‘Hard to Kill’: Action at Point-Blank Range

Steven Seagal, the hero of “Hard to Kill” (citywide), is not just hard to kill. He’s practically impossible to kill. Early on, hired assassins blaze away at him repeatedly from point-blank range. All it does is knock him into a coma for seven years.

When he wakes up, Seagal’s “unstoppable” Storm Mason really hits his stride. Wave after wave of murderers stalk him, ambush him, surround him, blast him with automatic rifles, flail away at him with knives and hatchets--all to little avail. Even lying flat on his back on a hospital cart, armed with nothing but a mop, he’s more than a match for everybody. And, after he recovers, with the help of Kelly Le Brock and acupuncture, he’s hell on wheels: ready to match antics with Stallone, Schwarzenegger and any other one-against-a-hundred Ubermensch in town.

There’s a plot to this ludicrous mayhem, but it’s almost embarrassing to repeat. In it, Mason surreptitiously records a murder-for-hire discussion between a “flamboyant Los Angeles assemblyman” and Mafia killers. Then Mason makes a phone call to headquarters: a hideous mistake, since every phone call in the movie is constantly being intercepted by crooked cops or leering thugs--and he winds up with his friend and wife dead, his son in hiding and himself comatose in the hospital, being ogled by nurse Le Brock. Meanwhile, the assemblyman, riding on his vacuous blond looks, inane slogans (“You can take that to the bank!”) and hypocritical politics, rises inevitably toward the vice presidency: the only half-believable element in the script.

But they made a mistake. They made Mason mad. What does it matter if he’s battling a senator, corrupt police, dozens of surly thugs and the entire phone system? These guys don’t know who they’re messing with. Soon, they’re dropping like flies: crashing through windows, tumbling over car hoods, blasted through piazzas, blowing up in cars, spinning head over heels in their own gore.

Most one-against-a-hundred action movies are fairly reactionary, full of vigilante cops and lone avengers. Seagal’s movies tend to be leftish, which makes for a fairly curious conclusion: at the climax, the senator is holed up just like a cocaine czar, with bikinied doxies and sneering torpedoes.

Seagal , a martial-arts expert, has lots of nifty chop-socky moves and a menacing murmur that sounds like Mickey Rourke doing Clint Eastwood. Le Brock looks great and manages her costume changes with dispatch.

Director Bruce Malmuth keeps all the carnage in the frame, despite his addiction to sweaty close-ups and wet streets. Everyone else in the preposterous “Hard to Kill” (rated R, for sex, nudity, language and violence) dies right on schedule. There’s nothing dopier than the crooks in one-against-a-hundred action movies--except maybe the people who cook them up.

‘HARD TO KILL’

A Warner Bros. release of an Adelson/Todman/Simon production. Producers Gary Adelson, Joel Simon, Bill Todman Jr. Director Bruce Malmuth. Script Steven McKay. Executive producers Lee Rich, Michael Rachmil. Music David Michael Frank. With Steven Seagal, Kelly Le Brock, Bill Sadler, Frederick Coffin.

Running time: 1 hour, 43 minutes.

MPAA rating: R (under 17 requires an accompanying parent or adult guardian).