Exit Wounds

As maverick Detroit detective Orin Boyd, Seagal seems at first to be adopting a slightly older, wiser screen persona than he has in the past. After heroically but destructively saving the US Vice-President from terrorists, Boyd is (somewhat inexplicably) re-assigned to a rough urban precinct where he has to endure the indignities of traffic duty, bullying colleagues, a female boss and anger-management classes. Before long, however, the character development falls by the wayside and Seagal the mayhem-machine returns, as Boyd goes after mysterious drug dealer Latrell Walker (DMX) and in the process uncovers a ring of dirty cops.

Several of the film's other on- and off-screen talents are reunited from Silver's Romeo Must Die, a hip hop-flavoured martial arts picture that became a mid-level hit - $56m in the US - this time last year. DMX has some nice moody poses to offer, but his acting still needs work and although he gets second billing to Seagal he's used fairly sparingly here. (The rapper's recent brush with the law, which resulted in a 15-day jail sentence for driving without a licence, could help the film publicity-wise.) Isaiah Washington is a solid presence as Boyd's naive new partner and Anthony Anderson provides some comic relief as Latrell's right-hand man TK. Tom Arnold - playing a TV host with crime-fighting aspirations - brings some white-trash comedy, but his performance is much less effective than Anderson's.

Romeo director Andrzej Bartkowiak and cinematographer Glen MacPherson give the film a stylish look and make the most of the martial arts and car-crash sequences. The set-piece stunt scenes have the kind of body and vehicle-counts that action fans have come to expect from Silver, but they don't offer much in the way of innovation.