A Good Man

A bearded and bespectacled Steven Seagal ups his game in one of his better straight-to-DVD outings. Re-teaming with regular director Keoni Waxman (who also co-wrote the by-the-numbers script), he's more energetic than usual here and actually seems to enjoy the predictable, and often preposterous, events that see his semi-retired special ops man taking on ruthless gangsters in Romania, after they target his pretty neighbour (Iulia Verdes) and her kid sister. The action is abundant compared to a lot of the star's disastrous post-2000 movies, with gunplay, bloody knife fighting and adequate martial arts shared between a slower but enthusiastic Seagal, and the far younger Victor Webster, as Verdes's in-debt-to-the-mob half-brother. Exaggerated sound effects and quickfire editing keep the pacing perky, and there are plenty of the unintentional laughs that many Seagal fans love, not least in the ludicrous final scene.