Hard to Kill (1990)

 

Steven Seagal is back in his second feature film, Hard To Kill.  It's an appropriate title, not only for this film but also for Seagal's career in general as he's always portrayed a character that's nearly invincible.  Hard To Kill although is one of the few Seagal films that his character is almost killed, as he's pumped full of shotgun shells and left for dead, only to make a miraculously recovery and seek revenge on the scumbags who ruined his life.

Seagal plays Mason Storm a Los Angeles cop who obtains some incriminating evidence on a high profile individual contracting a hit on someone.  Before Storm is able to figure out who the person contracting the hit is he's stabbed in the back by a couple crooked fellow cops who are in on it.  Storm and his family become a prime target in an attempt to acquire the evidence and prevent it from going public.  Storm is shot multiple times in the chest with a shotgun, his wife is murdered and his young son narrowly escapes.  Thought to be dead, Storm's life hangs by a thread as he spends the next seven years in a coma under the name John Doe.  Once he wakes up and those who thought him dead learn he's alive, Storm is a prime target once again, and so is Andy Stewart (Kelly LeBrock) the nurse whose been watching over him.

With a little better storyline than Above The Law, Hard To Kill is still hard to swallow at times.  Seagal seems to almost stand by as his wife gets blown away, where in any other film he would have had the guy unconscious and on the floor in five seconds!  Also his magnificent recovery after seven years in a coma, he's able to go from being unable to walk to kicking peoples butts in a matter of weeks, maybe months!?!  It's all a little too hard for me to believe, even for a Steven Seagal film.  I did enjoy the plot of the story a lot more than his first film, which was all over the place and hard to follow.  And the addition of the lovely Kelly LeBrock (of Weird Science and also Seagal's wife at the time) was a lot better than Sharon Stone's brief role as his wife in Above The Law.  Overall, Hard To Kill is a slight improvement in Seagal's early career, but still nothing to brag about.

6/10