People.com reports that actor Steven Seagal, the guy who popularized the snapped neck instant kill move, a staple of decades of action movies, presented a gift of a sword to Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro – from the government of the Russian Federation.
What the actual fuck is this? Steven Seagal, the guy whose film credits almost always can be joined by the word “is” – as in “Steven Seagal is On Deadly Ground”, “is Hard to Kill”, “is Out for Justice”, “is Above the Law”, “is Under Siege” etc, in Don LaFontaine’s trailer voiceovers – is now acting as an emissary between two of America’s sworn enemies? The Steven Seagal I thought I knew would get both Maduro and Putin in a room and decapitate both of them with an elaborate piano wire and ceiling fan trap. “These two heads of state have been removed from office. Permanently” he would say before the credits rolled. This real-life has-been probably complained about the quality of the hors d’oeuvres in Venezuela before he took a call from Viktor Orban’s assistant about a ribbon cutting at a new political detention center in Budapest next week. Fuck Steven Seagal.
We’ll always still have that time together when a mercenary played by late legendary actor R. Lee Ermey tried to sneak up on Seagal on that oil refinery platform in On Deadly Ground. Still one of the top ten best action movie kills of all time. Back when filmmakers knew that sheer implausibility of action movie combat could be remedied by making it incredibly entertaining.