*SPOILERS AHEAD*

Steven Seagal will probably never escape the label of a political filmmaker and may always be known best for the
time he took on corporate polluters in On
Deadly Ground. His movies have never been that politically brazen ever again,
but he’s frequently touched on socio-political matters since then. One of his
more overlooked outings of this sort – indeed, his last overt “movie with a
message” as of this writing – is 2004’s Out
of Reach, wherein the Buddhist Bonecrusher takes on a child trafficking circuit
in Poland. Though Seagal’s film addressed a genuine epidemic long before it
became part of mainstream awareness, its direct-to-video status assured that it would be generally overlooked. The fact that it’s not held in high regard even among people who have seen it is thanks to the movie’s production quirks, highlighted by a huge amount of
Seagal’s dialogue being dubbed by a different actor. Interesting as it can be,
this one’s definitely not for everyone.

The movie opens with a juxtaposition of our two main characters: ex-government
agent William Lansing (Seagal) and his teenage pen pal, Irena Morawska. Irena
is an orphan living at a Warsaw orphanage and William lives a secluded life in
North America, helping injured animals he finds in the forest. Through Irena’s
voice-over, we hear that William corresponds with her via the orphanage’s
outreach program and that they’re quite close. When William narrates a letter
he’s sent her, we learn that he encourages her self-esteem and teaches
her about codes and ciphers…but the most noteworthy and immediate thing we realize
is that the voice coming from Lansing isn’t Steven Seagal’s. It sounds nothing
like him, and as it recurs throughout the film, viewers will wonder what in the
world is going on. This wasn’t the first time Seagal’s character has been dubbed,
but it was the first time it’d been done so extensively, and would subsequently
become a much-derided feature of Seagal’s DTV work.

TRIVIA: William Lansing’s status as an
animal healer reflects Steven Seagal’s own history as an animal rights
proponent. However, this reputation was damaged in 2011, when – while breaking
up an Arizona cockfighting ring for his Lawman
reality show – a police squad he was accompanying crushed over 100 roosters
with a tank and shot a puppy to death.

As William is shown nursing an injured hawk
back to health, Irena reveals that she will soon have to leave
the orphanage. We assume via the visual metaphor that Irena is bound for freedom, but this is not so. An ominous group of men arrives at the orphanage,
led by a fellow called Faisal (Matt Schulze) who’s so obviously evil that his
first act is to threaten one of the orphans (Jan Plazalski). Faisal
appears to be ex-military – take note of how he lines up the orphans
to address them – and if it’s not clear by the predatory way in which he speaks,
we find out soon that he’s collecting the girls for sale into sex slavery. The
orphanage is feeding its female children into this circuit, and Irena is among
them. Scenes of the girls’ processing are uncomfortable and
chilling: their belongings are stolen, they’re photographed against their will,
and – seemingly to ensure that the movie toes the line for taste – there’s a
scene where one of Irena’s friends (Aleksandra Hamkalo) attempts to escape and
is apprehended by Faisal; we later learn that she’s murdered.

Luckily, William travels to Poland to search for Irena after receiving
a suspicious letter claiming that she can’t correspond with him anymore. William’s decision is facilitated by a squad of his
ex-coworkers from the government – led by Agents
Shepherd (Shawn Lawrence) and Morton (Robbie Gee) – showing up at his cabin and attempting to tie up “loose ends.” William fights his way free, heads to
Vancouver, and then seemingly up and decides to make the trip to Poland. There,
he visits Irena’s orphanage. The corrupt director (Maria Maj) is of no help, but
with the aid of the orphan who Faisal threatened (“Nikki”) and a cipher left by
Irena on the frame of her bunk, he realizes that something’s wrong. The
feeling’s confirmed when Faisal, having realized that someone’s looking for
Irena, kills the director and sends men after William. Again, William fights
his way out of the situation.

Ambiguity seems to be one of the principles this story has been
built on. We’ve already seen that William is wanted by a mysterious government
agency (the “C.S.A.”) for reasons never sufficiently explained, and
now Faisal inexplicably realizes that William – who he hasn’t even laid eyes on
– is such a threat to his operation that he needs to
eliminate him. Shortly thereafter, we learn through a voice-over that Irena
expects William to save her, even though the movie provides no indication that
she’d even know he’s in Poland. How do the characters make such leaps of
understanding? Knee-jerkers blame it on lazy writing. People who’ve read Seagalogy: A Study of the Ass-Kicking Films
of Steven Seagal blame it on the process of DTV screenwriting, wherein
scripts go through multiple changes during and after production. I lean towards
the latter explanation,
but it’s impossible to guess precisely what details may have gone missing while
the movie was being made. Faisal may have gleaned the extent of William’s
abilities after learning (from Irena’s letters) that he’s good with cyphers, and the
fact that he’s in the city may have been leaked to Irena…but that’s pure guesswork.

