Attack Force Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		0.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

Attack Force Blu-ray Movie Review

Attack Force F. Minus.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman April 18, 2013

Whoever did this, or whatever did this, they're good.

Uh, no. No they're not good. Not by a long shot. Oh, wait, that quote isn't in reference to the filmmakers. OK. Well, still, nothing about this movie is good, not the filmmakers, not the actors, not the characters, not the action, nada. Attack Force is a comically and epically bad direct-to-video Action flick starring Steven Seagal -- well, Seagal and whomever it was that re-recorded half his dialogue (more on that later) -- and is about, um, wait, some kind of drug meant to kill or addict the entire population, and only Seagal and his dubbing buddy can stop it from happening. Unfortunately, the lame plot is the least of this movie's worries. Attack Force is a classic example of a movie in which everything has gone wrong, and then some. When an already bad movie needs to re-record key dialogue with another actor, well, good luck convincing even the most forgiving DTV Action junkie that your movie is ready for prime time, let alone the sacrifice of 90 precious minutes of living.

A 0.5, huh? That's about how many seconds you have to live unless you change it to at least a 3.0!

Marshall Lawson (Steven Seagal) is an expert in weapons and hand-to-hand combat. He's leader of a specialized attack force that has arrived in Paris for two days of training. Before they get underway, the men are free to enjoy the city's nightlife. Unfortunately, three of them are brutally murdered by a prostitute named Reina (Evelyne Armela O'Bami). Now, Lawson, his best friend Dwayne (David Kennedy), and gal-pal Tia (Lisa Lovbrand) are tasked with sorting out the truth. They come to learn that they're in the middle of a plot to pollute the city's water supply with a dangerous new experimental narcotic called "CTX," a drug developed to create super soldiers and that, in large doses and wide exposure, will either kill or addict all those who come into contact with it. Armed with this information, Lawson and friends set out to stop the bad guys before it's too late.

Rumor has it that the filmmakers behind Attack Force were displeased with the end product when the production first wrapped, so displeased that they decided to make wholesale changes to key elements of the storyline. Rather than re-shoot, the decision was made to keep the visual elements largely intact and re-record certain dialogue -- a line here, a chunk there, entire pages, even -- and simply dub it over what was already there. That's not particularly ideal, but to make matters worse new actors were brought in rather than pay the original cast -- Steven Seagal included -- to take a day back at the recording booth and make things right. Unfortunately, the gamble didn't pay off. Whatever dialogue and storyline that might have been there before would certainly be preferable to the atrocious and jarring dub work that only further distracts from the already wayward plot, leaving audiences trying to figure out what's going on and why, in essence the movie forcing the audience's mind away from the story and into a distracted state. That's not a bad thing considering that Attack Force offers zero substance, anyway. At best, then, Attack Force is a bad joke of a movie, but at least audiences may chuckle at the absurdity of dubbing English over an English-speaking cast while wondering how there could have possibly been a worse plot underneath (any lip readers in the house?).

As one might expect of a movie in such terrible dire straits in the plot department, and considering its roots as a direct-to-video Action flick -- not exactly a breeding ground of top-tier movies -- a myriad of additional problems plague Attack Force that bring it down to the doldrums even further. Never mind that the story is bland, it's also terribly slow to develop. There's very little rhythm or purpose to it beyond moving it along to the next time Seagal and friends may fire their weapons. Unsurprisingly, those action scenes lack heft. More often than not, they consist of gunplay that would make those combatants from centuries ago who stood in firing lines and waited to be shot cringe, so stiff and immobile are some of the film's gunfighters. The hand-to-hand combat also lacks rhythm or interest. The actors seem to dully go through the motions, and it becomes very obvious, very fast that long gone are the good old days of Seagal really laying the beat-down on his bad guys. His effort is little more than superficial, but who can blame him after so many lousy DTV films for taking the movie off, the movie that is quite probably listed at the very bottom of his resumé, written in invisible ink? Fortunately, the film proves a little more robust and sound than the average Asylum movie -- Seagal DTV regular Director Michael Keusch shows a basic command of the technical needs of the medium -- but that's hardly enough to save a film that literally loses all credibility the first time the hero opens his mouth.

Attack Force Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Attack Force features a consistently drab high definition transfer. Black levels prove largely unbalanced, crushing out details here and looking far too bright and gray there. The transfer also shows some thick edge halos, not regularly but that are very obvious when they appear. A few shadowy color transitions show some unsightly banding. The image suffers through some soft stretches and details are never all that striking, but basic textures look good enough in the right light. Faces and clothes reveal sufficient film-like texturing in many scenes, helped by light grain retention evident throughout. Colors are reserved by the film's very nature, which is bleak, black, and cold. A few neon signs, blood red, and other jumps in brilliance for the palette are handled nicely enough. This is no top end transfer, but given the poor condition of the movie, it's certainly hard to find much room to complain.

Attack Force Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Attack Force features a forgettable but nevertheless basically proficient DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. While it's not terribly aggressive, there is a pleasurable amount of surround content offering basic support to the main action elements and ambience. Gunfire is genially quite puny with little range or aggressive volume. Explosions do hit a little bit harder, working the low end a bit, but it's not the sort to really punish the eardrums or wake up the neighbors. There's a decent musical atmosphere at a club in one early scene, and general music enjoys adequate spacing and fine basic clarity. Dialogue is smooth and accurate, and one scene offers a nice little bit of natural reverberation at about the 36-minute mark when the exchange takes place in a more cavernous locale. This track won't find its way into one's memory bank, but it gets listeners through a bad movie well enough.

Attack Force Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of Attack Force contains no supplemental content.

Attack Force Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Attack Force represents the absolute bottom of the barrel in the direct-to-video Action movie landscape. It's hard to beat a film that's so unsure of itself that the filmmakers re-recorded half its protagonist's dialogue with a different voice actor and simply looped it into the movie. It's so humorously distracting that one can't imagine just how awful the movie must have been with the old dialogue in place, because Attack Force is nothing more than a punchline as it is now. In hindsight, the filmmakers probably should have just left well enough alone rather than make an already abysmal movie even worse. Mill Creek's Blu-ray release of Attack Force is unsurprisingly supplement-free, but it does offer passable video and audio. Skip it.