Warner Home Video, 2001   Starring:  Steven Seagal, DMX and Isaiah Washington   Directed by:  Andrzej Bartkowiak   Screenplay:  Ed Horowitz and Richard D’Ovidio (but who really cares)   Strangely enough, Bartkowiak did a good job in so far as the direction (if there really was any) was not something I noticed.  Then again, it might just have been overshadowed by the (bad) acting abilities of Steven Seagal and Tom Arnold.  Don’t get me wrong, I like Seagal fairly enough when I am in the mood for an action flick (also don’t get me wrong that I loathe Tom Arnold) but the man does have the range of a three egg omelet (or perhaps that is being unkind to the variety one can get in omelets).  I suppose that should not be surprised that the direction was good (and by that I mean I didn’t notice it which is one of the two types of good direction in my opinion) as Bartowiak also directed Romeo Must Die back in 2000 and that was an excellent film.   I accidentally rented this movie for the second time last weekend when the little woman was away.  It just seemed like exactly the kind of movie that she would not want to see.  Through shear stupidity and the fact that this shoot-em-up movie is completely un-memorable, it must have seemed that way once before when she was away.   And you know what?  For what it was, this was an all right flick.  Not Seagal’s best (that really sounds like an oxymoron) but hardly his worst either.   There is not a LOT to say about this movie.  The best bit is Tom Arnold (who I still hate) and Anthony Anderson (who I like but just barely so) shooting the shit during the credits.  If that bit had lasted an extra 5 minutes the $2.60 I spent renting this standard-fare  super cops and robbers movie would have been very well spent.  Or perhaps I was just so punch-drunk by the time the movie was over that anything would have been funny.   Not especially great as far as action flicks go, the movie was still worth renting if you are in the mood for some fairly mindless nonsense killing.  There was, however, one thing that really annoyed me:  Seagal, at one point, shows up to meet his boss in a very obvious truck which he has borrowed from Anthony Anderson’s character (who was, prior to this, believed to be a bad guy – sorry to blow that “plot twist” for you).  The real bad guys have set up an ambush for either Seagal (which would be most obvious since they  hate him) or his boss (which would be less obvious because she is hot).  The bad guys should know the truck and yet, nothing is made of it.  In the end, it kind of all makes sense and I can look back and say “Oh, yeah . Seagal should have seen that coming” but at the time it felt like a really obvious flaw.    Anyway, if the wife or girlfriend is away and you are looking for something to do other than troll the bars for women you know you won’t pick up, you might as well rent this movie as any other of many in the genre.  On second thought, see if there is something good you haven’t seen yet.