Deadly Crossing

Steven Seagal is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, cloaked in XXXL martial arts pyjamas. He has spun a career in the movies for more than two decades from the most intangible assets. Given that – with his ever-expanding size, immobile expression, and slow, imperturbable progress across the screen – he has come to resemble a small planet moving through space, it might be best to chalk up his appeal to a force as inexplicable and inevitable as gravity.

Deadly Crossing is a feature culled from a never aired TV series, True Justice, which sees Seagal leading an elite police squad in Seattle. The story is derivative, the dialogue hackneyed and characterisation paper-thin, but what is unforgivable is Seagal's absence from much of the action. We are stuck with his subordinates while the man himself remains glued to the seat of his car. He even shoots while sitting down. One for true believers only. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]