EDITOR’S NOTE: Nothing gives me greater joy than when our site gets mentioned on my favorite podcast, The Cannon Canon. There are a few movies they’ve covered that I haven’t, so it’s time to fix that.

Steven Segal has barely been on our site and that’s for a reason.

I don’t get it.

I’ve known plenty of action movie lovers that were obsessed with him. I dated a girl who would always rent his movies when given the option. And yes, I am old, we rented video cassettes from a mom and pop store and made out while watching Steven Segal movies.

This is Segal’s first movie. Now, finding the exact facts about the man’s life is tricky, but here’s what I think is true. He was born in Lansing, Michigan to an Irish medical technician mother and Jewish math teacher father. I have no idea where the Italian and Asian mystic parts of him come from. Confounding me further is the fact that his grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants with some Yakut and Buryat heritage.

Seagal is the Hulk Hogan of action movies and by that, I don’t mean he’s orange and on steroids. He has the same propensity for lying and his nontruths are easily proven wrong. Like how Seagal was a student of the founder of aikido, Morihei Ueshiba, yet Ueshiba died in 1969 when Seagal was 17 and Seagal didn’t move to Japan until the of 22, to allegedly avoid the draft by marrying a Japanese national named Miyako Fujitani.

Fujitani doesn’t mince words about her ex-husband. In an infamous article that got Spy Magazine sued, she said that the actor worked in her family’s aikido school and received his degree under dubious circumstances: The only reason Steven was awarded the black belt was because the judge, who was famous for his laziness, fell asleep during Steven’s presentation. The judge just gave him the black belt.” He told her “I never will betray you”, right before he took all her savings and moved back to America. She claims that she “scrimped and saved for years, even denying herself and her children necessities, to help pay his way home.”

Without seeking a divorce, Seagal went ahead and married Adrienne La Russa in 1984, followed by actress Kelly LeBrock. La Russa told Spy that she couldn’t say much, “Because I am afraid of Steven and his friends.”

That’s because for years, Seagal has claimed underworld and black ops ties. Seagal told People early in his career, “They saw my abilities, both with martial arts and with the language. You could say that I became an advisor to several CIA agents in the field, and through my friends in the CIA, I met many powerful people and did special works and favors.”

After opening a dojo with stuntman Craig Dunn in New Mexico, he also started the Aikido Ten Shin Dojo in Hollywood with his senior student Haruo Matsuoka. That’s where he trained Michael Ovitz, at the time the biggest agent in the business.

“Michael and I are very close–we love each other,” Seagal said. “I’m like a guru to him.”

As for Ovitz, it was claimed that he believed that he could make anyone a movie star.

Now, Above the Law is before all the blues records, the TV reality show that has him teaching cops, the horrifying SNL appearance, the lawsuits, the collusion with Russia — I have no idea how anyone can still be a fan of him. Actually, I totally do, because if anyone symbolizes the MAGA side of action movies — even more than Bronson or Norris — it’s Steven Seagal.  He can do interviews where he says that Vladimir Putin is “one of the great living world leaders,” teach cops how to shoot guns, be against athletes protesting before games and writing the novel The Way of the Shadow Wolves: The Deep State And The Hijacking Of America. Let’s go further. He’s been shown in photos with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, been referred to as the “brother” of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and celebrated his birthday in Russian with pro-Kremlin friends as the invasion of Ukraine was happening.

Oh man, Steven Seagal.

I didn’t even mention that the double entendre — actually, it was just outright being a jerk — he made to a production assistant who he caught brushing her teeth.

Man, I don’t even want to talk about this movie.

I’ll try.

I mean, he’s prohibited from promoting bitcoin at this point. Or that he broke Sean Connery’s wrist on the set of Never Say Never Again. Or that he has been known for brutalizing stuntmen who appeared in movies with him.

Ah, OK. Let’s just get to the movie.

Sergeant Nico Toscani is exactly the person that Steven Seagal wants us to believe that he is. A tough Chicago vice cop who can trace his roots to Palermo, Sicily, he moved to Japan was a young man to study martial arts and was recruited by the CIA and assigned to covert operations on the Vietnamese-Cambodian border during the Vietnam War. He left the CIA when he refused to be part of torture, moved back to the U.S. and started being a cop.

Working with Detective Delores “Jacks” Jackson (Pam Grier) are on the trail of drug dealers and suddenly ordered off the case, as those scumbags are working with the very same CIA boss that caused Nico to leave the agency, Kurt Zagon (Henry Silva). Also, to make this even better, Seagal — sorry, Nico — is married to the gorgeous Sara (Sharon Stone) and when she’s threatened, he has to go…above the law.

At least they put together a great cast and crew for this movie. Director Andrew Davis would also direct The Final Terror, Code of Silence, Under Siege and was the cinematographer on Private Parts, Mansion of the Doomed and the DP on Angel. He worked on the story of this movie with Seagal and then polished the script with Steven Pressfield (King Kong Lives, Freejack) and Ronald Shusett, who has big league credits like Alien, Aliens, Total Recall, Phobia and Dead & Buried.

Seagal looks and moves like no one else in movies. I don’t know, maybe Ovitz was right in that he could plug anyone into an action movie and make him a star. Since this movie, Seagal has been in around sixty movies. That’s pretty good staying power for just being anyone. And despite all his controversies, he made a film as recently as 2019’s Beyond the Law.

You can listen to The Cannon Canon episode of Above the Law here.