purpose & secondary character's are poor of the clichéd bad guy with a gun type. Also isn't Seagal's character supposed to be the good guy cop? What's with this pact with Dimitri the drug dealer at the end? So Dimitri has morals as far as drug dealers go while Costel is much worse has he raps his victims & shoots kids as well, in fact Seagal & Dimitri even spark up a bit of a friendship that goes against everything his character should stand for. The dialogue is poor, the pacing is poor with various lame shoot-outs to pad the time out & it's throughly predictable & unoriginal.

As usual for most Seagal films these days Born to Raise Hell went straight to video but even that is too good for it, the film looks pretty drab as well with dark lighting & dull locations although I will say there are some really hot women in this so I suppose I can give it another star for that. The fights all annoying slow motion, image blur, freeze framing & other such trickery which just got on my nerves & looks cheap. There's no great thinking behind it & the makers just seem to have thought 'we haven't had any slow motion shots in a while so lets just put one here' without much regard to the scene in question.

The IMDb says Born to Raise Hell had a budget of about $10,000,000 which is total crap, there's no way this cost that much. Filmed in Bucharest in Romania. The acting is poor, Seagal mumbles his way through the film as usual while everyone else is just bad.

Born to Raise Hell is yet another crappy low budget European Seagal film with nothing to recommend it, a lack of decent action or a decent story really kill it. Sure there are a few good looking European girls but nothing else, one to avoid.

I had a feeling, as with many of his films, that this direct-to-DVD release would another waste of my time, and that Under Siege would still remain the only good film he has ever done, and I was right. Basically, following 9/11, and the connection and involvement of narcotics during the crisis, the United States government created the International Drug Task Force (IDTF). The IDTF task forces have top narcotics officers and teams throughout Asia and Eastern Europe. Robert "Bobby" Samuels (Steven Seagal, also writing and producing) heads an IDTF team in Bucharest, Romania. Bobby's partner was killed six months ago, so headquarters have sent an officer named Steve (D. Neil Mark) to become his new partner. Steve's wife is eight months pregnant, and he really wants to return home in time to see the birth of his child. Recently, Russian drug kingpin Dmitri (Dan Badarau) has formed a drug dealing partnership with Romanian criminal Costel (Darren Shahlavi), who runs the Roma Ace, one of the most popular clubs in Bucharest. Dmitri has a wife (Silvia Stanciu) and a young son (Stefan Iancu), who are unaware of his drug business. Costel and his men specialise in home invasions, invading wealthy people's homes to steal valuable loot, and killing the family after doing so. During each invasion, Costel himself rapes and kills the wife. Costel owes Dimitri money, and he threatens to kill him if he does not pay soon. Bobby and Steve are on the trail of the criminals. Dimitri is arrested in an effort for Bobby and Steve to find Costel. But Dimitri is released after setting the officers up for police brutality, butting his head through the SUV window. Bobby and Steve continue to hunt for Costel without him. One night while Dimitri is away from his mansion, Costel and his men break into it, and Costel's right-hand man Dada (Zoltán Butuc) fatally shoots Dimitri's wife. Before Costel can kill Dimitri's son, Dimitri's men intervene, killing some of Costel's men as Costel and Dada escape. Dimitri arrives at the mansion, learns what happened, and vows to make Costel and Dada pay. Dimitri's traumatized son describes his wife's shooter to him. Dimitri contacts Bobby and offers to help him find Costel if Bobby will let Dimitri handle Dada himself. Bobby agrees, and he, Steve, and Dimitri set out to bring Costel and Dada down. Also starring Claudiu Bleont as Sorin, Cosmina Pasarin as Nina, George Remes as Ronnie, and Madalina Mariescu as Tami. All Seagal does is mumble his dialogue, have unconvincing fights and point his gun, the film is just overloaded with clichés we have seen hundreds of times, and to be honest, I could not concentrate as it was so boring, a dull and pointless action thriller. Poor!

Just watched BORN TO RAISE HELL, and i've got mixed feelings about it. I won't bore you with the plot (partly because they wasn't much of one, anyhow)

But first off, let me say the cinematography was good. The locations and camera work were crisp, sharp and better than most DTV releases. It could have done with less of the (as VERN calls them) "Avid Fart" technique (of jump-cuts, speed-ed up, slowed down shots)

Seagal was OK (extremely foul-mouthed, i might add) but (and as usual, with these Eastern European releases) he only had about 70% screen time (as the rest was filled up, with either semi-naked female dancers, "Avid Fart" stuff, or other character plots)

The dubbing (as previously mentioned) is rife throughout (not as bad as ATTACK FORCE, but almost near enough) The doubles are also there, in the movies 4 (or so) fight scenes, not particularly noticeable, but for nearly every shot of Seagal fighting, there's another 'Below the neckline' or 'From behind' to match it. And it's all the more infuriating, because Seagal does some fast handy-work, punch kick and flip combos himself, in this movie...so the doubles weren't really needed. The fight scenes also consist of a lot of fast (close-up) edits also.

