Steven Seagal‘s early career suggested a future full of broken arms, slick ponytails, and stoic justice. Films like Under Siege and Above the Law established him as a martial arts star with a unique (if slightly goofy) presence: part Buddhist monk, part brick wall. But somewhere along the way, Seagal’s filmography took a nosedive into the surreal. The budgets shrank, the fight scenes slowed, the dialogue became mumbled, and to say they have plots feels too generous.
Indeed, among the following ten movies, continuity, tone, and even Seagal’s voice are optional. Entire scripts appear to have been scribbled on a napkin seconds before filming. So put on your tactical leather coat, whisper your threats, and get ready to dive into the weirdest depths of the Seagalverse.
10
‘Black Dawn’ (2005)
Directed by Alexander Gruszynski
“I’m gonna ask you one more time… nicely.” A direct-to-DVD sequel to another Seagal film nobody asked for, Black Dawn follows ex-CIA operative Jonathan Cold, who’s dragged back into a terrorist plot involving nuclear weapons and a whole lot of vague Eastern European accents. Cold (yes, that’s really his name) is meant to be this shadowy, unstoppable force, but Seagal spends most of the film squinting at people and whispering threats from behind a pair of tinted sunglasses.
From the very start, Black Dawn hits every action movie cliché in the book, including sneering villains and inevitable betrayals. There’s a bomb to defuse, a traitor to expose, and a lot of people to shoot, but none of it feels remotely urgent, or even connected. Seagal, as usual, phones in his performance and mostly avoids doing his own stunt work, though he does dust off his signature wrist-breaking move early on.
Black Dawn
- Release Date
-
December 27, 2005
- Runtime
-
96 minutes
-
Steven Seagal
Jonathan Cold
-
Tamara Davies
Agent Amanda Stuart
-
John Pyper-Ferguson
James Donovan
-
Julian Stone
Michael Donovan
9
‘Submerged’ (2005)
Directed by Anthony Hickox
“I’ve been in a lot of bad situations… this is one of the worst.” Submerged is the kind of movie that feels like three unfinished scripts were jammed together and nobody noticed until it was too late. Seagal plays Chris Cody, a military prisoner who’s released to lead a team on a black-ops mission to take out terrorists in Uruguay. But wait—suddenly the terrorists are mind-controlling people? And there’s a secret lab? And most of the action takes place on land, not in a submarine? The title becomes just another mystery the film never solves.
At the time, Submerged represented a major regression for fading action star, coming after a string of surprisingly tolerable direct-to-video flicks. In the end, this movie is just a slog; lifeless, confusing, and devoid of even basic action-movie thrills. The only vaguely memorable moment is Vinnie Jones casually putting a bullet in someone’s chest after delivering a brutal beatdown.
Submerged
- Release Date
-
May 6, 2005
- Runtime
-
96 minutes
-
Christine Adams
Dr. Susan Chappell
-
-
William Hope
Agent Fletcher
-
Nick Brimble
Adrian Lehder
8
‘Gutshot Straight’ (2014)
Directed by Justin Steele
“Sometimes when you bluff, you get gutted.” Seagal takes a back seat in Gutshot Straight, which is less a traditional action flick and more a confused neo-noir poker drama featuring bad wigs and worse dialogue. The main character is Jack (George Eads), a down-on-his-luck gambler who gets tangled in a web of double-crosses, debts, and violence. Seagal plays Paulie Trunks, a loan shark with a love for monologues and trench coats.
Despite its Vegas setting, the movie has no flash, no tension, and no clue what genre it wants to land in. It tries to be gritty, but everyone looks too clean. It tries to be twisty, but the twists are telegraphed with neon lights. The only really enjoyable parts are the occasional moments of unintentional comedy from Seagal and Stephen Lang. That said, Eads and supporting player Ted Levine do solid jobs with what little they have to work with.
7
‘Ticker’ (2001)
Directed by Albert Pyun
“You want to play games? Let’s play.” Ticker thinks it’s Heat but feels more like a VHS migraine. Seagal plays a bomb expert named Glass (subtle!), who teams up with a grieving cop (Tom Sizemore) to stop a group of anarchist bombers led by Dennis Hopper, who appears to be acting in a completely different film. We know that Glass is super smart and knowledgeable because he wears bifocals.
Ticker is like a Frankenstein’s monster of action tropes. It’s got them all: the detective haunted by personal tragedy, the angry police captain demanding Sizemore turn in his badge, the obligatory “cutting the wire with one second left” sequence. There’s even a last-minute nuclear device thrown in for no clear reason, seemingly just to give Seagal a heroic moment. Worst of all, the movie boxes legitimately talented actors inside the most uninspired roles. Hopper chews scenery, Sizemore shouts, and Seagal just sort of… stands there.
Ticker
- Release Date
-
June 23, 2001
- Runtime
-
92 minutes
-
Steven Seagal
Frank Glass
-
-
-
Jaime Pressly
Claire Manning
6
‘The Foreigner’ (2003)
Directed by Michael Oblowitz
“They picked the wrong man to mess with.” The Foreigner is the kind of action movie where absolutely nothing makes sense, and yet everything happens anyway. The predecessor to Black Dawn, it features Seagal again as Jonathan Cold, a former spy who now works as a freelance courier transporting sensitive packages across Europe. This time the package is… a woman. Or is it a file? Or maybe both? The film never quite settles on what’s being delivered, or why anyone wants it.
