Hard To Kill (1990) – Review

The inexorable and meteoric rise of Steven Seagal during the early 1990s has often proven to be something that fascinates me to this day. To any normal movie goer at any other point in history, the sight of a pony-tailed man who whispered all of his dialogue while bitch-slapping bad guys to oblivion with aikido would have been laughed out of cinemas, but during that sweet spot between the late 80s and the early nineties, it proved to be action movie dynamite as Seagal’s bad motherfucker credentials went through the roof. Of course, these days, the man is something of a doughy caricature of his former self, but when you go back and bathe in how stupid his movies truly are, the only real surprise is that he wasn’t eaten alive by his monstrous ego sooner. I mean, how the hell do you go out and play a guy unironically named Mason Storm whom someone actually describes at one point as “the most unstoppable son of a bitch I ever knew” and not have it go to your fucking head. Yes, Seagal made some silly movies in his heyday – but nothing as weapons grade ridiculous as Hard To Kill.

It’s 1983 and we meet internal affairs agent Mason Storm (Jesus, I can’t even type that name without smirking) as he embarks on a spot of spy work as he records some shadowy goings down on a deserted dock as some shadowy figure does dodgy deals with mob bosses to ensure their political support. However, without realising, Mason’s just filmed Vernon Trent, a ruthless politician with an eye on becoming a senator by any means necessary and who has a cadre of crooked cops on his payroll.
Before you know it, Storm and his wife are visited by masked, shotgun weilding assailants who blow both our hero and his missus away while his young son – who is actually named Sonny – escapes into the night. However, in the operating room, Storm lives up to the title of the movie by indeed being hard to kill, but even though his heart starts beating, that doesn’t save him from being stuck in a coma for seven years that ultimately gives him the type of hair and beard combo usually seen on a member of The Moody Blues during the 70s.
Waking up in 1990, Storm finds that his muscles have atrophied to the point of uselessness, but still manages to out maneuver a hitman sent to finally finish him off with one working arm, a broom handle and the help of pretty nurse Andy Stewart who has been worryingly crushing on him for years despite his vegetative state. Hiding out, Mason employs the mystic art of the montage in order to get himself back up to his former, lethal speed in order to get some long overdue payback – but to do that, he has to try and unravel a case he started seven years ago.
It won’t be easy as not only are there countless, dirty cops coming out of the woodwork ready to kill him properly this time, but his good name has been smeared which makes things even tougher. Still with a reunion with his surviving son and a showdown with the man responsible for his predictiment on the line, nothing will stop Storm from bitch-slapping his way to justice.

Much like every action star who has ever risen to prominence, Steven Seagal’s been in some pretty hilarious scrapes over the years, be it outrunning a train crash at a leisurely jog while being in the train that’s crashing, to drowning Michael Caine alive in crude oil, but pound for pound, blow for blow, I’d have to wager that Hard To Kill is the most enjoyably ridiculous movie the man made during the high points of his career. In fact, it’s so cartoonishly laughable, I’d suggest that anyone who hasn’t grown up with the film and are approaching it for the first time might best be served by treating it as a straight up comedy for best results. For a start, Seagal’s character is named Mason Storm – let’s just take a minute to process that little tidbit for a second thanks to how highly it ranks on the Max Power scale of stupid fucking hero names. I mean, let’s not even ponder the fact that his kid is named Sonny Storm because the mind just boggles, but if we’re ever going to get through this review we’re going to have to push on.
Basically, Hard To Kill is just your bog standard, back from the dead, vigilante story, but the random details the film constantly throws at you keeps things not only moving fast, but incredibly dumb too which means we’ve got a magnificent contender for the so-bad-it’s-good stakes. For example, the movie chooses to root its opening in 1983 by having everyone talking about the Oscars – which is ironic considering this movie had as much chance of being recognised by the academy as Uwe Boll – but before we can question why one random cop seems overly jazzed by Ben Kingsley winning for Ghandi, we get a taste of Storm’s prowess when he manages to beat the shit out of a bunch of armed robbers while stopping off to buy some champagne. Does he manage to save the liquor store owner? Nope; he gets blown away while Storm watches. Does he also stop some major property damage? Also nope; further more, he’s the one who causes most of it while he pounds the goons into the floor – but he’s still lauded as a hero as they’re scraping the shotgunned owner off the back wall.

Anyway, Storm soon meets his match when Seagal actually experiences what it’s like to lose a fight – although aikido can apparently only do so much once you’ve been shot more times than 50 Cent – but he bounces back seven years later thanks to some dubious care from Kelly Le Brock’s incredibly flirty coma nurse who asks her unconscious patient if he would like a bit of pussy before putting a kitten on his head and then treats herself for her joke by lifting his sheet and staring longingly at his dick. Mere hours later, Seagal escapes from an assasin’s clutches by pushing his bed out the hospital with a broomstick, resurrects his wasted muscles with acupuncture and then wages a violent pushback against William Sadler’s villainous senator in a way that isn’t just outrageously dumb as fuck, but proves to be utterly hysterical to boot.
You’ll notice that my “review” hasn’t been much more than just cheap shots aimed at the film, but in my defence, that’s the whole point to watching Hard To Kill in the first place. Am I not supposed to laugh at the fact that Seagal and LeBrock have absolutely no chemistry together despite the fact that the two were married at the time? Am I not supposed to cackle like an idiot when a stoney faced Seagal utters the immortal line “I’m going to take you to the bank Senator Trent. To the blood bank.”? And am I not supposed to celebrate like a crazed football hooligan when Storm stabs that pesky assasin in the throat with a pool cue and punctuates it with an impassioned “This is for my wife. Fuck you and die!”? To not respond to all this testosterone soaked idiocy – and much more – would simply be a waste of the film’s talents which achieve a sort of goofy nirvana where a man can snap someone’s neck while his recently reunited son watches and it somehow plays as a wholesome moment.

Seagal’s been in better movies and he’s been in worse (so much worse), but when it comes to the kind of deranged, mentally impaired 90s action that makes McBain from The Simpsons look like LA Confidential, Hard To Kill is hard to beat.
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