Story Line: The plot line on this one is brief. Ja Rule plays Nick, a worker for a big time crime boss. Nick brings in Sasha, played by Steven Segal, who the crime boss believes is working for the FBI. Nick vouches for Sasha, as they have been friends for over two years. Both men were serving time. While there Donny, played by Morris Chestnut breaks in to get information from a man who successfully stole and hid 200 million dollars in gold from the United States Treasury and is sentenced to die for killing five treasury agents in the process. Now that you know all that, get your eyes and ears ready for a lot of gunfire, fight sequences and explosions - because they are the REAL stars of the movie.

Tell Me More About It: The first movie I saw with Steven Segal was "Above the Law." It came out in 1988 and I remember this tall, skinny guy kickin' butt on screen, using a style that I had never seen in a movie before. He was the "anti" Schwartzenegger, and Van Dam. I thought he was awesome! His plots were thin, which was no problem

for me because the action was phat. In my mind, he was the king of the two syllable or less action movie genre of the late 80's early 90s (you know, "Marked for Death," "Hard to Kill," "Rambo," "Bloodsport," "Commando," etc.). But alas time waits for no one and now he's a 50+ old, fat, slow actor, who needs a stunt double to fake punches for him and all his action sequences have to take place in the dark in the hopes that we don't notice.

Then you got Ja Rule, who is a many times over platinum selling rapper, who does the same, `lean his head to the side, smirk smugly,' look that he did in those piece of junk performances he turned in for the movies "Turn it Up" and "The Fast & the Furious." Now, for a rapper with this hard core image I have to say I haven't seen the star of a movie get his butt kicked so bad since the original "Shaft" in 1971! He gets tossed like a rag doll when he first hits prison, then he gets beat like a tied up goat by 41 year old Nia Peeples! She was throwing kicks on him like she was warming up for a "Fame" Reunion.

There are plenty of problems to choose from with this movie. The cinematography and a lot of the explosions look downright cheap. The writing is laughably bad. There are also some absolutely unnecessary things in the movie; namely, Tony Plana, a fine actor who plays the warden of the New Alcatraz, who goes by the name of El Fuego. That name plus the fact that he walks around the prison in a leather jacket-you would swear he would be the big bad dog of the yard, but instead he is borderline warm & fuzzy! Now there are some good performances turned in by the aforementioned Peeples, Claudia Christian does well as a tough as nails FBI agent and Morris Chestnut sheds his pretty boy image to play a demented bad guy role. The real surprise comes from rapper Kurupt, who provides great comic relief in this film. But that's where the compliments have to end for me. I didn't like this movie, but the people in attendance at the screening seemed to, but keep in mind, they didn't pay to get in. Explosions and fight scenes a plenty do count for something in my book, so that's why it gets the extra half star.

Steven Segal: Sascha Petrosevitch	Ja Rule: Nick Frazier
Morris Chestnut: Donny/49er One	Directed by: Don Michael Paul

Steven Segal- "Exit Wounds", "Fire Down Below"	Ja Rule- "Fast & The Furious", "Turn it Up"
Morris Chestnut- "Like Mike", "Two Can Play That Game"