Perfect Weapon, The |
USA / Spain / Sweden • 2016 • 87m •
  • Directed by: Titus Paar. • Starring: Steven Seagal, Richard Tyson, Vernon Wells, Johnny Messner, Sasha Jackson, Philip Fornah, Lance E. Nichols, Marshal Hilton, Emilien De Falco, Adrian Lockett, Titus Paar, Griffin Hood, Sarah Kate Allsup. • Music by: Simon Kölle.      In the not so distant future, society is controlled by the powerful State and a dictator known as the Director. Condor works as a hitman for the State, but a reunion with someone he thought was dead forces him to consider who his enemies really are.
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Review:
The Perfect Weapon's plot benefits from a strong opening that establishes an interesting amalgamation of settings and premises. Condor (Messner) was assigned to take out a politician who was beginning to question the State's rule and broadcasted a message doing so. Condor kills everyone involved, except for one woman which gets him into trouble for not obeying orders. He meets with the Controller (Tyson) and commits to his heel-turn instead of getting sent to the Director (Seagal) for punishment. After a strong first 10 minutes the plot falls into formula; parroting ideas from films like Equilibrium, 1984, and Hitman. Condor runs into Nina (Jackson), his old girlfriend who he believed to be dead and they join forces. There are some pretty bad moments such as a love scene between Condor and Nina that follows them escaping some bad guys which only exists to get them back into immediate danger. Condor and Nina are captured and brought to the Interrogator, who tortures Condor for the identity of the person who has helped him, although the State had captured both of them and the Interrogator acknowledged it. The audience is only told about outside assistance right as the identity is revealed, although it isn't hard to guess. Everything from that point onward is all standard fare, except the completely bonkers ending twist, which is indescribably stupid.
Characterization for all characters that are not Condor is bland. Condor is given a decent backstory that makes his previous devotion to the State logical. He is a man who has given up on ever having a life that does not serve the State. Once his beliefs are sufficiently challenged and Nina shows up, and was shown not to be dead as pronounced, his actions make sense too. Not a bad character at all. Nina is fine as a character, although her motivations are quite preposterous. The Interrogator is literally just a carbon copy of other bad guys to the point that he is actually called "the Interrogator". Come on. The same applies to the Controller, although his motivations make sense, the way he is presented is uninspired at best, boring at worst. The Director is the standard totalitarian authority figure that exists in nearly every movie set in a dystopian environment. Performances vary, with Messner making for a convincing portrayal of a man deceived. Although he did feel a little too restrained at points, which is understandable given his character's demeanor and profession, but does bring it down a bit. Sasha Jackson did okay as Nina, nothing terrible or great, just serviceable; although her native accent does slip through a couple of times. Richard Tyson and Vernon Wells seemed to be having fun playing their old-hat characters, but Wells only gets one scene and Tyson gets a few. Seagal is laughably bad here, clearly flubbing his lines and refusing to do a second take. He is only in the movie for around 10 minutes and does not care about anything other than the naked woman he probably required to take the role. At least he was not ADR'd in.
Action in The Perfect Weapon is bland, with little to set the scenes apart from the majority of low budget action films of the 21st century. Quick cuts are abound in a lot of scenes, even though it seems like Messner was doing most of his own action, or maybe he has a clone as his double. Nina does some entirely superfluous flipping in one scene that is sped up and slowed down like 300 but without the great timing, choreography, or investment. There are a lot of instances of practical blood which is always nice when it's visible, though there are a few CGI blood splatters. Only one action scene that is impressive around 30 minutes in and lasts for a couple minutes where Messner does some cool moves and there's some great effects work too. And, rather unsurprisingly for a Seagal movie post-2005ish, there are exactly no action scenes with him involved. The most he moved throughout the entire movie was from his bed to his chair. So props to him for getting more exercise there than in the past decade.
Unquestionably; the Perfect Weapon is low budget, although there is a lot of effort put into its production to make it seem otherwise. The design team markedly cared about making the movie look convincing, creating a cool looking lite future skyline and buildings. The set design leaves a lot to be desired but those responsible for this movie tried to make it look as best they could. Exposition is what takes up all of the dialogue and it sucks. There's a solid bit of world building with background items and generically named food and drink items that would have done the same thing and allowed for a script that isn't almost entirely characters spelling out their thoughts and feelings. The technical aspects are subpar, but I can't fault the movie too hard because it was clearly trying, at least some people involved were anyway.
While this is by no means a very good movie, in fact pretty damn far from perfect (get it?) it does have ideas, effort, and an interesting character in Condor. If there was a better script, more money, and less Seagal, the Perfect Weapon could have been cool. Instead it just becomes a subpar and disappointing series of events.
Review by TheRadiobox from the Internet Movie Database.
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