Having sat through more of Steven Seagals thick stream of straight-to-video poopsy than any one reviewer should ever have to, I feel well-enough versed in the mans work to say theres only one thing I consistently expect from his output: and thats to have me soiling myself with laughter by the time the end credits have rolled. Sadly though, Into the Sun could well be looked upon as a new low, because it doesnt even deliver on that front.
Unintentional comedy has become something of a trademark for the basket-chinned one, but this one is just a little well, I might as well say it depressing. The man with the chin of three normal-sized men plays Travis Hunter, a Tokyo-based something-or-other whos called upon to help the CIA with their investigations when a top Government official is assassinated. Grumpily paired-off with rookie upstart Sean (Matthew Davis), the pony-tailed man-blob cruises around the city asking lots of inane questions and getting into a series of increasingly gory battles with Yakuza gangsters (look out for one fight scene in particular, which looks more like a game of extreme patty-cake than a serious martial arts bout).
On a purely superficial basis, the film looks glossier and more polished than your average minimally-released Seagal flick. Mono-named English director mink (no, I havent made a typo he actually insists on having it spelled that way, the daft pratt) clearly has a decent budget to play with, and throws in lots of flashy-looking but essentially pointless visual effects. But the atrocious acting, mind-numbing dialogue (Seagal himself actually had a hand in writing this one) and clunky schoolboy errors (characters freely chat to each other IN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES) are a dead giveaway: this is, without doubt, a Steven Seagal movie.