1/5 Clear The Room! It's A Bomb!
  by Mike Schorn (APO, AE United States)
Maybe I'm being just the tiniest bit hard on "Ticker". Yes, I know that it was made on a meager $600,000 budget, but that doesn't excuse it for me. Yes, I know that filming time was limited to twelve days (no joke), but I can't look past it. And yes, I know that it was directed by the ultimate B-movie hack, Albert Pyun (Nemesis, Cyborg)...but could he really have done no better for a man of his experience?

The story, in short:
San Francisco is plagued by the antics of a dangerous demolitions expert (Dennis Hopper, Speed), pursued by Ray Nettles (Tom Sizemore, Saving Private Ryan (Special Limited Edition)) - a vengeful detective looking to avenge the death of his partner (Nasir "Nas" Jones) - and the city's bomb squad, led by the Zen-practicing martial artist Frank Glass (Steven Seagal, Under Siege). They must seize the criminal before his plot to rain destruction down on the entire city is realized.

For starters, even though this is a movie of diverse theatrical talent - including Jaime Pressly ("My Name is Earl") as the bomber's girlfriend - the acting leaves very, very much to be desired: the fact that "Mumbles" Seagal gives a performance to cry about is a given, but not only does Sizemore lose his edge in between shouting at Nas and Pressly, but the usually-adamant Dennis Hopper features the most amazing disappearing accent. Yes, a disappearing accent - he's Irish in one scene, and not Irish in another. No rhyme or reason to it. I hate to say it, but no-name actress Linda Castro gives the best performance of the film as a schizophrenic homeless woman.

The film plays like an uninteresting thriller: the bomber plays cat & mouse with the police, blowing up things at will while Nettles runs around as clueless as a beheaded chicken and Glass spouts Zen nonsense from behind his desk. Other than the shooting of Nettles' partner (Nas is featured on the cover of the film, but his total screentime doesn't top five minutes), nothing really exciting happens until the end - no car chases, no sex scenes, and sparse shootouts. Even when we do get to the end, the only thing we're treated to is a silly gunfight and the two absolute worst hand-to-hand fights that Seagal has ever been involved in. Blah.

What decisively kills the movie for me, however, is that it seems so very small. The scale of the film pales in comparison to anything that the cast has done before, and makes it seem like most of the movie was shot in the parking lot behind the production building. Add to that the fact that the film liberally incorporates footage from the Dolph Lundgren movies Sweepers and The Peacekeeper, and what you're left with is a certified bomb, even where direct-to-video releases are concerned.

Luckily for Sizemore, he was immediately able to salvage his career with Black Hawk Down. Hopper and Seagal, however, continue drift rather listlessly from project to project, with the latter's face not having seen the inside of a movie theater since the release of his following film, Half Past Dead. While I don't contribute their ensuing lack of success to "Ticker", the movie best serves to show where the careers of these actors were headed at that time - nowhere.

2/5 Seagal Gets Closer To His infamous Direct To Video World
  by Sebastian Sanjurjo (Miami FL)
After Exit Wounds Success I was hoping to see Seagal doing another good theatrical film, instead he gives us this excuse for a movie. First of all Seagal does not play the main character here; Tom Sizemore takes the lead as an over the top cop. Secondly either Segal did this before Exit Wounds or he ate a lot of cheeseburgers to gain all the weight he had lost. Seriously I really wanted to see Segal continue the shape he had in Exit Wounds, instead he cheats us by playing a small role, that barely has screen time, and is usually sitting in a chair.

In this flick Tom Sizemore plays Ray Nettles, a cop on the edge, who is on the look for vengeance after his family was killed in an automobile explosion. He is on the look for any incident that matches what happened to his family. Shortly in the film we are introduce to Swann (Denis Hopper) a mad Terrorist of Irish decent..now there's the problem I cant accept that Dennis Hopper, a Kansas born actor playing an Irish; he did a good job in Speed for playing a similar part, makes sense why they chose him for the part, but why Irish. In the other hand one of Swan's men has a better Irish accent then him. Anyways, Sizemore finds Swann's girl and takes her into custody. He begins to question her on Swans motive and possible targets. She of course refuses to give any information, possibly due to fear of being killed by Swann. Sizemore's move now is to find the best bob squad in the business, and of course that'd be Mr. Puffy Face, Nappy Hair Seagal. Segal plays Glass, The leader of an elite Bob Squad. Glass and Nettles will join forces to stop these maniacs from killing hundreds or possibly thousands of civilians.

Seagal had very little interested in playing this part, you can obviously tell by his lack motivation in lines. The good thing the movie has is that Seagal's voice is not dubbed nor enhanced; and there aren't any doubles in the fights...but the fights are plain bad, there really is only one fight with Seagal, and its short, quick and too dark. This is really not worth neither owning nor renting. I guess you could wait for it to be shown on cable; the last time they gave it was on the USA network.

MY PERSONAL RATING: 1 ½ OUT OF 5



2/5 Below standard filming with above standard casting
  by Mason Vaquero (Colorado)
One might feel they have to force themselves through an action film of this caliber. The fact that it has such screen stars as Dennis Hopper and Tom Sizemore in it does not help much when the characters they play are shallow and pointless. For an action film it is pretty bad in many areas, particularly the production, which has "ATF" agents with uniforms that look like they were bought at a farm store and had duct tape applied on the back for the Lettering. Sizemore and Hopper do their best but it is not enough to save this film. Seriously, if one is looking for an action film that covers the themes in here, there would be many better to pick from.

Ticker had potential with the plot but half the time the actors are given simple one-liners and minimal scenes to act out frustration or worry, further taking away any credibility one would have with the daunting situations they face. Steven Seagal is almost meaningless in this movie, and although he had his fifteen seconds of fame early in his career, it seems everything he has done since then has been less than filler.


1/5 Awful waste of good talent......disappointing.
  by Wayside Park (USA)
I watch this movie thinking it would another Speed type film, which is a compliment, but this was bad. Bad meaning why would anyone have big names like this and squander it with bad script and direction. Dennis was so unbelievable even trying to act like a lunatic bomber, if that is even possible given that he did such a wonderful job in Speed. Now i am a big Seagal fan but why is he moving his lips so much in this movie when he is not doing the dialog? Was that even intentional or he forgot his chapstick cause i can't even tell. There is some suspense so i'll give it that but it didn't hold my interest enough because at this point, i really didn't care.

Not recommended!

1/5 What the heck happened here!
  by Reader0111 (Anaheim, California)
I'm not a movie expert. I just like Movies.....
This film has lots of well known actors. But the thing that strikes me is: 1) The sound is wrong, 2) the cutting is wrong, 3) the direction is wrong, 4) post production editing is wrong.....

When you watch this it seems like it could be a good movie, but it just does not make it. Never seen a film with so many A/B list actors that was so poorly made. Just sad really.....