Heroes of comedy: Steven Seagal

True Justice

5USA

When Sunset Boulevard's Norma Desmond said "I'm still big, it's the pictures that got small," it was as if she was some Hollywood soothsayer, peering far into the future and glimpsing the career of one Steven Seagal.

But Seagal is still big. Very big. Huge, in fact. In terms of bigness he's up there with Marlon Brando in the great man's autumn years.

The pictures, however, have gotten small. Very small. From the highs of Hard to Kill and Under Seige, Seagal went to bargain basement action hero, appearing in straight-to-DVD actioner after straight-to-DVD actioner. And now our boy has decided to cut out the DVD bit and go straight to the TV.

Witness, then, the undisputed triumph that is True Justice, in which our Steve not only stars, he produces and writes the script. If only he would sing the theme tune.

In True Justice Steven Seagal plays Steven Seagal, although in the show everybody insists on calling him Elijah Kane. However, we know the truth: it's Steven Seagal.

But Seagal isn't coasting. He's not playing the usual tough cop who mumbles every other word, dresses in black and leads a one-man war on the bad guys. No, because now he's playing a tough cop who mumbles every other word, dresses in a black and leads a team of impossibly pretty young things in a war on the bad guys. Versatility - it's Seagal's middle name.

The plot? Something about drug dealers, I think. And strippers. Oh, and drugs. Drugs were in there too, although to be honest I'm really not sure what they were doing. After twenty minutes it was as if Bob Crow had climbed into my brain and called a strike.

Perhaps it was the dialogue that did it. There was a wonderful bit near the start where a undercover member of Team Seagal approached a drug dealer. "Ever tried horse?" said the drug dealer. "What, heroin?" asked the cop - just in case there's anybody watching who didn't know that horse is a slang word for heroin.

Still, whatever was going on, Seagal was taking out the trash. And nobody takes out the trash like Seagal takes out the trash. You may be able to take out the trash, but you won't, in you wildest dreams, have taken out the trash like Steven Seagal takes out the trash. When he takes out the trash it stays out. And that's because Steven Seagal don't like no trash. He hates trash. Trash upsets him. It offends him. And so he takes it out. Don't go around to Steven Seagal talking no trash because he might just take you out, too. Because he don't like no trash.

However, you never actually see him doing it. When Seagal fights the bad guys there's a really weird thing that happens; you see Seagal's face, you see his fist, you see the baddy, but when fist and baddy collide in their deadly dance of death the camera pulls right back and Seagal's face vanishes. Instead you glimpse a black shirted torso, perhaps a bit of jet black hair, but you never see Seagal's face in the same shot when he connects with the trash he's hell-bent on taking out. It's almost as if someone else is taking out the trash for him. A stuntman, say. (But that's an impossibility. Seagal takes out his own trash. That's what he does. He takes out the trash.)

So, one episode down and twelve to go. But I'm afraid Seagal will be taking out that trash on his own. I'll go back to the Sweeney for a bit of realism.

By Andrew Owen