Returning to the orphanage to find the
director’s murder investigation in full swing, William is questioned by
the leading detective, Kasia Lato (Agnieszka Wagner). Kasia is suspicious and takes William in to the police station, where he uses an unsupervised
moment to bypass the police database’s security and find out that the
missing girls were all applicants for the same suspicious student program.
William later shows up at another investigation, at the building where the children had been held. Upon realizing that a girl was murdered and discovering a
bracelet he gave Irena, he’s visibly devastated, but regains hope when he’s
shown that Irena has left a message for him on a mirror. Even though he’s lied
to the police and refuses to reveal much about his identity, Kasia is impressed by
his resourcefulness and chooses not only to not arrest him, but to include him
on the case. It pays off: through technical skill and detective work, William
is able to distinguish a connection to Faisal’s broker (Witold Wielinski) and
the dummy corporation used to traffic the girls. There’s a chilling scene
wherein William listens in on the rerouted phone calls of buyers bidding on the
girls.

While a good deal of intrigue and action goes on around
William (including a fight wherein Kasia is shot and
William inexplicably performs surgery instead of taking her to the
hospital), Irena’s ordeal is at least as interesting. Faisal has become
increasingly interested in her ever since he recognized the ciphers in her
letters, and it mounts to an obsession. He presumably keeps her around as a hostage,
but the movie actually builds the two up as rivals in their own right. Irena
keeps her cool, never panicking and leaving messages for
William whenever she can (including on a tray of caviar); her resourcefulness exalts her, whereas Faisal is
denigrated by their relationship. I don’t know whether this was the
filmmakers’ intent – to show a human trafficker eye-to-eye with one of his victims –
but as dangerous as Faisal is, he becomes rather pathetic during
the movie’s second half. There’s a scene wherein Irena and he play chess until the girl
suddenly becomes dizzy and collapses onto the board; he drugged her orange
juice. This man runs a massive trafficking operation, has umpteen subordinates
doing his bidding, and has been shown to be a skilled swordsman, but he thinks a 14-year-old child is too
much for him to handle when she’s conscious. It’s possible that this is
simply meant to show how sadistic he is, but given that he’s about to use
Irena as bait to lure William into the open, I think he actually considers her
a base that needs covering. All things considered, it’s a pretty effective
backhand to such a despicable character.

As it turns out, Faisal is in cahoots with
the agents who attempted to kidnap William at the beginning of the movie (?!) and deploys
them against our hero at an embassy ball where the undercover William almost
succeeds in rescuing Irena. (By the way, the C.S.A. does not seem to be an
actual government organization. It’s possible that the script originally named
the C.I.A. – one of Seagal’s favorite onscreen punching bags – but I think the
filmmakers prudently decided against implying that the U.S. government is
involved in human trafficking.) William escapes, and along with Kasia, he soon thereafter engages
the agents and Faisal’s men in a shootout at a brothel. It’s an odd
place for the film to stage a gunfight in, given that an underlying theme of
the film is the threat of sexual assault. They shoot up the place pretty
good, which may symbolize the destruction of consent and personal responsibility.

Faisal is left alone, but before he can flee with Irena, William arrives at his palace. Faisal and he point guns at each
other, but agree to set the firearms aside and fight “man to man”
– an odd thing for them to come to terms about now, but it’s good for viewers who prefer more intimate fights. Leaving Irena behind,
they head for Faisal’s dueling space, but the crime lord preemptively grabs a rapier
from the wall. William disarms him and fights back, but Faisal escapes from his
choke hold and flees. William grabs a two-handed backsword and heads
outside, where he finds Faisal armed with a saber. As the soundtrack fades to
silence, the two begin to fence. It’s a fairly unique match, played more for
technique than thrills, but I find it enjoyable. Both Steven Seagal and Matt
Schulze are trained swordsmen and it shows, as neither is presented as superior
to the other. It comes down to a standoff, with both characters rushing each
other, and William slays Faisal with a horizontal slash.

Trivia: Faisal’s palace is actually the interior of the Warsaw University of Technology. The Palace of Culture and Science (Pałac Kultury i Nauki) stands in as the embassy.

With the trafficking empire destroyed, William
and Irena leave the bloodstained abode. We don’t know what’s become of the
other girls, but we find out in the epilogue that William has taken both Irena
and Nikki back to North America. Irena is in contact with Kasia by mail, and though
she and her apparent stepbrother seem happy, it’s mildly uncomfortable to hear that
“[William] spends most of his time by himself, wandering the forest, looking
for injured animals. He seems to like it that way” – does that mean no one’s
supervising the children?

