Concerned about potential collaboration between a ruthless Mexican drug cartel and an Islamic terrorist organization a retired assassin by the name of "John Harmon" (Steven Seagal) is called upon to foment discord between the two groups who are meeting in Istanbul to cement their agreement. He is also given an alternate assignment to take out a specific target responsible for an airplane bombing months earlier. Since both organizations are large and well protected the first thing he does is to assemble a small team which includes a beautiful American agent named "Zara Hayek" (Jemma Dallender) and a former special forces operative with a penchant for electronic devices by the name of "Matthew Sharp" (Russell Wong). Needless to say, although both of them are good with weapons and hand-to-hand fighting, the majority of the killing is left for John who makes it look almost effortless. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this movie had an interesting plot but it suffered from poor editing and bad direction. For starters, there didn't seem to be a smooth transition from one scene to another which gave the film a low-quality and uneven effect. Likewise,there were some scenes which tended to focus on extended fight sequences--and John's martial abilities-even though the events at the time mandated that he finish off his opponent quickly in order to help one of his colleagues in a desperate situation. But then, why make an effort to save your partner right away when you can play cat-and-mouse with a bad guy and demonstrate your superior technique in the process? In short, I believe that with more competent direction this film had the potential to be a much better movie than it turned out to be. However, because the movie lacked that necessary component I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.
