Out of Reach is set in Warsaw in Poland where the 14 year old orphaned Irena Morawska (Ida Nowakoska) has enjoyed a pen-pal type relationship with ex-CIA agent William 'Billy' Lansing (co-excutive producer Steven Seagal) who spends most of his time walking around a forest where he lives in America looking for injured animals & then nursing them back to health, he's just a nice bloke you see. So when Colonel Faisal (Matt Schulze) pitches up outside Irena's orphanage & takes a group of nice looking young girls including Irena to be sold to the highest bidder in a multi million dollar human trafficking scam & Billy finds out he gives up his 'caring' ways, flies out to Poland & decides someones going to pay big time...
Yet another straight-to-video/DVD American Polish co-production to star Seagal after the almost as bad The Foreigner (2003) this was directed by Po-Chih Leong & in my humble yet worthwhile opinion I felt Out of Reach (a title which bears no relation to the actual film) was the single worst Steven Seagal film I have seen, now I've stuck with him through thin & thin (or should that be fat & fatter?) but Out of Reach just takes the cake as quite simply a downright awful film in just about every respect. The predictable & strictly by-the-numbers script by Trevor Miller & a wisely uncredited James Townsend starts out in mind numbingly embarrassing fashion with Seagal's character rescuing a falcon from a miniature bear trap it's leg is caught in! Then there's the unpleasant storyline about young teenage girls being taken away to be sold to the highest bidder which is just stupid all by itself but the film gets even worse. Some of the scripting & plot holes in Out of Reach are just hilarious, the classic scene when Irena makes a coded message for Seagal to warn him using caviar canapés! If that's not bad enough the main bad guy actually knew about her message yet still let Seagal read it as well as another hidden message written on a mirror earlier on in the film, why did the bad guy let Irena leave these warnings & messages for Seagal? It just doesn't make a blind bit of sense. Then there's the other enormous plot holes like what happened to the kids that were taken from the orphanage? What happened to the guy's who were after Seagal at the start? Why did that black dude warn Seagal & then seemingly try to kill him mere moments later? Everyone in Poland speaks perfect English, even police detectives within the Polish police force talk to each other in English. How can Seagal run around around Poland killing & destroying property & yet not get arrested? What happened to the main bad guy's who were running the operation ahead of Faisal? The story is weak, the plot is weak & not very well conveyed with things happening almost at random & it's also one of the slowest most boring action films ever. For the first 75 minutes there are a grand total of three action scenes which clock in at about a combined 5 minutes in length, the rest of the time is dialogue driven & it's pretty god damned bad dialogue too.
Director Chih Leong doesn't seem to realise that what people want in a Steven Seagal action flick are some decent action scenes as you won't find any here. There is also the horrible dubbing used for Seagal on several occasions, surely Steven wasn't that busy he couldn't pop into the studio to do some post dubbing work? It's particularly noticeable during the opening scene where the guy providing Seagal's voice sounds nothing like him. As usual for Seagal's latter films he has at least two chins here & is really out of shape, actually out of shape would have made for a more appropriate title than Out of Reach! The action is almost none existent, the few fights that are here are OK but nothing we haven't seen before, disappointing & there isn't a single explosion in the entire film.
With a supposed budget of about $20,000,000 the money certainly didn't end up on screen as this is a very cheap looking action flick devoid of any sort of action. Shot in Poland the white building used at the end looks fabulous but as one might expect it is wasted & underused in a lacklustre & dull ending. The acting is poor from Seagal to the rest of the predominately Polish cast.
Out of Reach is Steven Seagal's worst film to date, if it isn't I dread to think how bad the film that is is. Do yourself a favour & avoid this at all costs, even Seagal fans (both of them...) should give this a miss!
Yet another straight-to-video/DVD American Polish co-production to star Seagal after the almost as bad The Foreigner (2003) this was directed by Po-Chih Leong & in my humble yet worthwhile opinion I felt Out of Reach (a title which bears no relation to the actual film) was the single worst Steven Seagal film I have seen, now I've stuck with him through thin & thin (or should that be fat & fatter?) but Out of Reach just takes the cake as quite simply a downright awful film in just about every respect. The predictable & strictly by-the-numbers script by Trevor Miller & a wisely uncredited James Townsend starts out in mind numbingly embarrassing fashion with Seagal's character rescuing a falcon from a miniature bear trap it's leg is caught in! Then there's the unpleasant storyline about young teenage girls being taken away to be sold to the highest bidder which is just stupid all by itself but the film gets even worse. Some of the scripting & plot holes in Out of Reach are just hilarious, the classic scene when Irena makes a coded message for Seagal to warn him using caviar canapés! If that's not bad enough the main bad guy actually knew about her message yet still let Seagal read it as well as another hidden message written on a mirror earlier on in the film, why did the bad guy let Irena leave these warnings & messages for Seagal? It just doesn't make a blind bit of sense. Then there's the other enormous plot holes like what happened to the kids that were taken from the orphanage? What happened to the guy's who were after Seagal at the start? Why did that black dude warn Seagal & then seemingly try to kill him mere moments later? Everyone in Poland speaks perfect English, even police detectives within the Polish police force talk to each other in English. How can Seagal run around around Poland killing & destroying property & yet not get arrested? What happened to the main bad guy's who were running the operation ahead of Faisal? The story is weak, the plot is weak & not very well conveyed with things happening almost at random & it's also one of the slowest most boring action films ever. For the first 75 minutes there are a grand total of three action scenes which clock in at about a combined 5 minutes in length, the rest of the time is dialogue driven & it's pretty god damned bad dialogue too.
Director Chih Leong doesn't seem to realise that what people want in a Steven Seagal action flick are some decent action scenes as you won't find any here. There is also the horrible dubbing used for Seagal on several occasions, surely Steven wasn't that busy he couldn't pop into the studio to do some post dubbing work? It's particularly noticeable during the opening scene where the guy providing Seagal's voice sounds nothing like him. As usual for Seagal's latter films he has at least two chins here & is really out of shape, actually out of shape would have made for a more appropriate title than Out of Reach! The action is almost none existent, the few fights that are here are OK but nothing we haven't seen before, disappointing & there isn't a single explosion in the entire film.
With a supposed budget of about $20,000,000 the money certainly didn't end up on screen as this is a very cheap looking action flick devoid of any sort of action. Shot in Poland the white building used at the end looks fabulous but as one might expect it is wasted & underused in a lacklustre & dull ending. The acting is poor from Seagal to the rest of the predominately Polish cast.
Out of Reach is Steven Seagal's worst film to date, if it isn't I dread to think how bad the film that is is. Do yourself a favour & avoid this at all costs, even Seagal fans (both of them...) should give this a miss!