Michael Ledo Ruslan (Steven Seagal) is an ex-Russian mobster living on the west coast. When his daughter (Laura Mennell) in Trenton wants to get married, Ruslan goes there against the wishes of former acquaintances. When his ex-wife (Inna Korobkina) is killed and daughter is left for dead, Ruslan goes after the Russian florists who did the hit.The film is straight forward Seagal. There are no twists, no surprise endings. If this film, Seagal had not yet perfected the duck, then one knock out punch move as he does in his later offerings. The film takes about 30 minutes to introduce characters before Seagal goes after the bad guys. Average Seagal Flick.Parental Guide (extended and uncut version): F-bomb, no sex. Stripper nudity

chewbaccawakka After a big number of DTV flops such as The Patriot (not to be confused with the Mel Gibson film of the same name), The Foreigner and Submerged, Steven Seagal comes up with Pistol Whipped, Regenade Justice (or Urban Justice) and this DTV flick that was better than I expected. Seagal plays a former Russian mobster who gets a call from his ex-wife about his daughter getting married, Seagal finds out that she is marrying the son of a mob boss that he worked for 20 years ago. Trouble starts when Seagal's daughter and ex-wife are left in the house, two men suddenly break in and killed them both. Once Seagal found out about this, he was DRIVEN TO KILL.Even though the plot is pretty much the same as most of Seagal's other films, it's better than most of his recent films and he carried on getting better afterwards with The Keeper.Worth a watch if you're a Seagal fan.

Scarecrow-88 This time Steven Seagal stars as Ruslin, a Russian novelist, with a criminal past, whose district attorney daughter, Lania(Laura Mennell), is getting married. Lania is to wed Stephan(Dmitry Chepovetsky), the son of a Russian gangster, Mikhail(Igor Jijikine), whose mob has a history with Ruslin. When hired thugs, masquerading as a catering service, kill Ruslin's ex-wife, Catherine(Inna Korobkina), and leave his daughter badly wounded, it is discovered that Mikhail had arranged the hit, worried for his well being considering he's a crime kingpin and all. Ruslin, also discovering that Catherine's new creep lawyer husband, Terry(Robert Wisden) was part of the despicable operation, will vow to get revenge on Mikhail and all those responsible for the pain and suffering caused. Another dud directed by Jeff King, frustrating in how the action scenes are filmed as if the camera man had epilepsy, with madman as an editor. This technique where the camera speed increases to move images forward faster, and how Seagal must be shot in an awkward fashion so that the stunt work will not be exposed really are starting to irritate me. While I enjoy seeing how fast Seagal's hands can move, it is aggravating trying to decipher what is going on during his many fight scenes because of how they are shot in such a mess of images, becoming a blur of movements without seeing hand to hand combat in a respectable form we can appreciate. I like to see, as an action fan, two combatants actually engaging in fisticuffs without the interruption of annoying camera angles either too close to those involved or having them so out of focus we can not make out heads or tails what exactly is going on. King's Kill Switch, also starring Seagal, is even worse than this one. Seagal toils with a Russian accent, but is all business as his Ruslin dedicates himself towards finding those who made the serious mistake of crossing him by attacking those he loves. Like Kill Switch, this is another exercise in guns firing rounds and rounds of ammunition with no one seemingly able to hit their targets, plenty of walls and other objects blasted apart instead. I will say that there are times where we actually see Seagal in frame working over scumbags, but King's style proves too difficult to even appreciate these moments in Driven to Kill. The climactic shootout takes place in a hospital, simply blown apart as Mikhail and his gun-toting goons exchange unfriendly fire with Ruslin, trying to find where Lania is stashed, while Stephan guards Terry who is chained to her bed.

jonathanruano Some revenge movies work, such as Bergman's "The Virgin Spring," but "Driven to Kill" does not because the screenplay was simply not ready. The beginning of the film was OK. Our hero Ruslan Drachev (Steven Seagal) is introduced to us as Russian mobster who, even in his advanced age, can attract women with his bad boy image. Seagal does not quite get the Russian accent right and his personality is not as fresh and vibrant as the Russian mobsters in Eastern Promises. But no matter. I also did not mind the fact that it was easy to predict what was going to happen at the wedding. When the title of the movie is "Driven to Kill," we can assume that Ruslan is in for a shock. But when the revenge sequence starts, the film falls apart. To begin with, Steven Seagal's character seemed too cool and composed to be "driven to kill." He did not even appear shocked and overwhelmed with grief after seeing his dead family. Dmitri Chepovetsky as the fiancé, Stepan, did a better job. This was a big problem, because "Driven to Kill" lacked that electricity one feels when you truly believe that the hero desires revenge. But the main problem was the plot itself. There was nothing new, there was no cleverness or wit. The villain was revealed too early on and his motivations for acting in the way he did were utterly absurd. Ruslan also did not want Stepan to follow in his mobster footsteps, which begs the question of why he brought him along for the killing spree in the first place. Finally, far too much film was devoted to Seagal's martial arts skills rather than to plot and character development (perhaps because there was nothing to develop!); and while the fight sequences were interesting on the first two or three occasions, they grew tiresome as the film dragged on. The gun fights were not interesting either and I rather suspect that the shocking scene where the mob boss shoots off his underling's ear was put in there to jolt the audience in order to hold onto their attention. There were some laughs from this movie, such as when Detective Lavastic (Zak Santiago) tried to explain why Ruslan's decision to go on a killing spree was wholly justified, because after all who in law enforcement would ever praise a civilian for going on a killing spree that wipes out 20+ people? But I do not think that scene was meant to be funny, because if the film-makers were that smart, they would have rewritten the entire script. This film also stars Igor Jijikine who is pretty convincing as the villain Mikhail, but unfortunately he is not given any good material to work with. The thugs also OK, except they are just thugs with small brains who, judging from their fighting skills, are setting themselves to go down hard. So they are not too interesting to watch either.