June 19, 2001 -- "Exit Wounds" is an action movie left bleeding in a sea of excess, venality and incompetence. Rather than just being hackneyed and predictable, it goes for a seamy brand of violent and sexual voyeurism.

The film's premise is a worn out form of the action film genre, the mismatched cop partner movie, with the partners being Orin Boyd (played by veteran action star Steven Seagal of "The Patriot") and George Clark (Isaiah Washington). Boyd is the "Dirty Harry" kind of cop who doesn't do well with authority. Clark is the more conservative cop, like Detective Sgt. Roger Murtaugh in "Lethal Weapon," who'd like to live long enough to collect his pension. The film starts out with Boyd saving a government official from a kidnapping plot. Instead of being praised for singlehandedly wiping out an army of bad guys, he is yelled at in the traditional grumpy police captain scene in which the maverick cop is punished. Boyd is sent to the toughest precinct in Detroit.

This is where Boyd is saddled with his new partner. While cruising down the street, Boyd notices a man looking at a building through binoculars. This leads to a case of stolen drug evidence and police corruption, and another 20 or so people getting shot. Of course, there is also the old search for suspects in the strip joint scene so the audience can ogle the scantily clad girls writhing around. While the prime purpose of the film is to show us violence and the above mentioned girls, there are some attempts at humor and a plot twist or two. While some films have used humor to temper excessive violence, the humor in this film provides no comic relief.

The attempts at humor involve Tom Arnold, who plays Henry Wayne, a dysfunctional talk show host who gets involved in the case for no good reason. Wayne and Boyd share the same anger management class. The anger management class is the main attempt at humor here. Arnold's discussion with T.K. (Anthony Anderson) on his talk show, which appear to be outtakes shown with the film's credits, is so tacky the scene ought to have been a real embarrassment to everyone involved with the film.

T.K. is a friend to Latrell Walker (played by musician DMX). Walker and T.K. are part of the plot twist I mentioned earlier. Also appearing in the film are Michael Jai White of "Spawn" (who happens to be a martial arts expert) as Strutt, Bill Duke of "Payback" as Hinges and Jill Hennessy of "The Paper" as police commander Annette Mulcahy. DMX, Washington and Anderson all appeared in "Romeo Must Die." Director Andrzej Bartkowiak also directed both films. Of the two, "Romeo Must Die" is much better. Of Seagal's starring roles, his Casey Ryback in "Under Siege" is still my favorite.

One of the many problems with "Exit Wounds" is that it takes too long to get going. The complexity of the plot actually works against it. The story seems to be going somewhere, and then it stops, gets slowly back into gear, and starts heading in a new direction. Seagal, a minimalist actor at best, has a hard time with the comic portion of the film. Comedy is tougher to master than drama. Here, the comic portion of the film seems to elude both the actors and the director. The whole production seems sloppy, with awkward cuts between scenes, camera shots that don't seem to add anything to the story, and story elements that aren't believable or consistent.

The one good thing about the film, for you Seagal fans, is the fight scenes. While they aren't top of the line fight scenes, they are competently staged, and this is, after all, Seagal's forte. DMX, in addition to showing some acting chops, also looks good in the fight scenes, a fact he attributes to martial arts fight choreographer Dion Lam. There are plenty of stunts in the film, as well as lots of explosions and car chases, as one would expect from this type of film. Most of this stuff is not out of the ordinary. It has been done before and it has been done a lot better. This film rates a D.

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