DVD Corner

Maximum Conviction Blu-ray Review

“Maximum Conviction” is a ridiculous mindless action flick.

The plot: Private security contractors Manning and Steele and a high speed operating team must stop a group of mercenaries from extracting 2 prisoners (one of which has a chip with valuable information) from a top secret prison. As you can probably guess, the prison essentially becomes a war zone as the good guys and the bad guys shoot, stab, and punch one another.

Let me be upfront here, “Maximum Conviction” is a mind numbing action film that has some of the worst dialogue I’ve heard in recent memory. Just look at some of the hilariously wretched lines in the film:

“Look at you man, you’re dead. Money can’t buy life, money can’t buy honor. You ain’t got s***. I don’t know what’s wrong with you man. Now you’re dead.”

“My finger! You cut my finger off…f***!”

“Holy s***, my kind of woman.”

“Mess with me, I’ll gouge your eyes out with my fingers.”

“Negative Warden, I ain’t gotta shut up.”

Terrible, right? And yet, the awful dialogue is what partially made this movie watchable. It’s simply so bad that you can’t help but laugh and go with it.

Granted, ‘Conviction’ isn’t all fun and games. The 94 minute runtime is filled with mostly tedious scenes of running, shouting, shooting, and Steve Austin and Steven Seagal mumbling. But, the movie never claimed to be an award worthy flick or even an epic action movie. It’s a straight forward, low budget action flick and it does deliver in some respects (most notably the end fight between Seagal and the villain and Bren Foster’s bad-ass martial arts display).  Sure, there’s nothing groundbreaking here, but for a made for DVD cheapie, you can do a lot worse than see the robotic Seagal and Austin do what they are paid to do.

Video/Audio:

The film, which is presented in 1.78:1 1080p, has a very sharp hi-def transfer. The filming locations may be lackluster, but they look as good as they possibly can.

The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio track is definitely loud. From the constant shootouts to Seagal and Austin’s mumbling line deliveries, you won’t have any trouble hearing anything in this film.

Extras:
* DVD Copy.
* “Maximum Conviction: Bren Foster”- A short, but interesting featurette on Foster’s career. Interviews with Foster and producer Benjamin Sacks.
* “Maximum Conviction: Steve Austin”- Steve Austin talks about acting in movies.
* “Maximum Conviction: Icons”- Director Keoni Waxman talks about Steven Seagal and Steve Austin and action, story, and dialogue. Seagal and Austin are briefly interviewed as well.
* “Maximum Conviction: Behind The Scenes” includes set footage, interviews with the cast and crew, and discussions about the characters and story.
* A laidback commentary by Keoni Waxman and producer Binh Dang. Discussions range from production values and directing to action and special f/x.

*Anchor Bay trailers.

November 7, 2012 - Posted by nicklyons1 | Blu-Ray review | action film, Bren Foster, Maximum Conviction Blu-ray Review, Maximum Conviction DVD, Steve Austin, Steven Seagal