By Geno McGahee
“You tell your asshole boss that nobody threatens me.” – Jack (Steven Seagal)
I am a big fan of Steven Seagal. I know he’s got a bad reputation and that most contend that he’s difficult to work with but I’m not going to allow those people and their negativity stop me from enjoying his work. In 1996, the action style that had made Seagal and others so popular was going away and the people were gravitating toward the underdog action hero rather than that badass tough guy that Seagal presented. In 1996, Seagal went in a slightly different direction with an action thriller known as THE GLIMMER MAN and took on Keenen Ivory Wayans as his co-star in this odd couple sort of film. This formula can work really well as it did in LETHAL WEAPON and RUSH HOUR, but there was no chemistry and the relationship immediately seemed forced.
Written by Kevin Brodbin and directed by John Gray, THE GLIMMER MAN was the work of some relative novices in the business. Brodbin didn’t have any action films under his belt and neither did Gray and this may have been the first and biggest problem heading into this film. Seagal plays Lt. Jack Cole, a New York City detective that is transferred in to work with Det. Jim Campbell (Wayans) to investigate a serial killer known as “the family man.” Cole is mysterious and dresses rather strange. I guess there is no dress code. Whatever the case, Campbell reluctantly teams up with Cole and they begin trying to solve the case.
As they are driving, they hear that there is a hostage situation at a religious school. Campbell wants to keep driving, but Cole insists they respond. Johnny (Johnny Strong) has his classroom hostage and is holding them all at gunpoint, including his ex-girlfriend, Millie (Nikki Cox). Cole walks in and puts down his gun to negotiate with Johnny, but it doesn’t go well and Johnny quickly puts the gun to his own head. After a daring tackle through two windows, Johnny is saved. His father, Frank Deverell (Bob Gunton), shows up to pay his respects to the man that saved his stepson, but Cole isn’t having any of it. I found that sort of strange…unless he knew immediately that he was crooked. Perhaps it’s that enlightened sense that he had that told him that Frank was a jerk off or he just saw THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION and knew that he could not be trusted.
Cole and Campbell are on the trail but they stumble upon a group of thugs trying to steal a car. I could not believe that Dae Han of BEST OF THE BEST and BEST OF THE BEST 2 was stealing a car. Simon Rhee will always be Dae Han as far as I’m concerned and I wish that he approached Seagal and offered himself as his brother in exchange for not arresting him. Anyway, Cole and Campbell start some not so humorous banter with the thugs when the Russian mafia comes out. There is a hit on both of them and they intend to collect the money, but Cole can fight and has a razor blade credit card that he used to great effect. All the mobsters are dead, but I think Dae Han lived. Perhaps this is when he lost that eye. I wonder if we see him purchasing an eye patch in the deleted scenes.
After Cole’s wife is found dead, he goes to see an old acquaintance. He used to work for Mr. Smith (Brian Cox) and finds him at a fancy restaurant. A bunch of goons try to stop Cole, but he beats them all to a pulp and does at least a quarter of a million dollars damage to the place. At one point he grabs some poor big bald guy’s junk and gives it a squeeze before tossing him into the wine rack. I would ask “can I be the goon that doesn’t get his cock grabbed” before filming. Do the actors that play the extra goons in film get to choose if there is a cock grabbing scene? Is there more money involved? If I was acting and they said there was a dude that was going to grab my crotch and squeeze like there’s no tomorrow, I would ask for 20% more pay or a happy ending.
Mr. Smith and THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION guy are in cahoots and must stop Cole and Campbell. In the meantime, they track down the serial killer and it’s played by Stephen Tobolowsky. Tobolowsky usually gets cast as an annoying nerdy character, but they gave him a shot here to be a killer and he did a very good job. His role was small in this, but he made it count and that is the case with many of the actors in this film. This film had such a great cast but they didn’t have a lot to work with. A final showdown happens and everything turns out well. Cole and Campbell are now friends and the city is saved for now…
THE GLIMMER MAN was doomed to fail from jump. The story is very generic and the writing isn’t very good. Steven Seagal has strengths and this film did not really utilize them. He is not going to be able to pull off a role where he is the comedic relief. He is the tough guy. He’s good at it and all of the sarcastic humor that is thrown in here is forced and unfunny. Keenen Ivory Wayans, the most talented of the Wayans’s family, could not find his groove here. He was in such an unoriginal role without much depth. Brodbin, the writer, had obviously seen a lot of films like this and tried to replicate it, but came up very short.
I am really disappointed by this film. The cast was so good with Nikki Cox, Wayans, Seagal, Gunton, Tobolowsky and Richard Gant, but it just wasn’t there. There was zero chemistry between the leads and the attempt to make the story twisty and complex made it more unbelievable. This was Seagal spreading his wings and I believe that the idea was to see if Wayans and Seagal melded and if they did, to turn it into a series like LETHAL WEAPON. They may have had that chance, but there was no way it was going to happen with the writer and director they had behind this.
THE GLIMMER MAN is one of the weakest films in the Seagal collection up to this point in time. It trudges along. It has moments that are decent but it gets boring really quickly and moves along at a snail’s pace. The comedic relief throughout doesn’t work and there isn’t enough bang for the buck. As much of a Seagal fan that I am, this one you should pass on. It’s pretty terrible.
Rating: 4/10
