Paul Andrews Ticker is set in San Francisco where narcotics cop Detective Ray Nettles (Tom Sizemore) & his partner Detective Art 'Fuzzy' Rice (Nas) are following up on a lead when they come across IRA terrorist & bomb expert Alex Swan (Dennis Hopper) & his woman Claire Manning (Jamie Pressly), Fuzzy is shot dead & Swan escapes but Nettles manages to capture Claire & take her in. Swan needs Claire so phones the police demanding that Claire be let go or he'll blow lots of things up which will kill people, lots of people. Nettles teams up with the bomb squad & Lieutenant Frank Glass (Steven Seagal) who is the one in charge to track down Swan & disarm his bombs, erm that's about it really.Directed by Albert Pyun this film has a pretty bad reputation which, I'm sad to report, it fully deserves. Things got off to a bad start when I saw the 'Nu Image' logo appear prior to the films commencement, my heart literally sank as I'm one of the few poor souls who has actually sat through some of their giant 'creature feature' flicks so my hopes for Ticker were not high & despite that I still felt let down. The script by Paul B. Margolis is awful, the character's are awful, the dialogue is awful, the story is awful, things happen to accommodate the copious use of footage stolen from other 'Nu Image' films & the fact the three main 'stars' who are all packing some serious excess weight around their belly's probably never met each other & were probably only available for short times means the script was also tailored for this & it just ends up looking & feeling an absolute mess. Ticker is just awful, I've seen some terrible Seagal flicks but even I think this is probably his worst film & believe me that's saying something. As for respectable actors such as Tom Sizemore & Dennis Hopper they should know better & are far too good for crap like this. The only good aspect of Ticker is that it actually had a decent plot twist towards the end but coming in such a bad film it matters little.Director Pyun turns in a terrible film, the action scenes are absolutely terrible since almost all of the explosions & action is stolen from other films, footage from Deadly Outbreak (1996) makes for the opening explosion of the senator's house, The Last Days of Frankie the Fly (1997) steals footage of Dennis Hopper, The Peacekeeper (1997) accounts for virtually the entire final 20 minutes & it also uses footage from Sweepers (1998). The continuity is absolutely horrible, the sites of explosions changes between shots, the things that are blowing up changes, cars change types, the number of passengers in them changes & this is just a really badly, cheaply made flick that is quite frankly a disaster on every level.The IMDb says Ticker cost $25,000,000 to make, no disrespect but that's bull. The makers have said that it cost a lot less & director Pyun has said in interviews that it cost a mere $600,000 & was shot in just 11 days & I believe him. Apparently Hopper was only on set for 1 day & never met any of his co-stars, his Irish accent is terrible & I think you can see he knows the films junk & he isn't really trying. In fact Hopper's role as a mad bomber holding a city to ransom isn't a million miles from his role in Speed (1994), having said that Seagal playing a hard as nails karate kicking cop is more or less the same role as every other film he's been in as well. Why actor's like Sizemore, Hopper, Seagal & Peter Greene agreed to do Ticker is beyond me. Ice-T also makes a small appearance at the end.Ticker is an awful film, there are some unintentionally hilarious moments in it which makes it one of those car crash films which are a complete disaster but you can't take your eyes off it. Do yourself a favour & give this one a miss.

elshikh4 Yes, This comment may contain spoilers, but believe me.. It wouldn't matter at all !!It's not great for sure, although it's not that bad either. But when it comes to a movie with bombs maniac in it, I just prefer an Egyptian one named (Batal min warak - 1988) or (Hero Made of Paper); it was super thriller comedy, even by the American cinema measures (you can find it on the IMDb database). And as for (Ticker), I just want to talk about a bit of what provoked me. For instance, Jaime Pressly. She is one hot chick, no doubt about that. But in (Ticker).. it's painful experiment if you forced yourself to watch her till the end (yes, I did that to myself !!). There is no acting, hot moments, or anything exciting at all (except one witty surprise in the end). Dennis Hopper plays a very weak character, because simply there is no good motive with any meaning to justify all of this bombing here and there, only this funny desire to be Michelangelo of the exploding art ?!?!And above all.. The real thing to irritate, aggravate, annoy, and boil you.. The cool presence.. The very cooooool presence of the one and only : Mr. Steven Seagal.. The greatest of the worst action heroes ever !It was so boring here to wait that long to watch him in a fight (and it was just ONE fight !). However this time I was so lucky, because I've waited longer than that while watching his other movie (The Patriot - 1998) to have nothing at all eventually !! And believe me, in Ticker, you'll have your own share of laughs, especially in the climactic sequence, when the bomb is about detonation, and there is just minutes before the big BOOOM, and Seagal is giving a long philosophical lesson to Tom Sizemore, talking in his real ridiculous calm way about forgetting all of the fear and all of the hope too, plus whatever attaches you to death or life, and how that will make you so confident and successful and happy !!.. Because love is forever baby !!I think that was the very words of Steven Seagal himself as a Buddhist. I can see clearly how it's connected to whatever he believes in and performs too. Of course there is nothing wrong with Buddha and his wisdom, but there are many wrong things with Seagal and his career !In (Ticker) you can simply replace him and put for example (Peter Weller), he would be funnier. Or you can bring (Christopher Lambert) or (Armand Assante) instead, but I think as bombs expert, they would be that cheerful, or that mad, to blow it all up !! Hmmm.. maybe bringing (Tom Sizemore) himself would be good idea as his own twin brother, OH YEAH that would've made it more worth watching ! And let him be the one who killed his brother's family; WAW.. I think any of my nonsense is better than the "love never die" end !At last, I think that Steven Seagal as a star (or in the way of being an ex–star) released from his "fear" of losing, and his "hope" to be a true action star as (Jackie Chan) or (Sylvester Stallone). So he would do such movies like this over and over again. But I just ask myself not how could he be that bad every time without getting any better ? No.. I ask myself : If that's the case.. Who on earth would watch him again ?!