The plot is (like i previously stated) wafer-thin....which consists of Seagal leading a strike force police unit in Romania...getting the drop on some drug dealers, who rat out an even bigger criminal (not to mention psychopath) to get a lighter sentence. This Psychopath likes to commit 'home invasions' on rich couples, and rapes the wives before killing them both.Then Seagal teams up with another mobster, and they both go after the psychopath.......The end.

Despite the fact, that this is a by-the-numbers Seagal effort (nowhere near as good as A DANGEROUS MAN, URBAN JUSTICE or DRIVEN TO KILL) it does have a few interesting points. The plot (however slim) has parallels to early 70's Italian 'Polizia' movies (in that it shows the Law teaming up with the lesser evils to bring down the greater ones)

And Seagal adds real police procedures to the 'raid' and 'arrest' sequences (probably picked up from his stint as a real life deputy) A mixed bag for sure, but not without interest....but a step back from A DANGEROUS MAN. The one good thing about a less than memorable Seagal movie, is that, when i watch it again (in about 6 months time) i'll barely remember a thing about it (thus, it's like watching a new movie) and chances are, i'll either see something i didn't notice before, or it'll just plain grow on me. Either way, it's far from the turkey it could have been, but could have been better. I suppose it's A DANGEROUS MAN's fault, for being so good

I've seen all the Seagal movies that has been put out, and for the most part just to get a laugh. The bad dubbing, the none alike stand-in's and so many other things make these films enjoyable. And of course mr. Hard to kill drops his one-liners that cracks me up.

But i just saw this film and felt compelled to write something about it.

Seagal himself is participating more in this then he usually has for the last five or so years. MAybe after working on "machete" made him realize you actually have to work on a movie to get a fair result. Of course there are flaws here. Still bad dubbing from someone everyone can here isn't Seagal.

The thing that amaze me is the technical quality of the film. The actionscenes are actually not that bad. Even good at times. So if this is the start to Seagal's return to decent films, keep it up...

Steven Seagal is sitting down in his favorite Romanian restaurant with his 19-year old blonde girl-friend; he is wearing his favorite turtle-neck and leather jacket combination for the occasion. When he is done ordering for him and her from a dodgy-looking waiter ("She's having what I'm having, because I'm totally awesome. - What I'm having? I don't know, what are you having?"), two even more dodgy-looking pony-tailed Albanians pop up, and certainly not to sell roses...

So Steven tries to get up, falls over - almost into a fire - because for some reason unknown to the viewer, he suddenly seems to be wearing no less than FOUR TURTLENECK SWEATERS! So his stunt-double is trying to get up while Steve is fighting off two dodgy-looking Albanians and multiple turtlenecks. On top of that he's wearing a MASSIVE bullet-proof SHIELD that leaves room for about seven more turtlenecks and two more leather jackets! Just as everything gets get way too complicated on the eyes, ears and brain, the muscles take over and get the job done! Steven Seagal's hand muscles - in extreme close-up: supreme slapping by Steve! Every other Balkan-type is effortlessly brushed aside with a top-spin backhand.

Steve pushes a few more - also some innocent looking staff - out of the window and takes his stone-faced trophy by the hand. "This is why I hate eating out," he groans as he walks out of the place.

And he is so right. Putting on multiple turtlenecks, two or three leather jackets and a kevlar suit two times the size of Oprah Winfrey must be a hassle - let alone the fans that want a word, an autograph or a smack in the face ("Please, Steve - It would be an honor!"). Add that to the fact that it takes him about five minutes to get a bite of food down. Steve is practically unable to breathe during dinner and he has to rely on ancient eastern meditation techniques to stay alive!

No - bothering the maestro during a meal is certainly not a good plan. Don't do it kids, stay in school! Don't do Steven Seagal. Well, not unless you're 18, or until you're 16. Or before you're totally awesome. Like the pony-tailed sushi-chef extra-ordinaire himself, the man whose hair has miraculously started to grow back since 1988, after a mystical experience at a Rick Astley concert. The man we have all learned to love, in spite and because of everything he is, was, and will be.

