Steven Seagal: Lawman

Shooting the tips off matches. And ting.

Some people think Steven Seagal is a joke. A pony-tailed, overweight Action Jackson who can't act and takes himself, buttonless shirts and close-quarter combat just a little too seriously. We beg to differ.

He amuses us greatly, you see. Ever since he turned in a career-best performance as the Navy Seal cook in Under Siege, with a shit-eating grin lodged on our faces we have grudgingly admired his work.
Nico and Hard to Kill - utterly seminal and eminently rewatchable.
His new one, A Dangerous Man - offensively crap yet somehow very, very funny.
The fact he travelled to Japan as a teenager and became the first foreigner to operate an aikido dojo in Japan - typical.
The fact he released a really crap album entitled Songs From The Crystal Cave - woefully awesome.
And now, amongst all this Buddhist-honing, sucky-plucking and Hollywood-posturing we find out that for the past 17 years Seagal has been working as a fully-commissioned deputy sheriff in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. Isn't that just typical? And brilliant? And the kind of stuff that would make an awesome TV show?

We think so, too. Which bring us nicely to Steven Seagal: Lawman.

Some genius – and we don't mean that ironically – stumbled upon this fact and decided to document Seagal's law-enforcing exploits with cameras and microphones in tow, and the result is so pungent in its utter Seagal-ness you almost want to bow in appreciation.

The shooting the tips off matches clip below sums up everything that is good about the show: the way his fellow cops stare in total awe at him; his pompous pieces to camera; the way he relates everything to either Buddhism, "the martial arts" or discipline; and the sanctimonious way he conducts himself AT EVERY POINT AND EVERY STAGE OF EVERY MOMENT OF THE SHOW is just magnificent.

Check out the clips below for a taste of the magic. And tune in weekly from tonight (05/01/2010) to witness the unadulterated priggish joy therein. We can't get enough of it.

Only on Crime & Investigation Network on Tuesday 5th January at 8pm

And Sky Digital channel 553 / Sky HD channel 555