Exit Wounds

• Directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak
• March 16, 2001
• Based on the 1990 novel Exit Wounds by John Westermann

A Detroit police detective known for pushing the law to its limits gets caught up in a conspiracy involving dirty cops.

Exit Wounds is a movie that is more based in the late 80s/early 90s action movie logic than it is the mentality that was taking over when this was released. Steven Seagal is supercop Detective Orin Boyd that always gets the job done but his methods upset his superiors. Unlike the 80s in Exit Wounds the maverick cop experiences consequences with the status quo at the beginning being restored by the climax. This is a movie that came out when Steven Seagal had access to better budgets along with significantly better actors and is one of those movies that is enjoyable escapist fun.

Seagal co-stars with the likes of DMX, Isaiah Washington, Anthony Anderson, Michael Jai White, Bill Duke, Tom Arnold and Jill Hennessy hot off the success of RoboCop 3. These were people on the way up or already there in a movie starring a man that is much less well regarded now than they are. Tom Arnold was the go-to comic relief when Rob Schneider was unavailable. Seriously.

Boyd is supposed to be a best-of-the-best cop and notes something strange is going on in the opener but doesn’t do anything for purposes of the plot until the obvious villains take action. This early in the movie it would be hard to buy a supercop pummeling a guy and mostly getting away with it right off the bat but maybe question the guy that does not fit? Stranger still these people that planned a sophisticated assault and inserted their people dressed as cops unnoticed overlooked the guy with the slicked back hair and a tacky piercing that was a sharp contrast to all the other spit and polish. Really?

DMX is in this as a computer expert and billionaire whose real name is Leon Rollins posing as drug dealer Latrell Walker working to free his brother Shaun Rollins (Melvin Jason ‘Drag-On’ Smalls). One thing that bothered me, and maybe I am nitpicking here but in some of his scenes he has a habit of blinking a lot when the camera is close up to him. It comes off as odd and maybe even a bit inauthentic. Conversely though he had a presence and general charisma while performing that if he had dealt with his personal issues (and that weird blinking) could have given way to a respectable acting career beyond schlock like this with some acting classes.

The story of Exit Wounds is a police corruption conspiracy making it the whole city against Boyd and anybody that supports/helps him. Pretty generic but kudos to how the stolen drugs are smuggled. Not sure if it would work in reality but it is original.

Jill Hennessy as Commander Annette Mulcahy who runs the Satan’s armpit precinct that Boyd gets transferred to probably gives a performance that would be well regarded in a movie designed to appear more artistic. She was giving it her all in a movie that really did not deserve a top-notch effort by anyone. She is forceful and authoritative without being cartoonish and not ridiculously unreasonable just for the purposes of slowing up Boyd’s quest.

Though its use in film has since died down, here we get in chase scenes the front end of a car or two smacking the pavement to generate sparks. Certainly adds a bit of excitement or drama to the moment but if you’ve ever done that by accident in real life without the kind of speed that is being implied in the scenes here you know your car does not keep running because you just cracked the radiator and all the coolant is leaking out. Even before I drove I knew that would happen and that is one thing cliché that really bugs me when it appears.

There’s no big surprises and you can practically predict what’s gonna happen. Certain characters do get forgotten by the end and as per usual essentially all is forgiven of Boyd no matter how egregious it was. He pissed everybody off but by the credits everybody loves him. He got kicked to the curb because of optics but now the optics of using more munitions than WWII to stop the baddies and in doing so incidentally level some of the city is better?

The finale is one of those finales with guns blazing. It is a massive battle with enough near death moments to trigger PTSD where everybody is shooting and complete with an attempted helicopter escape. Rollins gets involved in what amounts to a sword fight with the corrupt Detective Matt Montini (David Vadim) when both run out of bullets and start swinging rifles. Not sure I ever saw that before. Michael Jai White as Sergeant Lewis Strutt is criminally underused in the climax as well as the whole film. Talented actor and action performer.

Exit Wounds is a strangely entertaining movie. Seagal is no great thespian, but he does manage to create something entertaining here. Maybe not an actual Classic but worthwhile action viewing.