Just wanted to comment, as a resident of the Westbank of Jefferson Parish:
Seagal works in the Third District, which covers part of Harvey and Marrero, LA. From what I’ve been able to determine, he works kind of like a reserve cop, not a full time beat cop. He was brought into the department for martial arts training and therefore carries a high rank as a trainer. Nobody’s been able to answer if he regularly did any kind of street work prior to the filming of the show.
The Third District is by far the worst of Jefferson Parish (I live in the Second District). However, what they show is the worst of the worst. There are a bunch of small areas of the third district that are really bad, and that’s about all they showed. I guess this holds true for all ‘cops’ type shows. I’ve watched other shows and thought that all of Los Angeles, or NYC, etc. is just a huge ghetto, but for the purposes of the show, there’s no reason to show the good areas.
He does seem to be a permanent resident of Jefferson Parish…I’ve seen him in a few different places on the road. He drives a Chrysler with personalized plates. He’s also a regular at a Vietnamese Restaurant in the same shopping center as my office.
Watched the first episode (1/2 hour) and then the last half of the second.
He’s listed in the credits as Executive Producer, before the other EP.
He’s also listed as a Reserve Officer Chief. Had to watch for that, because he has two stars on his shoulder. Also noted that the Captain he drives around with calls him Sir.
So what that tells me is that he’s top dog, the top officer that will be in any scene, and he owns and runs the TV show. So therefore he will never be shown in any kind of bad light, except the Ego bits were he’s trying to show off his “wisdom” and badassery for the cameras.
Note: I’m not particularly a fan of Steven Seagal. As I noted in the thread on his movies: Jackie Chan, Jet Li and even Chuck Norris regularly get the crap beat out of them in their own movies and shows, then win in the end. Not Steven Seagal. He’s always, ALWAYS portrayed as this Untouchable Badass from start to end.
Oh yeah - that review was pretty spot on. I told someone today that I watched it and the only thing more awesome than watching Steven Seagal was watching Steven Seagal tell me how awesome Steven Seagal is.
I enjoyed the show. It has an over-the-top feel that makes it quite fun to watch. I also want to see him snap a suspect’s neck when they look at him wrong.
Isn’t Seagal the one some movie made fun of as fat and washed up? I’m pretty sure it was Jim Belushi. This was about 10 years ago.
I read somewhere Seagal snorted his career away with the white powder. It’s been so long since this guy was relevant that the news sources are gone.
Found the movie. Joe Somebody Tim Allen and Jim Belushi. He plays a fat, washed up Seagal character.
I got my names mixed up Jean-Claude Van Damme is the marital arts actor with the cocaine problem. He’s discussed it in interviews. Google has several references.
Far as I know, Steven Seagal has not been connected with drugs. My apologies. I shouldn’t have trusted 15 year old memories.
I think they’re doing some shenanigans with the show. I was watching the ‘light a match with a .22’ scene, and I thought the film looked funny. Taking a look at the individual frames, I found this.
I noticed the jump last night watching it on the web, and it is nice to have the screen caps to validate that. Something odd is going on. I guess it’s possible that this is an editing decision (ie he shot at a bunch of matches, something I assumed anyway, and the only one where you could see the impact via the framerate of the video was not the one where he had the most impressive result). But even then, it’s a bit shady. Or maybe the camera side of the match is bending back to us and then snaps back up, but that seems implausible.
The whole thing is unsettling, I am not sure how to feel about it or whether I am interested or not. If the marksmanship is genuine, it’s at least a bit impressive. But it seems like they tipped their whole hand in two episodes with the aikido and the shooting. Unless the guy has an endless string of arcane skills, I don’t know how they hold interest.
It is entertaining to watch all of the other guys celebrate him.
Well, i watched the first episode, and i must say i’m pretty underwhelmed.
It’s basically just a shitty version of Cops that happens to have Steven Seagal in it. It’s mildly amusing to watch him taking himself so seriously, but the show is not good enough to be genuinely interesting, and not bad enough to be funny.
I think someone mentioned it in the other Seagal thread, but I’ll bring it up again. One of the unintentionally funniest moments in all of '90s action cinema came in “On Deadly Ground” when Seagal happened upon two guys who just happened to be talking about what a badass his character was.
Here’s the dialogue from IMDB:
And as bad as that movie is, it’s worth a viewing if for no other reason than to watch Michael Caine chew the scenery as a sinister oilman in one of his “I’m just here for a big-ass paycheck” roles.
My pet theory is that Steven Seagal’s whole persona is some sort of elaborate joke on the general populace. I think he found a niche he could fill and fill he did. That being said, from friends-of-friends in the New Orleans area who’ve met Seagal (briefly), he’s supposedly more eccentric than douchey. And I have to give him props for finding something worthwhile and fulfilling to do rather than the typical C-list celebrity cocaine-fueled houseboat orgies.
Here he tells the storyand the afterward about how much Seagal was “beloved” by the cops on Letterman. Seagal story begins around 5:20. (When he’s not on 360 Anderson can be a tad bitchy; he works in a nice slam at Dr. Phil and Paris Hilton in this one too.)
I am not a big fan of true crime shows, nor am I a Steven Seagal fan, however I stumbled upon this show the other night and found it entertaining. He comes across in the show as genuinely interested in helping people and supporting his fellow lawmen.
I didn’t know much about Seagal as a person, the biographies I read about him seem to suggest that he didn’t pursue acting, it pursued him and he made the most out of it.
I’ll give the show a few more tries, it was fun to watch him talk with a cajun accent and run after the (alleged) bad guys for real.
Does he style his hair with black shoe polish? It looks so unnaturally black it’s distracting and it doesn’t go with the face wrinkles, seriously Steven a little gray around around the edges can be distinguished and a lot less freaky looking.
