I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Sorry, this movie sucks

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

The law of diminishing returns sees Steven Seagal's career sliding into oblivion, but I still manage to get a kick out of about half the straight-to-DVD movies he has coming out now. Unfortunately, TODAY YOU DIE isn't in that half: it's one of his worst films, an utterly low-budgeted, unoriginal attempt at an action thriller that rips footage from close to half a dozen other movies from the last ten years. Stuff from a Peter Weller film is in here, along with shots from Van Damme's THE ORDER, and you have to wonder just what the heck is going on when Seagal's using a body double for much of the running time.Unsurprisingly, the film is packed with continuity errors and other assorted goofs. The plot is threadbare and tattered, another silly excuse just to have Seagal wandering around, shooting people and beating them up. He takes part in a couple of fight scenes, but the rest use a stuntman to double for him. The funniest bit was when one fight is shot from the neck down, just when you thought they couldn't make it any plainer that Seagal took no part in it. These fights scenes would be quite entertaining if it wasn't for the obvious doubling, so it's a shame they found it necessary to do it.Elsewhere, the script is laughable and the film makes ANOTHER return to prison, where Seagal once again bonds with the black inmates and teams up with a black rapper-turned-wannabe-actor (sigh). Yet again he doesn't have to wear traditional prison garb although every other inmate does. The cast is an assorted mix of has-beens and wannabes, including a surgically altered TV actress, an almost unrecognisable returning actor from Seagal's glory days (Nick Mancuso from UNDER SIEGE I & II) and Robert Miano, a trash favourite. Seagal doesn't even try here and word has it that he often didn't bother turning up on set. The film as a result is an unwatchable mess, one to laugh at rather than enjoy. Director Don E. Fauntleroy's next collaboration with Seagal, MERCENARY FOR JUSTICE, turned out to be a lot better.

Unlike the list of producers in the opening credits, I'll keep this short. This is another of Seagal's latter day "bad" movies. You know this within the first five minutes. Stock footage ripped from another flick, another body double for Steven in a disjointed, awful fight scene. Today You Die is a rarity in it was filmed in the States and features recognizable faces in the supporting cast. Oh, but this was 2005, and we hadn't relocated to Romania or the Eastern Bloc yet. The storyline is simple enough. A former thief wants to do honest jobs. Okay … but he does so by working for some mysterious man on high who surrounds himself with goon-like subordinates? Have I mentioned the laughable quips about dreams and mysticism that come courtesy of Seagal? Notice how I haven't mentioned any of the supporting cast yet? Yeah for good reason.Of course, this is an action flick, direct to video withstanding, and all would be forgiven if the action was well shot and exciting. Its not. No, the best thing I can say about Today You Die is Steven actually smiles. Its something you don't see very often anymore.

Steven Seagal is out for vengeance in this 2005's thriller, Today You Die, and here he relies on the help of former rap Trech Criss to give him a hand in taking out the scumbags. The film kicks off with a highly entertaining and funny sequence in which Seagal, here playing a "good thief" (he steals from drug lords and give the money to the poor), enters a building in great fashion and proceeds to clean the drug lord's safe, just to be surrendered by two thugs with shotguns. Seagal replies to them "You know what?I'm in the mood to give!", and then takes the shotgun from the bad guys and executes both. The plot revolves around a job gone wrong in Vegas, Seagal being sent to prison, forming a partnership with Treach and escaping jail to find the responsible for his imprisonment. This film came out almost in the same time as Submerged, Black Dawn and Mercenary for Justice. Today You Die is the least entertaining of the list, but that doesn't mean it's bad. You will have a great action sequence right in the first half hour, when cops are in high pursuit of Seagal in the streets of Vegas (really well-shot and done) and you will have the typical shootings and fights we all love in a Seagal vehicle. So, why it's the least satisfying of the list of flicks he made in 2005?well, Today You Die is the one that had a not-so-great budget, so the action is limited and happens here and there. Submerged is the best of the bunch because it was ambitious and had action sequences from start to finish. Also, Submerged counted with a cast that included actors of the caliber of William Hope (from Hellbound Hellraiser II), Leigh Zimmerman (who plays the female American ambassador, has few screen time but steals the show along with William Hope) and Vinnie Jones. Black Dawn was also memorable because it paired Steven Seagal with the handsome and fantastic Tamara Davies as his partner, an actress of talent who made Seagal even better. Today You Die didn't count with these small things but, judging the sum of its parts, it entertained and should be seen by every Steven Seagal fan. Best part of the movie: Steven Seagal faces a tough guy who thinks he can beat Seagal. Steven beats the crap out of the guy because he wants to know the name of the responsible who sent him to prison and then the guy gives him the answers he want. In the end, Seagal says "Could you do me a favor and give him a message?". The guy says "Yeah, sure". And Seagal proceeds to break the guy's arm in typical aikido style.

After being impressed with Dolph Lundgren in The Russian Specialist (as well as Van Damme in Wake Of Death) I finally got around to watching this movie which was still on my TiVo for like two months. There is a story about that, in that no movie that has stayed longer than a couple weeks on the TiVo has ever been that good and in this case, this was no exception in fact Today You Die was painfully bad, trite and just plain dull. The movie has Steven Seagal as a thief who steals from rich corporation and gives back to the community (Oh brother.) and in doing so gets caught one night and is sent to prison. Too bad then that he sets out to get out of prison and take on some more mobsters in this interchangeable bad straight to video movie you could name. I admit to being a big fan of Steven Seagal's early work, especially since he seemed polished, slick and cool. However in Today You Die, Seagal is a rather wimpier version of his once formidable self and in fact does so little akidio one wonders why he bothers with the action phase if he can't lose weight and actually look credible in the action sequences. Today You Die was as awful as I expected it to be, it did after all have the guy from Naughty By Nature (You down with O.P.P?) and well any expectation beyond that further insures that I had only but minimal expectations for this movie. It speaks volumes that this movie couldn't even rise to the minimal occasion I set for it. Today You Die is a bad movie plain and simple, I really feel sorry for Seagal fans, since they have actually rented this and put money down on such a clunker. My condolences.* out of 4-(Bad)