This is a fairly straight forward Seagal film which opens with his Marlon Brando godfather character giving us his standard "I am a bad man " speech. Even though he kills bad guys, he needs to kill one more bad guy for "absolution" for killing all those other bad guys. It isn't hard to figure out 5 minutes into the film (or if you look at the cast) who the bad guy he has to kill.

Seagal revives his character Alexander (I think) from "A Good Man." There are flashback scenes to his wife who died, which were not part of any previous film. Seagal is joined by Chi played by Bryon Mann. To add to the confusion, he also plays Savon in the Seagal "True Justice" TV series, but there is no connection....I think. The most confusing thing about a Seagal film is keeping them separate in your mind.

Filmed in Bucharest, Romania Seagal and Chi take out a rich westernized Afghan who was going to deal stealth technology to the Iran. The subplot consists of The Boss (Vinnie Jones not Springsteen) abusing women on film. One woman escapes (Adina Stetcu) and lands in Seagal's lap with the expected Seagal film results.

Fighting consisted of slo-mo and speed up action to make Seagal look limber. It is comical to watch the lumbering Seagal go into stealth mode, moving around going "unseen". If you miss the Seagal, "I am a bad man" speech in the beginning, fear not, he loved it so much he gives it a second time. Plenty of bad acting.

Guide: F-bomb. No sex or nudity. Woman dressed scantily and abused. Some blood splatter. Minor grindhouse effects.

8 stars on the Seagal scale.

Personally I like all Steven Seagal movies and this is one of his better ones in recent years. There are only a couple a few of his movies I haven't seen since I have only Netflix & Hulu at home and no expensive cable bill. I was in the military and met him once up in Alaska while we were to do some military training. I hope and wish he would come out with something big in the theaters like he did in the late eighties & early nineties. This one had a great plot and story line since human trafficking is a real problem in the world today. I wish I was recruited to hunt down human traffickers but I wouldn't want to just catch them and bring them to trial.....once we have solid proof and catch them red handed I would shoot them on site without any hesitation whatsoever. I'm not a republican/conservative/right and never will be but especially major crimes if they're caught red handed there should be no trial because the trial and all that is just a waste of money so just punish them right then and there.

ABSOLUTION is another in the absolutely endless wave of action thrillers made in the past few years starring Steven Seagal and invariably shot in some East European country; this time it's Romania. Seagal plays the usual former special forces guy who moves in to help save a girl from the mob, only to find a sinister conspiracy in place surrounding a popular nightclub. Anyone familiar with the modern-era Seagal will know to expect shaking camera fights and plenty of doubling, with the hefty protagonist now one of the worst things about his own films. The rest is just about passable, with the likable Byron Mann (a Seagal regular) doing well as the second hero and Vinnie Jones randomly playing a serial killer in scenes that feel like they belong in a different movie. The fights are refreshingly gruesome with lots of justice meted out to the bad guys.