Out of Reach (2004)

Simply Perfect

Awesome Movie

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Don't expect anything from this film, with average story and mediocre characters. Steven Seagal (once a cool guy with cool films under his belt) gives us yet another portrait of himself, this time as a retired agent, former Vietnam veteran, blah blah, who is corresponding (pen-pal) with a orphan little girl from Poland and helps her financially. But, when he finds out that orphanage is used as human trafficking, he rushes to Poland and start the incredibly boring scenes of shooting, fighting and everything else in kinda boring and makes-you-sleepy-way. Seagal utters the line "she means everything to me". Is she your daughter? Damn! His character is so caring that he needs to destroy everything in his path for a little girl who he barely knows. Other actors as Robbie Gee and Matt Schulze did a solid job, but Schulze didn't do much with his character, he was only evil and that's it, he is also a expert swordsman and you know what that means when your opponent is Seagal who is an kendo expert... Nothing special to say about this film... except that is pretty boring. Yeah, and Seagal is dubbed by another actor, and that's fuc**ng disgusting! Don't waste your time, watch something more gun and intelligent like... Taken (2008), it's pretty similar, but more, much more better.

Out of Reach had a truly wonderful idea to work from, and as a film it had the potential to be powerful and compelling, but turned out to be neither. For me, the two only reasons why Out of Reach isn't any lower as a score is the idea it had to work from and final sword fight, which was the only well choreographed and performed action scene in my opinion. Steven Seagal looks unkempt and his performance both in the delivery of the dialogue, where he sounds monotone and bored, and the action sequences, where he looks as though he can't keep up with the speed of the choreography, is truly lazy. To be fair though, the film also does have several other things that bring it down. The acting is dire from the whole cast, nobody is believable and it doesn't help that the characters are written and explored badly, while the film making and direction are inept. The pace is sluggish, and this is including in the action which is not very well shot or choreographed excepting the final sword fight, the story is derivative and the dialogue is awful. All in all, there was a good movie in this somewhere but for some reason the good movie didn't come out. 2/10 Bethany Cox

(Credit IMDb) Vietnam veteran Billy Ray Lancing, a former CSA agent who now works on a wildlife refuge in Northern Alaska, has been exchanging letters in a pen-pal relationship with Irina Morawska, a 13-year-old orphaned girl in Poland that he's helping out financially. When the letters suddenly stop coming, Billy heads to Poland to figure out why -- only to discover that the orphanage that Irena was staying in, which is financed by honest -- and unsuspecting -- good-intentioned Samaritans, is a cover for a human trafficking network. Run by a man named Faisal, the operation is worth billions -- girls are sold and traded to the highest bidders from all over the world. Through Billy's letters to Irina, Billy has taught Irina how to use secret codes, which she uses to keep Billy updated on where Faisal is taking her to. That's how Billy stays on Faisal's trail as Billy teams up with local cop Kasia Lato to rescue Irina and the other girls, and bring down Faisal's human trafficking network.Out Of Reach is as I said, not as bad as some of his others but that doesn't mean that it's really any good either. Seagal still has that cheesy dubbing in places that consistently made me groan to myself. Seagal's relationship with Ida Nowakowska (Irena) is supposed to be the main ingredient of the movie, the heart so to speak. I found no real connection between the two, no matter how hard the movie tried to pull it off. The action scenes are pretty non-existent aside from an OK final confrontation at the end, but it's ruined pretty soon afterwords by a shameless sword fight between Seagal and Matt Schulze.Performances. Steven Seagal isn't anything great, as is the case with most of his DTV films. But aside from his horrible dubbing, he at least seems to be trying at points. More effort would have been nice, but considering the depths I've seen him fall, I won't complain that much. Matt Schuzle walks around with a sinister snarl on his face trying to act all menacing, suave, and charming. Unfortunately he doesn't have the charisma to pull it off. The Kid actors are also pretty bad. The boy drinking liquor is a hoot of a time though.Bottom line. If I was to suggest a few DTV Seagal films that didn't fully torture me for you to watch. This would probably be one of them. It's a lazy and terrible movie, but at least it wasn't a torturous experience. Not really recommended, but you could do worse by being a Seagal fanatic I suppose. But that's faint praise.3 1/2 /10

Same as all Steven Seagal Movies he gets the bad guy, but why not I like a movie where the bad guys get the crap kicked out of them, too much thinking goes into some of the negative reviewers we are not all into arty camera angles , I like the thought that it was shot in Poland, why should the US have all the bad guys, and as for the acting seen worse soaps that people are glued to most nights of the week, so I give the film a thumbs up I like it simple and brutal.Could watch it again just to see the fight scene where the villain gets his,think I blinked when the killer blow was struck , So I think our Steve still got the talent, and a shame he can't get along with his fellow actors or directors more, think he has some films left in him yet, and I don't like him for his arrogant way he treats other people in real life , but he's still got that certain something.