By Matthew Essary (Twitter: @WheelsCritic)
Scott Adkins has, over the last twenty years, quietly amassed a body of work that clearly designates him as the top action film performer in the western world. An interesting thing happened though during that time period. Between a breakneck schedule of starring roles in low budget action films and small roles in bigger projects, Adkins has shown that he is not only a gifted screen martial artist and stunt performer but also a talented actor.
These two sides to Adkins came together beautifully in the 2019 release AVENGEMENT. In that film, all aspects of the film shine under a masterful performance by Adkins where his character work left as deep an impression as the film’s beautifully savage fight scenes. As a long-time fan of Adkins’s work, I was blown away and even included the film on my year-end “Best of” list. I felt like this would lead to a new level of quality projects and success for him and his collaborators.
I was ecstatic to learn that one of his follow-ups to AVENGEMENT would be a reuniting with the filmmaker who first brought him international acclaim, with the UNDISPUTED series, director Isaac Florentine. Florentine was the first person to see the star potential in Adkins and it seemed like with Adkins’s newly revealed range as an actor, and their mutual love of on-screen mayhem, that he and Florentine could craft a truly classic action film.
The result of that collaboration is SEIZED. In the film, Adkins plays “Richard”, a cybersecurity expert living in Mexico, with his young son (Matthew Garbacz), whose quiet life is upended when the boy is kidnapped by Cartel members led by a drug lord named “Mzamo” (Mario Van Peebles, NEW JACK CITY). Mzamo knows that before relocating to Mexico, Richard was actually a government assassin named “Nero”. So, now Mzamo is forcing Richard to take out his cartel rivals in a one-day killing spree with Richard’s son acting as the reward for successfully completing the grisly mission. Richard is left with a crate of guns, a vehicle with a GPS that will lead him to each target, and a body armor vest with a built-in camera so that he can be watched by Mzamo during the entire ordeal.
It’s a fun set up for an action film and SEIZED is enjoyable but it’s not the classic I had hope for. It even feels like a bit of a step backward for Scott Adkins. Let me explain…
To begin with, the parallels to video games are pretty clear in the film; driving from place to place with only minimal justification to link together the violent conflicts that will happen at each stop along the journey is very much “gaming” territory. At the beginning of the first hit, Mzamo tells Richard to “get in there and play ‘Call of Duty’” but it feels like watching the mission structure of the “Grand Theft Auto” video games being realized in live-action more than anything else, complete with all the narrative flaws that entails.
The film never develops much more depth beyond that parallel either. Richard is basically “Scott Adkins, the ass-kicking dad” and that’s it. I don’t blame Adkins for this, it’s simply a fault of the script. He’s only asked to beat down bad guys and look good doing it. At this point in Adkins’s career though, it’s hard to see that as anything but a waste for not utilizing him to his full potential. Other films that Adkins has done where action is the main focus, like his frequent collaborations with director Jesse V. Johnson, still find moments to let Adkins stretch his dramatic or comedic muscles. Not here, though.
Looking at it objectively, this shouldn’t be surprising. Isaac Florentine’s films are always their weakest when anything but action is center stage. There is a reason why his most successful and beloved film, UNDISPUTED 3, casts Adkins as a stoic bruiser competing in a story about a martial arts tournament that is just packed with wall-to-wall fight sequences. It allowed Florentine to accentuate his strengths as a filmmaker while simultaneously downplaying his weaknesses.
That being said, the action sequences in SEIZED are of course top-notch. The stunt and action choreography by Art Camacho (Cinemax’s BANSHEE) and Larnell Stovall (BLOOD AND BONE) is exciting, intricate, and filmed by Florentine in such a way that always captures the energy of the sequences and shows them from their best possible angle. My one complaint here is that there are not any extended fight sequences between Adkins and other talented martial artists. Except for an all too brief one-on-one fight with UFC veteran Uriah Hall, the action mostly consists of Adkins taking out small groups of attackers with gunfire or well-places strikes with little effort. It’s all exciting and fun but when Hall and Adkins square off and there is a moment, mid-fight, where they stop to adjust their fighting stances before clashing again that made me wish that SEIZED had more emphasis on classic martial arts-style action.
The one aspect of the film where I have no complaints though is Mario Van Peebles and his portrayal of Mzamo. Van Peebles has spent the last several years acting and directing for television and it’s easy to forget his stint as a B-level action star in the mid-1990s. Here, he returns to it all with a level of commitment and enthusiasm that is admirable and refreshing. He is clearly having a ball every time he is on screen, clad in an iconic all-black outfit complete with matching cowboy hat. His role is also the only one that extends beyond being one-dimensional and he nails the subtlety at every turn. He even, at the age of sixty-three, looks fully capable in the action scenes the film puts him in. When the credits on SEIZED rolled, he was the character I wanted to spend more time with.
SEIZED is a movie Scott Adkins fans, and action movie fans in general, will enjoy. It’s just very slight, both figuratively and literally, clocking in at well below ninety minutes even with credits. It also doesn’t contain anything new or innovative for Adkins. It’s simply a fun romp and I just can’t help but want more for him as a performer. Maybe he’s outgrown the kind of films that Isaac Florentine can make? Whatever it is, I will always eagerly await to see what Adkins does next and hopefully one of those future projects includes another pairing with a very game Mario Van Peebles. (3/5)
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