Today You Die

• Directed and Shot by Don E. FauntLeRoy
• September 13, 2005

A criminal trying to go straight seeks vengeance when framed for a crime.

Sometimes a good sounding title is enough to give you hope. Today You Die is one such title. Sadly this is mostly your typical Steven Seagal movie where he’s the best of the best but kind of humble about it but also kind of brags about it. Despite moving slowly and having a little bit of heft to him he’s fantastic at karate or kung fu or whatever martial arts he supposed to be doing and irresistible to the ladies. Excuse me while I heave…

Seagal plays Harlan Banks who is a criminal with a heart of gold who gives most of the money he makes-which I’m guessing is a huge sum-to charity? I’m not exactly sure, but he helps people and in this case he takes a job which he thinks is legitimate yet the interview process is quite shady and wouldn’t you know it? He gets double crossed and somehow manages to hide all the money before the police find him and throw his ass in jail. And you know something after all is said and done I have absolutely no idea where he hid the money. Maybe I just tuned out before the answer came or they never thought to explain that part.

Anyway Harlan gets close with FBI Agent Rachel Knowles (Sarah Buxton) who is trying to uncover things but is hindered by her jerky boss FBI Agent Saunders (Nick Mancuso) who clearly is involved in something nefarious. Subtlety is not in the script here. Harlan eventually decides to escape from prison with the help of fellow prisoner Ice Kool (Treach) who has the resources to call in a helicopter to escape but waits until he meets up with Harlan for no good reason.

The story just kind of staggers from the introduction to the armored car job to prison and then out of prison and then vengeance. It makes more sense than some of Seagal’s other movies but like I said it just stumbles. Slow walks might be a slightly better description since there appears to be focus but no rush to get anywhere.

A villain can make a movie so maybe a generic villain (or performance anyway) is the issue. Max (Kevin Tighe) is a conman who easily tricks Harlan into being a driver. The whole situation is hinky, but Harlan accepts without question. Max is not a villain but really just a d**k. And his most outstanding characteristic is his beard. That’s really all I can say about him. He’s no different than dozens of other B-movie villains.

This straddles a weird place. It gets to almost the guilty pleasure enjoyment of Steven Seagal’s heyday but also almost descends to the lazy depths of his most recent direct-to-video work. It can never reach higher or sink lower.

But is it entertaining? To an extent but not nearly enough to be sought out. The action scenes are okay but nothing special. Seagal in his moments is clearly replaced by a slimmer and perhaps taller body double. Admittedly he’s not at his heaviest here but the dude they shoot from the back is definitely in better shape. And what is with his girl that’s about half his age that’s so in love with him? Way out of his league. 

While a great title, Today You Die is not a great movie. It’s not even an adequate guilty pleasure. The only guilt you will ever feel concerning this is that you took the time out to watch. Skip!