I’ve been a movie fan my whole life and have always enjoyed a good action movie, including Steven Seagal’s movies.

By the late 1990’s my taste for Steven Seagal’s movies changed because I was in my early twenties and regarded his movies in the same light as 1970’s TV shows. They were tired, old, and boring.

I didn’t start watching Steven Seagal movies again until the mid-2000’s when I got married. After settling down with my wife I realized that she loved Seagal’s movies, had all of them on DVD, and enjoyed watching them multiple times…..

Although I previously swore that Seagal’s movies were “terrible”, I slowly started watching them again and grew to like them.

Not That Bad…

By the mid-2000’s, Seagal had become a “pioneer” of the direct-to-DVD- movie market since most of his new movies could be found on DVD at local movie rental outlets like Hollywood Video, or grocery stores, instead of being released in the theaters first.

I became a fan of his newer movies like Shadow Man, Into the Sun, and The Keeper because these movies had “okay” stories, lots of action, and for the most part gave Seagal the ability to showcase his martial arts without looking like the aging action star that he was.

Much like Chuck Norris and his Walker Texas Ranger character, Seagal’s direct-to-DVD movies kept his fans interested in his career and with his work on television shows like True Justice, there was hope that his career could have a second life on TV.

Unfortunately, True Justice only lasted for a few seasons and Seagal continued on making 2-3 action movies per year, mostly in Eastern Europe, or Russia, where he’s admired by Russian President Vladimir Putin and was given a Russian Passport.

Maybe it was Seagal’s role as Russian enforcer in 2009’s Driven to Kill that led Putin to give him the Russian Passport?

Image Problem

Steven Seagal’s direct-to-DVD acting career continued going strong until about 2010 when for whatever reason he seemed to stop caring about his image on the screen and his roles in movies like Born to Raise Hell, Absolution, and Force of Execution showed the worse possible version of him on screen.

Sadly, by 2015 Seagal’s movies got even worse with his new goatee/beard and orange colored glasses that he’s worn in every movie he’s made over the last five years.

Worse than his image problem on screen, Seagal has also continued to act in terrible movies (End of a Gun) in recent years that had bad scripts and are prime examples of action movies at their worst.

Why have his movies been so bad recently? It could be the fact that Seagal has continued to make his movies in Eastern Europe where he’s still revered as an action movie star, or it could be that he’s no longer working with an agent who can advise him on which scripts he should pick and which ones really suck.

Now at the age of 65, Steven Seagal should either retire from making movies and focus on his law enforcement career or recommit himself to making good movies once again.

Can Seagal Stage A Comeback Again?

In this day and age of movie stars acting into their late 60’s and 70’s, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Seagal can revive his movie career, like Sylvester Stallone’s movie career, was revived following the success of his Expendable’s trilogy.

One good comeback movie on the horizon for Seagal is Above the Law 2 but if Seagal doesn’t prepare for that role and show up as the Steven Seagal that fans expect (like he did for Exit Wounds), it’s likely that Seagal will continue making crappy movies until producers stop sending him scripts.