Jake Hopper is a former CIA agent now working as a high-tech thief. His daughter Jessica & her friends are kidnapped by the Abu Karaf, an Islamic extremist group while on holiday in Thailand. Jake returns to the country & asks his old friend Sunti for help. Sunti, now a monk in order to atone for his past where he accidentally killed a woman in a shootout, joins Hopper in pursuing the Abu Karaf. But they soon realise that the group are innocent & are being framed for this by a Thai general who is also a devil worshipper & who plans to get the CIA to eliminate the Abu Karaf in order to stamp out his opposition. Jake & Sunti have less than 72 hours to free the kidnapped & stop the CIA from making a costly mistake.After the utterly pathetic Out for a Kill, Steven Seagal tried a slight change of tack & signed on to make Belly of the Beast shortly after completing work on the previous film. This time, the director is Ching Siu Tung & has actor Tom Wu, who starred in Out for a Kill as a Chinese mobster, playing another villain.Belly of the Beast has been somewhat savaged by the same crowd of critics who saw Out for a Kill, dismissing Belly as more of the same. I, however, tend to disagree. Belly is not a particularly great film, but it is light years ahead of Out for a Kill due to having a better written script & some good action scenes. The acting is also better & there is plenty of dark humour thrown in for good measure. This time, Seagal faces off against a corrupt Thai general & his dark master, as well as a former friend & a ladyboy assassin (in case you don't know what ladyboys are, they are a unique breed of gay men who pose as women until they get their gender reassignment surgery). Seagal also has plenty of dark one-liners to throw in, making the film a laugh riot in terms of enjoyment. The action scenes tend to go to the absurd but are still enjoyable, while the climax, placing Seagal up against Tom Wu's corrupt general in a fight that is assisted by chanting monks fighting the evil priest.The acting is better than usual. Seagal has some issues with his dialogue, with some lines coming out in a slightly different accent, but acquits himself well. Byron Mann makes a good backup & Tom Wu is superbly sinister as the evil general.

Steven Segall may be older and put on weight but he still has what it takes. The gentlemen from jells kitchen is not a critic and should leave that roll to those who are. However, he certainly has the right to express what he fells but to rake Segall over the coals the way did was not justified. It's one thing to not like the movie it's another thing to go after the actor. These folks are not show offs but take their jobs seriously. Many spend months researching the rolls they are to play going so far as to actually get hands on experience if able. And while your out at it get verb conjugation right. This movie was very good. Was it one of the best that Segall has done, no, but was not the worse. Who cares if he had a stand in on some of the fight scenes. Not everyone can be an Angelina Jolee or a Jackie Chan so lay off the guy. I saw nothing wrong with the script or the dialog. The photography was beautiful and showed the beauty of Thailand and its people.

Seagal almost seems too mellow in this movie. Its as if he doesn't care at all, and if the movie flops ? GFY! loddy dah dah....dah. The scene when he grabs a bottle of water and another scene when the thai officer is hitting him with the nightstick/baton and seagal is just sitting there so casual looking at him like " what in the hell are you doing " ?? lol... I don't know,, maybe he actually has a sense of humor. Those scenes are so obviously out of sync they couldn't have been taken seriously in the script. But the fight scenes are good and there are plenty of them.. The acting overall seemed a bit forced, phony ,amateur maybe.. but steven seagal kicks a lot of ass. Overall a good movie .

Who's naming these movies? I think the title department at Sony has a vendetta with Seagal. That has to be the only reason - all of Seagal's titles sound like his present weight condition. "Out Of Reach"?.....for a sandwich. "Today You Die"? Just add a T at the end of the title. "Submerged"? ....in fat. OK, I'll stop. But it's so addictive. Seagal could stand to lose a few pounds. He's wearing muumuus now. Just take a look at any recent picture of the man."Belly Of The Beast" has a bad title, but it's an entertaining movie. Jake Hopper's (Seagal) daughter is vacationing in Thailand when she is kidnapped by Islamic terrorists. Now Jake has to find her and stop the madness within.What's good about "Belly of the Beast" is that it looks like Seagal cares about this particular outing. He puts a lot of effort into the fight scenes. He's using wires and a stunt double, but he's trying. Seagal as an actor? He needs improvement but who watches his movies for the character development and dialogue? You can't hear what he's saying anyway. You need closed captioning and even that doesn't work sometimes."Belly Of The Beast" is junky fun at it's finest.For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com