Steven Seagal muscles his way through Pistol Whipped, another brutal action flick. This time Seagal is a boozing, compulsive gambler forced by a mysterious stranger to assassinate mob guys and corrupt cops. Naturally, this makes it hard for him to be a doting father to his adoring young daughter. Pistol Whipped has some twists to its plot, but this is all moot--you either like Steven Seagal or you don't. If you do, this is one of the better of his straight-to-video oeuvre. Seagal's attempt to be tender is laughable, but the story isn't completely predictable, the supporting cast isn't bad (Lance Henriksen, Aliens, brings some elegant menace to the proceedings), and though the martial-arts scenes are brief, they're not as choppily edited as in some of his other movies. If you don't like Steven Seagal, you'll find his bloated, wooden presence as repulsive and hateful as it was in every other movie he's ever made. He has two expressions--squinty and scowly--and they're increasingly difficult to tell apart. His one cinematic quality is a lumbering menace, and for his fans, that seems to be enough. For them, Pistol Whipped has plenty of lumbering and scowling on display. --Bret Fetzer