‘Out for Justice’ With Bill Simmons and Kyle Brandt
Episode
107 min
Read time
2 min
Topics
Career Growth, Leadership, Product & Tech Trends
AI-Generated Summary
Key Takeaways
- ✓Seagal's Creative Control: Out for Justice represents Seagal at maximum power where he demanded villain William Forsyth's scenes be cut because he felt upstaged, reducing the film from over two hours to 87 minutes. This insecurity extended to fight choreography where Seagal refused to take punches, breaking the fundamental action movie rule of showing the hero in danger before triumph.
- ✓Pool Hall Scene Construction: The film's centerpiece bar confrontation demonstrates effective action escalation through improvised weapons, particularly the cue ball wrapped in a towel. Seagal ad-libbed the hot dog moment, creating memorable unintentional comedy. The scene works because it introduces distinct character types (Styx, Tattoo, the boxer bartender) who each get defeated sequentially, building tension through variety.
- ✓Brooklyn Authenticity Issues: Despite attempting a Godfather-style Italian American crime drama, the production featured Seagal giving Brooklyn native William Forsyth accent coaching while Seagal himself performed an inconsistent, over-the-top Italian accent that fluctuated throughout filming. The opening Arthur Miller quote signals high ambitions immediately abandoned for standard action fare, revealing the disconnect between intention and execution.
- ✓Warner Brothers Formula: The studio mandated three-word titles for all Seagal films to enable the trailer phrase "Steven Seagal is..." which forced changing the original title The Price of Our Blood. Warner Brothers executive Craig Horlbeck also required films under 90 minutes, leading to two montage sequences that compress plot and eliminate character development scenes.
- ✓Cast Quality Paradox: The film assembled future prestige television actors including Julianna Margulies (first film role), Dominic Chianese (later The Sopranos), and Jerry Orbach between Dirty Dancing and Law & Order. This represented respected character actors taking paycheck roles before their career peaks, creating an unusually strong supporting cast for a formulaic action vehicle that didn't utilize their talents effectively.
What It Covers
Bill Simmons and Kyle Brandt analyze the 1991 Steven Seagal action film Out for Justice, examining its production chaos, Seagal's peak ego era, William Forsyth's deleted scenes, and the iconic pool hall fight sequence that defines early nineties action cinema.
Key Questions Answered
- •Seagal's Creative Control: Out for Justice represents Seagal at maximum power where he demanded villain William Forsyth's scenes be cut because he felt upstaged, reducing the film from over two hours to 87 minutes. This insecurity extended to fight choreography where Seagal refused to take punches, breaking the fundamental action movie rule of showing the hero in danger before triumph.
- •Pool Hall Scene Construction: The film's centerpiece bar confrontation demonstrates effective action escalation through improvised weapons, particularly the cue ball wrapped in a towel. Seagal ad-libbed the hot dog moment, creating memorable unintentional comedy. The scene works because it introduces distinct character types (Styx, Tattoo, the boxer bartender) who each get defeated sequentially, building tension through variety.
- •Brooklyn Authenticity Issues: Despite attempting a Godfather-style Italian American crime drama, the production featured Seagal giving Brooklyn native William Forsyth accent coaching while Seagal himself performed an inconsistent, over-the-top Italian accent that fluctuated throughout filming. The opening Arthur Miller quote signals high ambitions immediately abandoned for standard action fare, revealing the disconnect between intention and execution.
- •Warner Brothers Formula: The studio mandated three-word titles for all Seagal films to enable the trailer phrase "Steven Seagal is..." which forced changing the original title The Price of Our Blood. Warner Brothers executive Craig Horlbeck also required films under 90 minutes, leading to two montage sequences that compress plot and eliminate character development scenes.
- •Cast Quality Paradox: The film assembled future prestige television actors including Julianna Margulies (first film role), Dominic Chianese (later The Sopranos), and Jerry Orbach between Dirty Dancing and Law & Order. This represented respected character actors taking paycheck roles before their career peaks, creating an unusually strong supporting cast for a formulaic action vehicle that didn't utilize their talents effectively.
Notable Moment
The production featured an alleged incident where stunt coordinator Gene LaBelle, a tenth-degree judo red belt, choked Seagal unconscious after Seagal claimed nobody could choke him out due to his martial arts training. Multiple witnesses suggest Seagal lost bowel control during the incident, though he has denied it occurred. The story persists because no crew member has definitively contradicted it.
Episode Transcript
This podcast is sponsored by PayPal. Let's talk holiday shopping. Make the most of your money with PayPal. They give you the flexibility to pay in four. No fees. No interest. So whether it's the must have toy or a tiered cheese board, PayPal helps you make the most of your money this holiday, subject to approval. Learn more at paypal.com/payin for PayPal Inc n mls91045seven. The rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Bill Simmons. Kyle Brandt is here. Great to see you. Hope your off season of the NFL is going fantastic, and we've done, this will be our third Yes. Steven Seagal movie. It is called Out for Justice, part of the three word titles. We're also doing Seagal out of order, which I can't wait to talk about. But it's your favorite of the collection. This is it. This is if they asked you to a director's commentary of any Steven Seagal movie, this would be it. With no football, did this give you the fuel post draft that you needed to just survive as you headed into the summer? The Super Bowl was terrible. The Eagles destroyed the Chiefs. This is way, way better. And I got fired up, Bill. I walked around the neighborhood today just hitting people in the face with a cue ball and a and a towel. It was awesome. So I'm ready to go right now. Did you have a guy named Styx and a guy named Tattoo with you or no? Yeah. The Styx guy had Styx, and the tattoo guy was covered in tattoos. They they that's my crew up here in the burbs. I am so excited to do this movie. This is a big one. Well, we're gonna take a break. We're gonna run the trailer, and then Out for Justice is next. Steven Seagal. He can take a compliment. This guy's good, Richie. He can take an insult. One of these days, your wise mouth is gonna get the rest of your body in a whole lot of trouble. He can even take a punch. But what this cop's really best at is taking out the garbage. Steven Seagal out for justice rated r, now playing at a theater near you. This episode of the rewatchables is presented to you by Amazon Prime. Prime is more than just fast delivery. It's also where you can dive deep into your favorite movie genres with Prime Video and get what you need fast to fuel your obsession. You also if you if you watch a movie in Amazon Prime, you can click down and see the actors in each scene for a lot of the movies, which is great. Snacks for movie night, a new book on film theory, it's all there too on Amazon Prime. Whatever it is, Prime helps you get more out of whatever passions you're into or getting into. Head to amazon.com/prime and follow your obsession wherever it goes. …
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“Bill Simmons and Kyle Brandt analyze the 1991 Steven Seagal action film Out for Justice, examining its production chaos, Seagal's peak ego era, William Forsyth's deleted scenes, and the iconic pool hall fight sequence that defines early nineties action cinema.”
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