Bullet Points: Above the Law
Before Steven Seagal was fake kicking the shit out of people and way before he ballooned up and pretended to be some sort of Lawman, he was legitimately beating people senseless and twisting their limbs into positions they’re not meant to be. It’s rare that an actor would have writing credits and producing credits on his first starring role but just wait and see what Seagal does later in his career. He’s a man who has always done things his way, for better or worse, and he’s lived with the consequences. I can’t name a single film he’s made in the past decade but his first several have lived rent-free in my head for 30 years. This is one of them….
Synopsis: A former Special Operations Vietnam vet works as a Chicago cop, and uncovers C.I.A. wrongdoing.
- We gotta have him: The film opens with actual pictures of Seagal as a young pup and it even has his very calm and soothing voice narrating. He was an immigrant, he started learning martial arts, and then he went to Japan to train with the masters. He was whooping ass so hard that they recruited him for the CIA.
- Shadow Warriors: For every war that the American government has fought since the end of WW2, the CIA has had operators on convert missions doing who knows what behind the scenes. I’m sure much of it would make your stomach turn but somehow they still get away with it. Seagal’s Nico Toscani was one such agent who runs into one bad mamma-jamma played by Henry Silva. Zagon is his name and using chemicals and drugs to interrogate and torture is his game.
- Cops being cops: Chicago definitely seems like a different city in 80’s films. It’s full of mostly mafia goons and big-time drug runners. The Chicago of today probably still has those elements but the day-to-day chaos doesn’t feel the same. Here, Nico and his fellow detectives go around and find the crimes. I guess that isn’t really what their jobs are meant to be but Nico plays by his own set of rules and often times that means he’s gonna break someone’s arm.
- Not the church: There are plenty of messed up things you can do to a leading man but messing with his family and blowing up his church are two of the worst. The fact that so often comes up in action movies is a testament to the inspiring nature of watching such a thing happen. Nico’s church gets a bomb dropped in it during a service and Nico does the hero thing and carries the bloodied bodies from the smoke. I’m sure the entire time he was thinking of how bad he was gonna fuck those guys up.
- Just keep shootin’: When life has you by the balls, just keep shootin’. I think Gretzky or some other athlete said that but Nico takes it another way entirely. He shoots a bunch of guys. He’s also more than willing to chop a dude’s hand off with a machete and I think that’s an important precedent to set for all of those bad guys who might bring one to the table. Seagal has never had a problem laying out the violence and Above the Law makes it very personal. Not only with his church and his family but also because his partner Pam Grier is moving on to the DEA soon.
- Nobody makes him bleed his own blood: As we’re gearing up for the finale, something unexpected happened. Nico got captured. It’s an incredibly bad situation when you remember that Zagon tortures people and kills them for fun. Well, this torture scene with Seagal isn’t one of those really special ones from the 80’s where the hero gets zapped and slapped for a while before finally breaking free and killing Gerald Okamura. No, in Above the Law Seagal just kills these mother fuckers in like two minutes. It’s the type of ending I would write for myself, so I guess it makes sense.
The Verdict: When you watch a movie like this at a young age (like I did), you don’t really understant what it is that you’re taking in. Sure, Seagal is a wrecking ball of destruction; whooping asses, uttering cool one liners, and being married to Sharon Stone. It’s pretty much the ultimate trifecta of an action star and it’s only his FIRST ACTION MOVIE. What is more obvious now is how this film feels about federal agencies, and more specifically, the CIA. The entirety of the film is spent trashing the Agency and while Seagal’s character once worked for them, he’s long since renounced the way they do business and it’s clear he wants nothing to do with them. As this movie was made in 1988, the stain of the War in Vietnam is absolutely present, but much of what’s mentioned in this movie is given even more weight when we consider the wars that the United States has been involved in since the late 80’s. If only the Gov’t was as good at keeping us out of wars as it is at profiting from them. Either way, this movie kicks so much ass it’s hard to believe that it was Seagal’s first. I’ve said it many times, you find me an actor with a better first five slate of films than Seagal and I’ll be a fan forever. Above the Law doesn’t just open the door for Seagal, it kicks the fucker off the hinges.
