EXIT WOUNDS

‘Are all cops bad?’ inquires rap star DMX at one point in this mind-bogglingly lobotomised Steven Seagal vehicle. To which Moviehouse can only reply: is the Pope a Catholic? The cop at the centre of Exit Wounds, admittedly, is a specimen far more noxious than any of us are likely to encounter here (at least until policing is privatised in favour of mercenary Armed-Response-Units) – it’s that noted sage, visionary and philosopher Steven Seagal, assuming centre stage for the eleventh time in what can only be described as, eh, a Steven Seagal flick.

True to previous career form, the man is not exactly challenged in an unsubtly-scripted role as ruthless robocop Orin Boyd, who has been ‘transferred’ from one police department after another after receiving three cautions for ‘excessive force’, while various namby-pamby do-gooders attempt to explain to his uncomprehending mush that, when a cop breaks the law, he drags himself down to the level of the criminal. Before you can say ‘uurgghh??’, our hero’s services are required in order to smash an evil smack-dealing ring in the toughest precinct in Detroit.

Cue stupefying scenes of Seagal laying one dastardly villain after another to waste, while the background plot is kept as rudimentary as possible so as to avoid causing overkills of higher brain activity among the target audience. As an action no-brainer minus the brain, Exit Wounds is passably effective for the occasional five-minute

outbreak of killings: its fatal letdown is a suicidal insensitivity to colour-coding,

with every single Black character in view either an active sociopathic scumbag, a reformed sociopathic scumbag or a potential sociopathic scumbag. Distasteful, to say the least, and so loud it hurts. Seagal diehards, go ahead and enjoy it – the rest of you should maybe go to Mass?