Sandcooler Steven Seagal's direct-to-DVD efforts usually look like they are slapped together in about a week, with poorly redubbed dialogues, confusing editing and stunt doubles that vaguely look like him when seen from space. "The Keeper" however brings something entire new to the table: they can't even remember what Seagal's character is called. He starts the movie as Roland Sallinger, turns into Roland Ballinger for the second act, and then starts mixing it up towards the finale. Why even mention his name so many times throughout? It's almost like they were trying to see what they could get away with, how much abuse an audience can put up with. It has to be said though, this isn't the worst one by a long shot. There are too many exposition scenes and the parts where Seagal creates a bond with the girl he's bodyguarding are cringe-inducing, but they put together the gunfights rather well and the movie never really turns flat-out boring. Even Seagal's total lack of energy and interest isn't bothersome, I liked the very last shot of the movie where he just walks out of a house with a defeated look on his face and sighs: he's just saved the kidnapped girl, but he looks like the bad guys won and killed his entire unit as well. If that sort of thing can't entertain you, this certainly isn't the movie for you.

prochuts So me and my friends have routinely laughed our heads off at the badly awesome collection of Seagal "not quite" classics. The Keeper still has some of those same laugh out loud scenes. But this movie's biggest problem is that it is marginally better than his other straight-to-home movies, but is still a lot worse than movies I enjoyed for their actual appeal. I prefer my Seagal movies to be either better than okay (Under Siege) or laughably terrible, yet entertaining (Killswitch). This movie falls in between to simply bad. One note that has been confirmed by IMDb.com and other reviewers: it was exceptionally odd that his last name suddenly gets switched from Sallinger to Ballinger. I did get a great amount of laughter from that. Also, how he stealthily manages to steal a compact handgun from a woman's purse in the hospital, even though the nurse in the room declared him to be very unconscious to take out someone coming to kill him. Made me have to pause the movie to laugh.

curtis martin "The Keeper" is better than most Steven Seagal Direct to Video films (but not as good as any of his theatrical films from back in the day, of course). I mean, anyone who says this is a downturn in quality obviously never saw "Kill Switch" or "Out for a Kill," "Today You Die," or any of the other Seagal DTVs that were so re-dubbed, re-edited, and filled with stock action sequences cut-and-pasted from other films that they were totally incomprehensible. At least "The Keeper" had a basic story you could follow and made sense overall. It's almost at the level of lower tier action flicks like Charles Bronson's "Evil Men Do," or Burt Reynold's "Malone" (and about at the level of Van Damme's "Border Patrol"). Serviceable vehicles for aging action stars. And the film has a tiny bit of Seagal-dubbing at the opening, a few lame supporting performances, and some minor continuity and plot hole problems--the usual for super low budget action flicks. But the leading lady is pretty good--delivers her lines well and is sexy in that gangly, puppet-ish Scarlette Johanssen way). And the guy that plays her dad is channeling Levon Helm, so that's OK. The film's opening, where cop Seagal is shot and then has to train his way back to fighting health, is pretty good, but seems to be from a different movie; none of the characters it introduces appear later on in the movie (in fact, the opening incident isn't even mentioned later on). I suspect that the best parts of two not-that-great screenplays were melded together.But the really WEIRD error in this otherwise workmanlike flick is that Seagal's character's name, Rolland Sallinger, changes halfway through to Rolland BALLINGER! Just out of nowhere, one of the other actors start calling him "Ballinger" instead of "Sallinger"! This is both the kind of thing you'd expect in a Seagal DTV, given that they are often slapdash, but also exactly what you wouldn't expect! I mean, Seagal's DTVs are notorious for the re-dubbing of dialog and the makers of The Keeper opted not to re-dubb dialog in a case where it actually would have made sense to do so!All in all, though, this is a passable 90 minutes entertainment for fans of the giant, middle-aged, whispering bada$$ we all secretly love.

Stephan Klose From about 2002 to 2005 Seagal was really not very good at picking movies. Or maybe those he made were the only ones offered to him. Lately though, his pictures are getting better and better with each one. The last ones like Against the Dark, Kill Switch and Driven to kill were all pretty good movies. This latest one might have even made it into theaters if Seagal Movies didn't retain a certain distrust from the audience. As for the Plot: Seagal plays a Cop who is betrayed and shot by his partner, but survives. Soon after he is discharged from the force due to medical complications. Moments after getting the dismissal notice he receives a Call from an old friend of his who is now a rich property owner in Texas begging him to help him out with a big security problem. His daughter was recently the victim of a kidnapping attempt and he begs Seagal to look after her. Of course the noble knight can't refuse a plea from an old friend. Well long story short he travels there fights a lot of bad guys, kills a bunch of them and the whole process of doing so looks really great.Of course this Movie can't keep up with $100 Million Productions but it can easily keep up with such movies as "War" or the "Transporter"-Movies.For Seagal Fans this should be a no brainer and for fans of decent action flicks you might wanna try it.