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Fresh and Exciting

Excellent adaptation.

As Good As It Gets

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

I had even expectations for this film. On one hand, this was not only one of the rare filmic team-ups between Steven Seagal and a fellow action hero of similar caliber, but it was also the longest time the former had taken to make a movie in almost ten years - something I hoped was the result of more effort being made in the production. On the other hand, it was directed by Keoni Waxman, the filmmaker who's now officially worked with Steven Seagal more times than any other but whose vehicles are among my least favorite of Seagal's filmography. Then again, I liked Waxman's outing with Steve Austin well enough, so I considered that perhaps MAXIMUM CONVICTION here could achieve some kind of acceptable balance. I was right: the movie is acceptable, but far from great. It doesn't make all it could have of the collaboration between Seagal and Austin, but is still an okay-enough DTV action outing.The story: two private security contractors (Seagal and Austin) are caught up in a deadly situation when the two prisoners they had delivered to a secret prison are targeted by a lethal team of mercenaries led by an ex-CIA mastermind (Michael Pare).It needs to be said: however good they may look on paper, Steven Seagal and Steve Austin do not make very exciting partners. Of course, one factor is the limited screen time they share, but even when they're both in the same scene, they seem relatively apathetic to each other and don't display any discernible chemistry. On their own, they do alright, with Austin as definitely the more charismatic of the two but Seagal getting more fight scenes. They have equal amounts of screen time. The co-stars do fine but are sort of wasted: B-movie staple performer Michael Pare clomps his way through a boring role, and even though Steph Song - one of the aforementioned prisoners - has a good deal of award nominations to her name, she's given no strong acting scenes and her role could've been played by most anybody. The script by TRUE JUSTICE-regular Richard Beattie is pretty passive, highlighted only by a couple particularly mean-spirited deaths and the occasional funny line by Austin.The action is predominantly composed of shootouts, but there's nothing special to these. Seagal's stunt doubles are hidden relatively well, but at the expense of the editing, which is once again pretty choppy during his fight scenes - not as much as it has been in the past, but it's still pretty annoying. With that said, Seagal still gets the occasional cool move in, and the final brawl - though painfully one-sided - is fun to watch in a guilty way. Steve Austin only has one real fight, but prior to this he gets entertainingly innovative in the prison kitchen, turning a gas tank into a missile and attacking a mercenary with a pot of boiling water. The best fight in the movie doesn't belong to either of them, though: despite being stifled by the same editing present in Seagal's fights, Bren Foster brings an energy to his single brawl that the other encounters were sorely lacking. Overall, I deem the action content on the low side of passable.That also counts as my synopsis for the movie in general. Amateurish post-production inserts can be found here and there but are otherwise restrained, and Steven Seagal is doing his own voiceovers again, but these plus points are deflated a bit by the lackluster story and ho-hum pacing of the film. While it's a good deal better than the previous BORN TO RAISE HELL and therefore a general step up for Seagal (I'm not as well-versed in Austin's output, so I can't speak for him), it's not nearly all I was hoping for during the year-and-a-half spent waiting for it. Consider it a rental.

Two ex-Special Forces soldiers, Cross (Seagal) and Manning (Austin), who are "The Best" (obviously), are assigned to go into a prison and lead two female prisoners, Charlotte and Samantha (O'Brien and Song), who clearly were arrested for their appearances in Sex and the City, out of the building to safety. Trouble arises in the form of Blake (Pare), a super-evil baddie who wants the prisoners for his own reasons, which are not very clearly delineated. So Blake sends teams of his goons to go after Cross and Manning. As the four of them try to exit the building, the "secret identities" of the mysterious women slowly come out into the open. Meanwhile our two heroes have to use their training to fend off many attacks from the goons. Will they all make it out alive? The good: it was interesting that Steve n' Steve (as their team-up should invariably be called) weren't at odds and didn't bicker the whole time. They were on the same side, which was nice. Stone Cold certainly looks intimidating, which goes a long way, and kind of counterbalances Seagal's painted-on, Eddie Munster hair and the silliness that arises from the fact that because the movie is so dark (apparently the budget couldn't include ever turning on the lights - yes, it's one of those) - and Seagal wears loose, flowing black clothing, so he just looks like a floating head a lot of the time. That of course when he's not wearing a backwards baseball cap and sunglasses, in a patently absurd Mountain Dew-slamming attempt to look "young". And when you distill it all down, there's a few minutes worth of decent material, most of it coming from Austin and Pare.The bad news: Steven Seagal plays yet another unlikable mush-mouth who beats and mangles his fellow human beings with unnecessary cruelty and a marked lack of fun. He actually has an unlikable fighting style, if that makes any sense. Ostensibly it's Aikido, but thanks to Seagal's weight, his proclivity for slapping people, and the fact that he thinks he's Asian, he truly is America's E. Honda. But Honda was never a sadistic torturer like Seagal seems to have become in his more recent DTV efforts. We certainly don't want to pile on Seagal for his weight issues, on the contrary, this movie seems to be spinning his girth for the positive. For example, there are a few obvious shots of his double chin, and the character of Cross always seems to know what's going on, regardless of his location in the movie. So perhaps, as Spider Man has his "spidey sense", Cross has some sort of "double chin sense" that helps him.But as for the movie itself, besides the aforementioned lack of lighting, a horrible trend in movie-making we hope goes away soon, there are lots of gimmicky editing tricks, which don't need to be there and seem like an attempt to be "cool". There are CGI bullet hits, among other CGI stupidity, and the whole outing gets off to a slow start, a lot of the beginning portion could have been trimmed down. Pare is good, and we're glad he was involved, but we would have liked if his character had more dimension. He pretty much just says "get to the extraction point" numerous times and does a generic bad guy thing. If his character, not to mention all the other characters, had just a tad bit more depth, the movie would have been a lot better overall and you'd really care. But as it stands, its budgetary limitations show due to the fact that it was all shot in one location, in Canada no less - but the real problem is that this movie is, sadly, a product of the modern-day times. Baddies have iPads and the whole thing is just heartless and soulless.Despite a couple of little things going for it, the overall joylessness sinks Maximum Conviction.

why Manning don't want to snatch the gun from those intruders? And then after that they said their gears are so limited. Next they kill those intruders, but still, they even didn't snatch any rifles from those dead. Such a non-sense.Those bastard do not really have to cut the fingers for him to help them, didn't he already said that he want to help them already? But he still cut his fingers. Even then, on the camera room, this man hit that guy that already had his finger cut. Why not say it properly? He can explain. I know those man are the protagonist, but he really don't need to do that to get the information. Hangin' the gun upon his head is already enough I think, of even by giving threat with the trigger.Pretty disappointed that Steven Seagal is now much fatter than his past golden times.

Steven Seagal & Steve Austin - Together = Bad-Ass Entertainment! 'Maximum Conviction' is hard-core, fast-paced entertainment! The Plot is simple: The Bad-Guys mess up, our Heroes come to clean up.The Screenplay is fast-paced. Direction Wise, fair. The Action-Sequences are fantastic. Cinematography, Editing & Art Design, are proper. Seagal & Austin are in top-form. Seagal is the eternal Bad-Ass & Austin is just getting there. I truly enjoyed watching them both kicking-butt & delivering with such energy. On the whole, 'Maximum Conviction' worked for me. I Enjoyed!