First comes the plot, right? Well, let’s see. Is this armageddon or some dingy warehouse ground? Either way, the world has – allegedly – been overrun by bloodthirsty vampires. There are some people. Survivors. They’re in a building. It’s apparently a very large building, because it’s going to take them all night to walk out of it.
Meanwhile, Steven Seagal has dressed up as Blade and leads his crack team of three other Hunters through the night. They are not in the building, but rather in some kind of post-apocalyptic back-alley. There are also several men in a tent. They’re not in the building either.
A Breakdown of Against the Dark
To say there are spoilers ahead would be a touch misplaced. The word ‘spoiler’ implies there’s something to spoil. And there isn’t.
The first 30 mins consist of nondescript characterization and badly written exposition that leads to scene after scene of mostly pointless dialogue and the odd inept attack, in which we learn that the ‘vampires’ are actually mutants brought about by a disease. It’s more realistic that way, don’t you think? To help us through this tedium, there are repeating shots of Steven Seagal dramatically stalking through the night, without a shred of context. At this point you may find yourself hard-pressed to name a single character.
At 40 mins Steven Seagal is in the building. Ooh, exciting. Well done to anyone who makes it this far (or should that be: why the hell are you still watching? Run, you fools!). In any case, things are about to pick up. Besides learning that a military general – one of the men in the tent - wants to annihilate all life wherever it is our beloved main characters are, there’s also imminent danger in yet more inexplicably inefficient attacks.
But what’s this? An innocent young girl sees something icky and is freaked out. Naturally, she decides to take a nap. Then, one of the not-vampires-but-disease-mutated-bloodthirsty-people/zombies creeps from the shadows to feed on the helpless child. Oh, the humanity! Won’t someone please save this poor sweet child? And yea, black as night and pure as snow he came, Steven Seagal, waving his sword. Oh, the joy.
70 mins and for those devout film-watchers who want (or have) to make it to the end may be thinking, “Just twenty to go. You can do it, just a little further.” And then there’s the finale, in which an attack is carried out by advanced US jets capable of transmogrifying from Hornets to Falcons to Eagles to Tomcats. That’s good continuity. The target of these aircraft, judging by instrumentation, appears to be a mountaintop (because there are plenty of developed cities with large buildings on mountaintops.) Meanwhile, let’s have a look at footage of Iraq or Afghanistan being bombed. Seamless. The subsequent explosions are great, but it’s unfortunate that Steven Seagal isn’t on screen when they happen. Shots of explosions with Steven Seagal superimposed on top, in an action stance, that’s what they really needed here.
Against the Dark Cast and Characters
A different tack will be taken here, to spare the poor souls desperate enough to appear in this movie the humiliation they have brought on themselves. In this instance, dialogue and characterization are so very very poor that it wouldn’t be right to name even those actors, and that’s most of them, who were nothing short of terrible throughout. Only one of the cast may be truly pardoned for their part and that would be Skye Bennett (the kid in need of a hero), who is young and cannot be held wholly accountable for appearing in this film (she also comes off as more convincing than most).
As for the rest, there’s a ‘cool’ guy who takes drugs to help deal with his nightmare. Clearly, he’s no Steven Seagal. He is to be despised and certainly won’t be eaten alive. Many other people try heroic things, but fail, because they’re not Steven Seagal either. Then there’s an Englishman who, to be fair, isn’t a dastardly villain. He does try something mildly heroic though, but he’s not even American, let alone Steven Seagal, so don’t hold out any hope for him.
The two female members of the four Hunters also die, without so much as a word of script between them, but then they’re not even men, let alone Steven Seagal. The remaining member (played by bit-part action man Tanoai Reed) actually has his own scenes to establish how he’s also a great and deadly fighter. That’s how nice a guy Steven Seagal is. It’s about the ensemble, not the individual. It’s about highly implausible actions involving a grenade and a beer bottle (no, nothing like that).
And then there’s Steven Seagal. Here he portrays himself as something slightly less than divine, but he’s still so good as to be impervious to all method of attack. He even says a couple of naughty words. It’s like a completely different Steven Seagal.
Against the Dark Summary
It’s reckoned that when Robert E. Howard wrote his Conan stories, he was urged to do so by Conan himself, standing nearby with a battle-axe in hand. It could be reckoned that whenever a director or scriptwriter is taken on board a Steven Seagal movie, they too must contend with a raging psychopath ready to unleash the fury if they ever make him appear as anything less than a stalwart hero of the highest moral fabric.
The result is an atrocious script from Mathew Klickstein, awfully directed by Richard Crudo. This is just about as bad as it gets, but then it could be worse and you could be watching a Roland Emmerich film.
Against the Dark is no Shark in Venice, which is far worse and, consequently, far better, despite the presence here of the mighty Steven Seagal.
But then, he’s no Chuck Norris.
- Producer: Phillip B. Goldfine
- Director: Richard Crudo
- Screenplay: Mathew Klickstein
- Starring: Steven Seagal. No one else matters.
- Released: Feb 2009 by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
- Running Time: 93 mins
Michael Pantazi - Michael Pantazi is just another aspiring writer with delusions of artistic ability. He is almost entirely self-educated and living in ...
