Shitty Movie Sundays: Attack Force

According to the internet (so it must be true), director Michael Keusch delivered a completed film called Harvester to his producers, only they weren’t happy with the final product. The screenplay was reworked, minor players were called back for reshoots, and other scenes had dialogue overdubbed. The result is Attack Force, a movie that is hopelessly discombobulated. Whatever Keusch’s competency as a storyteller, or lack thereof, it has been erased in this Frankenstein’s monster of a movie. I’m sure that Harvester was never going to be a good flick, but it couldn’t possibly have been worse than the shitfest that is Attack Force, could it?

Keusch directed, but this is very much Steven Seagal’s flick. He starred, shared a screenwriting credit with Joe Halpin, and is listed as a producer, so he might even be responsible for the butchering. Intrepid Reporter Missile Test is curious, but not enough to pick up the phone and find out for sure.

Seagal plays military bigwig Marshall Lawson, who is involved in some spec ops counter-terrorism stuff, because that’s just typical for a Seagal flick. Also, the desiccated pelt that passes for a hairdo and all the black leather he wears would be verboten in the regular army, and the man had an image as a badass to protect, so his character ain’t the ‘yessir, no sir’ type.

He and his number two, Dixon (David Kennedy), are somewhere in France preparing for an op, when three of his team are killed by a hooker on drugs (Evelyne Armela O’Bami, in her only IMDb credit), and it’s off to the races as far as the plot is concerned. Things were already Attack Force DVD coververy weird in this movie, as the first few lines spoken by Seagal were not spoken by him, but by the voiceover actor the producers hired as part of the rework. The guy they hired sounds more like Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now than Seagal, but it doesn’t really matter. Seagal’s rerecorded voice is a small sin in a movie whose plot is impossible to penetrate.

Apparently, Harvester, the original movie, had aliens in it. That’s pretty wild. Even wilder is excising that part of the plot after the film had been finished and still trying to make something coherent. The filmmakers failed.

Within twenty minutes of this film’s open, the plot makes no sense, and there are too many characters to keep track of. Seagal seemed more interested in feeding his ego than in making a genuine contribution to the movie. It was enough for him that he showed up and graced the production with his presence, occasionally shooting someone in the face or waving his arms around in a sad parody of his very real skills in aikido. If one needs any more proof that this flick is an ego-driven foray, an early line from a supporting character, referring to Seagal’s Marshall Lawson, goes, “…the man walks with an air of confidence rarely seen in this day and age.” Oh, my goodness. I’m pretty sure that’s one of the lines Seagal wrote.

This flick is all poorly executed gunplay and hand-to-hand fight scenes. The reworked plot ditches a secret alien invasion in favor of an experimental drug that turns hip people of the night into killers.

This is the type of film that is all noise and no signal. It’s a direct-to-video cheapie that features Steven Seagal, which means enough sales were made from the discount DVD rack at the gas station to make a profit. Either that, or it was a money laundering scheme. For us viewers, it’s a dog amongst dogs, barely worth a look.

Attack Force is garbage, and earns its poor watchability rating. It takes over the #312 spot in the Index from The Job. Stay away.

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