Vietnam veteran and retired CSA agent William Lansing (Seagal) is now working at a wildlife refuge in Northern Alaska. After the letters abruptly stop from Irena Morawska, a 13-year-old orphan he supports financially through a pen pal relationship, Lansing travels to Warsaw, Poland. Once there, he discovers that Irena’s orphanage is a front for a billion-dollar human trafficking syndicate run by notorious crime boss Faisal (Matt Schulze). Using secret codes Lansing taught her, Irena guides him to her location, prompting him to team up with Polish detective Kasia Lato (Agnieszka Wagner) to rescue her and other girls while dismantling Faisal’s network.
As you can probably tell from the synopsis above, ‘Out of Reach’ features the standard Seagal movie setup: Seagal is a flawless ex-agent who is great at everything, can beat up anyone, and is admired by everyone. The bizarre twist to this formula, however, is that this 50-something man also happens to be pen pals with a little girl. It’s a concept that is about as uncomfortable as it sounds, and it seems like an odd way to set up what is basically just a rescue scenario. Putting that aside, the film really doesn’t have much more of a story to tell; it essentially switches between the little girl leaving clues (supposedly using advanced cyphers taught to her by Seagal) and Seagal effortlessly spotting them along the way as he tracks her down. It’s all utterly ridiculous, and the Polish backdrop adds little beyond a few interesting locations.
‘Out of Reach’ falls flat on action, too. For most of the movie, we only see a few short fight scenes where Seagal takes down the villains with his usual repertoire of slaps and throws. They’re not particularly memorable, although they are slightly more energetic than recent outings – mainly because Seagal is actually making the effort to stand up. Beyond this, the only real action happens during the finale after our heroes concoct a “cunning” plan to lure the bad guys into a trap. Bullets fly, guns fire in awkward close-ups, and some good old-fashioned squibs explode all over the place. Sadly, not one bit of it is exciting to watch. As for the final fight, Seagal does shockingly get winded for about 5 seconds, but it’s only so that he can find the time to grab a sword. Then it’s all over with a single blow as an eagle screeches, presumably intended to tie it all back to the pointless survivalist element.
Perhaps the most (and possibly only) interesting aspect of ‘Out of Reach’ is the use of dubbing and doubling. The film opens with a narration from Seagal’s character, but large chunks are voiced by an impersonator who sounds nothing like him. Bizarrely, this also extends into his on-screen performance, with random lines of dialogue inexplicably replaced. According to online sources, this was due to changes made to the story at a later date, but I’m not entirely sure this excuse holds water. Going by his lip movement, he is saying exactly the same lines, so it’s either poor sound quality and Seagal wasn’t around to do the ADR, or they just weren’t happy with his line delivery. The film also sports some unintentionally amusing sequences thanks to some very obvious doubling. The most notable of these is towards the end of the film, where Seagal scuffles with the villain and falls over. However, the entire scene is shot using a double who isn’t even remotely similar, so he stands out like a sore thumb.
Unless you’re looking to poke fun at it, I’d imagine even the most die-hard of Steven Seagal fans would struggle to recommend ‘Out of Reach’. The story is ridiculous, the acting is mainly atrocious, and there isn’t even any entertaining action to speak of.
- Out Of Reach - August 24, 2025
- Trailer: ‘The Ugly’ - August 23, 2025
- Blu-ray release: ‘A Chinese Ghost Story Trilogy’ - August 23, 2025