What it does commit to is endless scenes of Seagal walking down corridors in slow motion while Eurotrash villains glower behind him. The plot is shaky, but the film’s truly fatal flaw is the tepid action. Virtually every set piece is marred by clumsy slow-motion and overwrought camera flourishes. Ultimately, only 5 critics reviewed this movie on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 0% across them all.
The Foreigner
- Release Date
-
June 1, 2003
- Runtime
-
95 minutes
Cast
-
-
Steven Seagal
Johnathon Cold
-
-
Harry Van Gorkum
Jerome Van Aken
5
‘Out for a Kill’ (2003)
Directed by Michael Oblowitz
“I’m not a killer. Not anymore.” In Out for a Kill, Seagal is a Yale archaeology professor who just happens to be a former drug smuggler and lethal martial arts expert. It’s like they couldn’t settle on which kind of stock action protagonist they wanted. After accidentally uncovering a Chinese drug syndicate’s plot during a dig, he’s framed, arrested, and then embarks on a globe-hopping mission of revenge.
The movie leaps from lecture halls to kung fu showdowns without any attempt at coherence. One minute, the hero’s dusting off artifacts; the next, he’s slicing off limbs in slow motion. Seagal is visibly disinterested throughout, relying heavily on stunt doubles, even in scenes where he’s just walking. Likewise, the editing is choppy, the dubbing is obvious, and the CGI effects look like early YouTube experiments. Somehow, through all of this, the film still thinks it’s telling a serious story, which only makes it dumber.
4
‘Flight of Fury’ (2007)
Directed by Michael Keusch
“I’m the only pilot who can get this job done.” Flight of Fury is notorious for recycling footage from another film (2001’s Black Thunder) and somehow making it worse. Here, Seagal is John Sands, a rogue Air Force pilot who’s imprisoned by the U.S. government because he knows too many secrets. But when a stealth bomber is stolen, they call him back to save the day, because of course they do.
The movie doesn’t even try to hide the recycled shots. Air combat scenes are mismatched and grainy and the plot is held together with military jargon that sounds like it was copied off a brochure. The script (which Seagal co-wrote) is jam-packed with wince-inducing lines. The worst is when Seagal says to an old love interest: “Right about now I’d love to be doing something fun with you, but shit’s a little sideways around here.” How romantic.
3
‘Against the Dark’ (2009)
Directed by Richard Crudo
“Sometimes the only way to stop the darkness… is to become it.” In this post-apocalyptic action-horror, survivors are holed up in a hospital surrounded by “infected” who are basically just diet vampires. Seagal versus vampires sounds like a fun idea on paper, until you realize he spends most of Against the Dark wandering dimly lit hallways while barely participating in the plot.
Our hero leads a squad of katana-wielding hunters tasked with clearing the place out. But don’t expect him to actually do that. He shows up sporadically, mutters cryptic one-liners, swings a sword once or twice, and disappears again into the shadows. The deeper you get into the film, the more obvious it becomes that Seagal’s involvement was minimal at best. Many of his lines are delivered off-camera, and his voice is often dubbed. In the end, it’s wild how this movie takes a premise that should be pure B-movie gold and somehow makes it boring.
Against the Dark
- Release Date
-
February 17, 2009
- Runtime
-
93 minutes
Cast
-
-
Steven Seagal
Commander Tao
-
-
2
‘Clementine’ (2004)
Directed by Kim Du-yeong
“I’m gonna teach you a lesson you’ll never forget.” Clementine is technically not a Steven Seagal movie (he shows up for about three minutes), but that doesn’t stop it from being marketed as one. The real star is Korean actor Lee Dong-jun, playing a former taekwondo champion forced to fight underground matches to save his kidnapped daughter. Seagal appears as the final boss, playing a smirking villain who shows up to kick and pose in slow motion.
It’s the cinematic equivalent of a bait-and-switch, with Seagal’s name all over the poster but barely any of him in the actual movie. While there are some decent fight scenes in this one, they are overshadowed by the melodrama, the paper-thin subplot around the villain, and the erratic pacing. For a film that runs about 100 minutes, it somehow feels four times as long. In short, Clementine fails as an action film, a drama, and a marketing strategy.
1
‘Attack Force’ (2006)
Directed by Michael Keusch
“Nothing can stop me now.” Attack Force is arguably the crown jewel of Seagal’s bad movie empire; so incoherent, so lazily stitched together, it feels like a glitching simulation. Seagal plays Marshall Lawson, a commander investigating the deaths of his team at the hands of what might be genetically enhanced super soldiers. Or aliens. Or maybe vampires. The movie famously went through a post-production meltdown, where the entire plot was changed in ADR, and Seagal’s dialogue was re-dubbed by another actor.
The result is a surreal film that sinks to cinematic depths heretofore only theorized about. There’s a nightclub that features prominently for no reason, the “science fiction” elements are whispered about but never shown, and most of the movie’s tension comes from trying to guess what it’s even about. Attack Force isn’t just dumb—it’s broken. A patchwork of clichés, bad dubbing, and digital murk, it’s Seagal at his most inexplicable. Nevertheless, this makes it essential viewing for Seagal completionists.
Attack Force
- Release Date
-
December 5, 2006
- Runtime
-
94 minutes
- Director
-
Michael Keusch
- Producers
-
Binh Dang, Phillip B. Goldfine, Pierre Spengler, Richard Turner, Vlad Păunescu
-
-
Steven Seagal
Cmdr. Marshall Lawson
-
-