Steven Seagal’s DTV career is often characterized
by its shortcomings: overly complicated storylines, numerous stand-ins and
doubles, poor action scenes, and especially the dubbed dialogue. Though most of those features were apparent in movies before this one, Out of Reach is the first film
where they all come together at once and test the resolve of even longtime
fans. There’s not as much doubling as in Seagal’s previous film, Belly of the Beast, but what’s there is
generally for shots that you’d think don’t actually require doubling. The
storyline’s not so convoluted that you’d forget the names of the main characters,
but I had to watch this one several times before the identities of the supporting cast sank in. I think the action is fairly decent, especially the brothel shootout and
swordfight, but when I sat through the credits and realized that the action
choreographer is none other than Hong Kong staple Tak Yuen (Fong Sai Yuk, My Father is a Hero), I got a renewed perspective of how
spectacular the fight scenes actually weren’t. And then there’s the dubbing,
which is every bit as disconcerting as if a boom mic were hanging in the frame.
Whatever plague affected this era of Seagal’s career truly set in during this
film, and would flare up again so often that many fans gave up on the man.

Nevertheless, the film does some things
right, and chief among them is directing attention to a very prominent problem
in the world. Again, the movie’s technical shortcomings have helped ensure that
it won’t be taken seriously by casual viewers, but as was the case
with On Deadly Ground’s stance on the environment, Out of Reach was
ahead of its time in pointing to the proliferation of human trafficking in Europe. Liam Neeson’s Taken would bring
the matter to the mainstream’s attention with a more sober tone,
but Out of Reach does something which
its successors regularly fail to do: it presents a female perspective on the
issue. Human trafficking and sex slavery are ills which predominantly affect
girls and women, but many films concerned with the matter treat it
as merely another catalyst for male heroes to get indignant. Out of Reach does this a little, too,
but featuring two actively-involved females in the main cast makes a world of
difference. Kasia’s role in actively combating the problem is particularly valuable, and Irena’s
prominence reminds us what’s important about the situation: the lives of
victims, not how pissed off the hero gets.

The role of Faisal bothers me. I appreciate
Matt Schulze’s involvement in the film, both for his physical presence and how
comparatively recognizable he is compared to Seagal’s
future adversaries, but the way the screenplay handles Faisal is a little weak.
He’s basically an over-the-top version of Schulze’s role in The Transporter, with no redeeming
features or motives beyond making money, but the feature still treats him with more
respect than he deserves. I appreciate the duel at the end, but the honor involved
in William setting his gun aside and agreeing to duel him is really misplaced,
especially considering how Seagal regularly brutalizes characters for lesser crimes. Indeed, sex slavery is approached mildly, here. I appreciate
that the filmmakers don’t titillate viewers at the expense of female characters,
but there’s not much indignation about what’s happening. The word “pedophile”
is never uttered. I expected the socially-conscious Seagal to take a few verbal
shots at the criminals – maybe even quote Beau Bridges (“You make money off
a little kid, you miserable jerk! You oughta be shot!”) – but the film treats
the premise no differently than a regular kidnapping scenario. It deserves more
gravity than that.

The film has a few prominent themes, but my favorite is the one of ambiguous personal identity. As an orphan, Irena is rootless and metaphorically
bereft of self. The traffickers try to strip her individuality by assigning her
a new name. Her friend Nikki appears to be a voluntary mute, whose absent voice may be
synonymous with suppressed identity. And then there’s William, who cycles
through an endless amount of aliases. (This trend is so pervasive that he’s
referred to as “Billy Ray” by the Region 1 DVD jacket.)  His virtual facelessness is illustrated pretty
blatantly when he comes to rescue Irena and she doesn’t know who he is. Seagal’s
characters have often been accused of interchangeability, and the film may be
commenting on that qualm by starring a character who plays fast and loose with his own identity.

Out
of Reach is a lot of things, but it’s not boring.
It’s afflicted by a lot of problems, but with the possible exception of the
dubbing, none of them are so debilitating as to disengage the viewer. Director
Po-Chih Leong seems to be fighting DTV convention (and possibly even the
meddling of producers), and the result is a lot of interesting touches in an
otherwise predictable thriller. Occasionally excellent
cinematography, unexpected twists, and Faisal’s ridiculously cheesy dialogue
are some of the things that shine in what could otherwise have easily been a
dreary picture. Had Seagal done this movie ten years earlier, it may have
become an ironic classic. As is, I don’t quite have the heart to recommend it outright, but if you’re up for an odd adventure and think you’re fine with
the subject matter, you might have an interesting evening with it.

Out of Reach (2004)
Directed by Po-Chih Leong (Hong Kong 1941)
Written by Trevor Miller (Into the Sun)
Starring Steven Seagal, Ida
Nowakowska (Suicide Room), Agnieszka
Wagner (Fala Zbrodni), Matt Schulze
Cool costars: Robbie Gee (Underworld) as one of the main
supporting villains. Nick Brimble (Robin
Hood: Prince of Thieves) has a single scene as the “real” villain who
controls Faisal. Martial artist Murat Yilmaz (The Accidental Spy) plays Faisal’s lead henchman.
Title refers to: Irena, who William
spends the movie trying to rescue. It could also be a play on words, given that
they met via an “outreach” program.
Potential triggers: Child abuse,
implied child murder, violence against women, drugging
Conspicuously missing: A title
screen. Seriously, there’s no title shot. I had to get the still from the
trailer.
Copyright UK/Polish Co-Production