Mercenary Absolution (2014) – Keoni Waxman.

A bad dude, with bad hair, and a history of bad deeds, special ops expert John Alexander (Steven Seagal)is hired to eliminate a sleazy Afghan drug connection, but the routine hit is unexpectedly fubar'd when John and his deadly partner Chi (Byron Mann) rescue a terrified young woman from thugs working for sadistic syndicate boss (Vinnie Jones). If you are NOT a fan of the sluggish, garishly goateed cycle of Girthmaster Seagal's recent oeuvre, look away now, Mercenary Absolution is NOT for you, dude. Personally, I still believe the naysayers will miss suet sucking Seagal and his robustly routine DTV shoot 'em ups when he's gone. Who else are they gonna hate on, Frank Grillo? It's not an altogether sensible rationale, but the bigger Seagal gets, the more of him there is to love, man!

The whispering walrus of wickedly wanton whuppass is on bullishly bellicose form as gangster goring black ops martial arts maniac John Alexander. Happily, Senior Seagal does his brutal, Avid assisted thang, while devastatingly limber kung fu wizard Byron Man pretty much steals the show as John's loyal, viciously thug trashing bro, chi. I hugely enjoyed the gutsy, no pun intended, Mercenary Absolution, the Romanian locations are attractive, Seagal & Mann make a righteously effective team of skell smashers, and I'm an admirer of Keoni Waxman's work. Seagal doggedly makes formulaic, enjoyably violent exploitation films, they're unapologetically dumb, bloody retrograde fun, and long may he continue to do so.