Any movie that directly rips off Death Ring and Redline gets 5 stars

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	• Today You Die [VHS] Sarah Buxton, Gelbert Coloma Sony Pictures Home Ent, 2005
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One of Seagal's Best DTV Movies

This is one of Seagal's better DTV titles. It features some cool action sequences and tons of classic Steven Seagal charm. He and Treach make for a particularly fun pairing and play off each other nicely. Unlike many of Seagal's earlier DTV movies, this one gives him plenty of nice character moments. The tone of the movie is much more fun and in keeping with some of his best movies like Hard to Kill and Out for Justice. If you are a fan of Steven Seagal as a personality, then you will really enjoy this movie. I give a lot of credit to the director Don E. Fauntleroy. He also directed Seagal's very best DTV movie, Urban Justice. He knows how to stage a nice action sequence and use Seagal correctly. I hope they make more movies together in the future!

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Any movie that directly rips off Death Ring and Redline gets 5 stars

First let us, Sid the Elf, explain that title. This film stole the basic plot principle from Redline that maybe if the audiance is confused enough, they won't realize we shot this movie with recycled footage, a few thousand bucks, and no permits. Then, they wanted to name the film, "You Talk Too Much," but they couldn't get the naming rights from the almighty Death Ring. Rumor has it that the sticking point on that was Seagal wouldn't pony up the cash to buy Chad McQueen a rhinestone studded leather vest with "Chad" adorning the back. Oh well.

Honestly, Sid wouldn't be able to give a coherent summary of the plot for this one. That could be because there was no plot. Or, more likely, Seagal messed this one up real bad. Let us explain: It is widely known that the producers of this film sued Seagal for showing up eggregiously late for filming and changing the script on the fly. Sid's theory is that Seagal concocted a brilliant plot for the flick, but his wonderful ideas didn't across because he was trying to dispense them to the rest of this wonderful cast through mouthfuls of his ever-present White Castle Crave Case and quart of Wild Turkey. This movie was so great that it would be covered in the first week of Action B 101 at Sid the Elf University. It was so great that it has a DMF(Don Mattingly Factor) and a KHF(Keith Hernandez Factor) of one. It was also so great that it garnered the famous Robert Downey Sr. apperance. And it was so great that it deserves Drive-In Totals.

2 arm snappings

6 nice explosions

8 songs that sounded like 80's songs and/or Journey to the West Soundtrack ripoffs

1023 shots fired

1 exploding chopper

1 B ripoff of a 2Pac song

1 killer mullet on the giant head of Cool Papa Seagal himself...

...and 43 homoerotic looks/exchanges between Seagal and Treach

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A Good Day Nonetheless

Ironic: About twelve minutes into the film, Steven Seagal asks one of the film's villains "Do I look sleepy?" Not a minute later, his girlfriend asks him "Why are you whispering?"
Feel free to chuckle.

Seagal's 22nd action feature stars him as a virtuous thief who steals from the rich to give to the poor. Upon the urging of his pseudo-psychic girlfriend (Mari Morrow, "Nikita Blues"), he tries to go clean and takes a truck-driving job from a shady fellow (Kevin Tighe, "Escape To Witch Mountain"), but is double-crossed when it turns out that the job is a heist. Sent to prison, he quickly buddies up with an inmate called Ice Kool (Anthony "Treach" Criss, "Face"), breaks out, and pursues his turncoat-of-a-boss.

As bad as Steven Seagal's DTV outings have been, "Today You Die" is a surprisingly decent bit of action that, at times, reminded me of the fun-yet-brainless 80s-90s action flicks of yesterday.
Of course, there is no way to turn back the hands of time, and yes: Seagal still looks overweight, there is some dubbing of his voice, and the extended storyline (with its useless tangents and plotholes) and dialogue are silly enough to kill off a few brain cells. But while "Today" doesn't match "Urban Justice", it's better than the likes of "The Foreigner" or "Attack Force" by leaps and bounds for the fact that it chooses to focus on fun rather than pretending to be intelligent.

The best example of this is probably the car chase near the beginning of the film: it's fast-paced, exciting, shot well, and has a few one-liners thrown in for good measure. In addition, the handful of fight scenes and shootouts in the film are satisfactory as well; Seagal vs. bodyguards near the beginning and the gang confrontation close to the end are particularly attention-worthy.
The supporting cast also works well for once: the afore-mentioned names are alert and add to the plot, as do Sarah Buxton ("Devil's Highway") as Agent Knowles and Nick Mancuso ("Ticket To Heaven") as the hiss-able Agent Saunders.

If able to ignore the use of stock footage from the prison break scene (from Wesley Snipes' "Undisputed"), Seagal fans should find "Today You Die" a thoroughly enjoyable bit of violent fluff. Essentially, if you tolerated films like "Into The Sun" and "Mercenary For Justice", liking this movie won't be too difficult.

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More Seagal violence and revenge

Seagulls are white crows...Trying to use a spiritualistic justification for
extremes of violence, this movie moves from one scene of death to another.
The robinhood theme just doesn't work when the money is drug money to start with? From prison breaks to killing the big guys behind the scenes,
this movies seems to be about revenge more than any sort of good doing?
I wish I could say the plot or the acting were good:
I think only the martial arts had any quality.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Count on Steven Seagal to pack a devastating punch ? this time with a little something extra. Not only does he prove the fist is mightier than the gun, he uses the supernatural to dish out bone-crunching punishment. Harlan Banks (Seagal) is hired to drive a delivery truck in Vegas. He picks up $20 million in cash, when his double-crossing cohort blasts two security men and then holds his gun to Banks? head, ordering him to drive. After one of the most extraordinary chase scenes ever filmed on the streets of Vegas, Banks ends up in prison. But with a little mystical assistance, he escapes to unleash an explosive, unearthly vengeance.

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