If one time, the day comes that I am to meet him, I will not kneel and kiss his feet - no siree Bob! I will stay out of his way, because I'm afraid he will do something unexpected , like quote Shakespeare. And that would not be right. Because, not only is Steven Frederic Seagal an outstanding thespian in his own right and time and place in time and space, he's an excellent auteur as well. So there is absolutely no in him quoting a fellow playwright. Hah!

Having said that and having said this and having said earlier that what I'm saying right now may or may not be entirely according to the truth as we know it , I rest my case.

I go into this review admittedly having not watched a lot of Seagal's DTV stuff, which there are hundreds of, but I have watched a few as well as all his theatrical releases so I think I'm pretty clued up on what to expect by now.

And for the most part, Born to Raise Hell fulfills the expectations you have of a Seagal movie - Seagal plays his usual role as a cop or some other sort of government/military official, some bad guys pop up, Seagal chases them down and deals with them. Usually, this combination of factors leads to a good watch where you can just sit and enjoy without thinking too much, but there are a few things that pull this film down from the usual Seagal standards.

Firstly, the cinematography and camera work is pretty terrible - unnecessary shaky camera and slow motion effects, freeze frames on really ridiculous moments (such as one on the main villain's face in the middle of raping a woman), the lot. It reminded me of that "you wouldn't steal a car" anti-piracy advert, except imagine that for whole action/dramatic sequences.

Another issue is that there is pretty extensive dubbing over of Seagal's voice - it's there from the very start and happens every so often throughout, always reminding you that it's there, that ol' Steven just can't deliver his hard-hitting lines anymore (if he ever could). One fairly hilarious example is near the end when Seagal says a line "I'll be out in 10, 15 minutes" with the word "minutes" dubbed over. Did they really need to dub over the word "minutes" to give it that extra authority it needed? There usually is always a little bit of dubbing in Seagal DTV flicks and it's fine but there's just way too much here.

The other main criticism is the other characters - one of whom, a Russian drug lord living in Romania, is originally pursued by Seagal and his team but then Seagal sees fit to make a deal with this drug lord who has killed or ordered the killing of multiple people throughout the film, in order to pursue the main drug lord villain. There is a scene at the end where Seagal is talking to this morally reprehensible guy like they're friends. According to the film's logic it's OK because the other drug lord does home invasions where he murders people and rapes the women while the other one isn't as bad.

There is also one of the most cringeworthy scenes I've seen in a Seagal movie yet, where the overweight, ageing Seagal "makes love" with his young Romanian girlfriend. The shoddy camera-work with Seagal wearing clothes while his girlfriend is basically naked and quick cuts to make it look like they're having sex but not really just makes this scene unintentionally hilarious.

Overall, Born to Raise Hell is a less than passable Seagal DTV flick. Don't get me wrong, it's still enjoyable to watch, and Seagal's usual action sequences with martial arts are as good as what you'd expect from the guy's DTV movies. But poor directing, dubbing and some choice plot scenarios let this one down.

We watch Seagal films because the acting is bad, the dialouge is worse, and the plot twists have the complexity a granny knot. Seagal plays a special international DEA agent who seeks revenge for the death of his partner, something we don't know anything about as there is absolutely no character build-up or introduction, a characteristic of Seagal's fine precise writing ability. (It's an action film, stupid!)

Seagal is in Bucharest, Romania according to the writing on the screen. They also use the same font to run their credits (Highlight, right click, font, click, then change). The Russian mafia is manufacturing and fronting drugs to the Romanians, who in turn use beautiful women to mule these drugs all over Europe. Apparently their airport security is like ours and only pat down old people. Seagal has a new partner who he verbally abuses. The Romanian mafia also does home break-ins where they rob people and then rape and kill women, not necessarily in that order. (The Russian mafia is civilized and don't approve of that behavior.)

Special effects include speeding up the scene, slowing down the scene, shooting a still, and making everything blurry. While other movies do this also, this film tended to overdue the effect to the point of being annoying. The music got a little hard-core as the film flirted with a few grindhouse techniques. It was almost as if someone describe what a grindhouse movie was to Seagal, and he decided to make one having never seen one.

Seagal utilizes a stooly who looks like a cross between Joe Pesci and Vlad the Impaler. In the movie and IMDB Seagal's name is Bobby Samuels. My DVD box says he is Samuel Axel.

Seagal has a girlfriend in this movie, who he lectures as if she is four years old. They have a weird love/sex scene where she gets naked and he keeps his clothes on...which may be a good thing.

Nudity, sex?, rape, f-bomb and some dry humor lines from Seagal.