bob the moo Having lost his partner in a shootout, Detective Ray Nettles is keen to hold onto the woman he captured at the time (Claire) even though the matter now belongs with homicide rather than narcotics. He is given a chore to do that brings him into contact with the San Francisco Bomb Squad as led by Frank Glass. Quickly the two men realise that they have a common enemy in bomber Alex Swan, but Swan is one step ahead of them and demands the release of Claire without question or else he will start bombing San Francisco. When the police don't immediately respond a bar is destroyed in the first of a wave of attacks.I'm not sure what I can say to add the revulsion already on this page. It is hard to describe how poor this film is because the internet is full of people saying "this sucks" or "this rocks" but this genuinely does "suck" and it does it on pretty much every level and every aspect that you could imagine. The plot is a mess. It has basic elements to it that are poorly strung together in a manner that just left me cold and uninterested; the reasons for characters doing where they are doing are often nonsense and the lack of logic or internal reason is just brushed off and forgotten. The delivery of it lacks any sort of urgency and I was actually surprised by just how lacklustre the whole thing was – the "big" finish is a fine example, as it is plodding and as exciting as cold tea. I appreciate that this was made in less than two weeks but I did wonder why they didn't take a little longer if this was the outcome. Director Pyun seems entirely focused on getting the shot in the can and moving on and my god but it shows in every frame. Everything looks like it was done first time and that half the crew had moved on before the cameras had stopped rolling.His ability with action here also surprised me as his action scenes are roundly poor. I appreciate that the time restrictions had a part to play with that but it is hard to be forgiving when, for instances, people falling out of windows to their death is done by focusing on the hero's face while we hear "aargh" in the background! I have not seen any of Pyun's films that spring to mind but from this I can understand why people hate him! Which leads me to question then why so many well-known people got involved (some of them for practically seconds of screen time). This site puts the budget at an estimated $25,000,000 and, given so little of it is on the screen, then I can only assume that the starry cast all got a pretty slice of that pie for a few days work. Luckily only their time is wasted here because none of them are showing sufficient talent to claim that that has been wasted.Sizemore is a point in case as he mopes his way across the screen with a performance that suggests he was asleep seconds before each and every take. Seagal does the same and mumbles lots of "deep" stuff, confusing mumbling with being cool. There is no chemistry between the two men and watching their scenes together is akin to watching two rocks. Hopper turns in a performance so abysmal that I assume he got paid loads. His accent is terrible and it wanders throughout the film – next time he sees Speed I hope he feels some guilt about Ticker. Always a sign of quality, the film has a handful of hip hop stars here in the shape of Nas, Ice-T and Chilli. Nas is awful and his early death is hilarious. Ice-T and Chilli are in it for seconds and I do wonder why they bothered (other than the aforementioned payday). Pressly does nothing – not even her normal "sexy trailer trash" thing. The lack of quality runs deep; Greene can't even do a "painting by numbers" character justice and the only reason I can think for Halsey's terrible accent is that he is doing the acting equivalent of jumping on a grenade for Hopper – making him look good by comparison.A terrible film then, one that doesn't even the very basic things you expect from a "straight-to-video" action movie. The story is poor, the action badly done, the direction simplistic, the performances rubbish and the whole package cheap and derivative. Don't waste your time with this – it is telling that simply by viewing it, I actually invested more time and effort than many of those involved.

Film Critic This film was so bad that it was worth watching just to see how bad it could get! Seemed like it was going to be alright until Nas a.k.a. Det Fuzzy Rice dies, i thought maybe he was deliberately making his acting horrendous in order to trick Steven Segals character into thinking he was about to dye, BUT then he died!!! His last words i believe were "i'm so cold, cough cough, don't let your daemons defeat you! errrrrrrrrrk!".The "Don't let your daemons defeat you" line comes up a few times in the film but not much is done explain what these daemons are, why Steven Segal has them, or to push the fact that he is supposed to be a man suffering emotionally. It's all just mentioned in passing, so the lines just seem over-dramatic! I cant really remember what goes on in the rest of the film because the story line is muddled and i lost interest.What saves this film is the state of the art cutting edge special effects. ha ha no not really the effects are absolutely chronic too!! I especially like the bit when the car brakes and the blue screen background stops instantly, that was a corker, look out for that bit!!The director was terrible, the action wasn't worth remembering and the script was pants. The only reason it didn't get a 1 is because it was so bad it was comical! Think Segal should go back to big budget movies like Exit wounds and if he's getting to old or out of shape to fight as much, add a sidekick who can to his films to increase the action.