One should revisit the movie Out for Justice. It has the simple story of a cop’s partner getting killed by local hoodlum and that cop’s vow for revenge. There, that’s that. You don’t need much else for a story. Maybe sprinkle in a few subplots in there about family drama and the mob to “take care of” the hoodlum their way.
But a cop like Gino Felino doesn’t like to go with the flow; he likes to do things his way. The neighborhood way. At one point, he TELLS a top mob guy, in a sit down for a parley, that if they don’t find Richie (the bad guy) before he does then they KNOW what he’s gonna do.
Gulp.
At this point, you know Gino’s not here to mess around. He’s going to bully, push around and even beat up a bartender to get what he wants.
Gino has layers, though. He has a marriage he needs to fix and even tries to make time to play baseball with his kid. And throughout the movie, he also works on being a better person to the point where he picks up a dog that was thrown out by some Tom Arnold look alike and adopts the poor mutt.
He’s an animal lover.
He even asks someone “who’s hot dog is this?” while he rousts a bar. Baby steps, people, baby steps.
As far as the rest of the movie goes, the bad guy is out running around smoking crack, taking about what a pest a mouse can be and killing bitchy women and paraplegics. This guy’s not here to mess around either. But this guy doesn’t have layers like Gino. This guy is just a straight-up bad guy with a death wish. He killed Gino’s partner! He knows who Gino is. They even grew up together! So he knows what he did. But that crack makes a bad guy do bad guy things. One could also think of this as a cautionary tale on drugs.
So don’t smoke crack, kids.
One could go on and on and see all the layers and hidden messages of this movie, but if anything it deserves a second look. It has the gritty feel of movies like The Departed and shows like The Wire and The Shield. So, if you have nothing to do and want to revisit one Steven Seagal movie, this should be the one for you.
And then watch John Wick as a double bill.
What’s your favorite Steven Seagal movie? Is it The Shallows? Tweet us @Official_FAN with your pick or with the important lesson you learned from watching Out For Justice.
Hit Mando up on twitter @manbat33 and check out his podcast: The Talented Slackers! on iTunes & Soundcloud.
