“I’m Steven Seagal’s shadowy head, and I don’t approve of these crappy reviews.”
I consider any film ever referred to as ‘Die Hard on a…’ as the AntiChrist. But I cannot ignore them all, and considering the Under Siege films were among the first (and are actually pretty good) I can’t continue to pretend these films don’t exist.
But they aren’t Die Hard. They can’t even sniff his singlet…
Under Siege
(I’ve used this joke before – but you don’t know that) There are two reasons to watch Under Siege, and both reside on the upper torso of one Erika Eleniak, former Playboy model and no fan of brassieres.
Well in reality Under Siege isn’t the worst way to spend a couple hours. It finds Steven Seagal at the tail end of his (extremely short and no doubt pony-tailed) peak, and in the middle of Tommy Lee Jones’ ‘I YELL EVERYTHING!’ over-acting phase that only ended when Will Smith and CGI aliens killed off his will to live.
Seagal is Ryback, a crack navy operative busted down to chef for unnamed (but no doubt oily) transgressions of the naval code. Ryback is aboard the last voyage of the USS Missouri, a well travelled and heavily armed ship soon to be put into dry dock permanently. Ryback finds himself trapped in the cooler when the ship goes down, taken over by ‘Bad Billy’ (Tommy Lee Jones) and the especially traitorous Krill (Gary Busey), the insider who provided the bad guys access under the guise of a debaucherous party for the Captain.
Even once freed Ryback finds his only companions to be his own surliness and sass, and he spends this private time concocting awful one liners to use over the next hour or so as he picks off the bad guys one by one. Even upon finding the near naked Jordan (Eleniak), Ryback instantly extracts the fun out of that by ordering her to put on some clothes.
Ryback lurks, sneaks and surprises his way across the boat, a half MacGyver, half Guru stabby, as we all await the inevitable stand off between he and Bad Billy, a loudmouth with the personality of 743 Seagals.
It’s easy to see where the Die Hard comparisons stem from. Both have one guy lurking in the shadows, overmatched against a crack squad of heavily armed men. Each film has the jump over the edge away from the explosion, the hanging from the rope guy, and Busey plays Die Hard’s Karl to the hilt.
All that, and Die Hard came first (and is infinitely better in every way).
Where the difference is evident to anyone is in our hero. Where Bruce Willis got bloody and dirty – in fact he got the shit kicked out of him – Seagal don’t play dat. I think in six or seven pitched battles, many of them hand to hand, he might get hit once, and he sure as hell doesn’t bleed. This aloof immortality might make him more impressive in small doses, but is slightly less realistic after countering and putting down the 137th amazingly talented soldier in succession.
Perfection shouldn’t be decried and derided, but neither should it be applauded when it is implausible and totally faked. Under Siege isn’t a bad film by any stretch, the action is fine and Tommy Lee Jones has his fun, but it isn’t the all time great it is often remembered as.
Final Rating – 7.5 / 10. Well that was a ship-load of violent fun. What’s next? A train you say?
Under Siege 2: Dark Territory
Only a few years removed from single handedly saving the world from the threat of nuclear attack, Ryback boards a luxurious passenger train with his niece (Katherine Heigl). It’s meant to be a bonding trip, and nothing bonds quicker than killing terrorists together.
You see, America has a super-secret spy satellite that they don’t yet know how to harness effectively. Sure they’ve used it to look at boobies, but there must be something else to use it for? One man has ideas of his own, unfortunately though his plans aren’t quite so civic minded.
So what does this smarmy yuppie shitbag bad guy have to do with Ryback’s family fun? Well blow me down with a feather if the US Federal Government didn’t decide to transport this top-secret potentially lethal weapon via passenger train…
Again within minutes the train is hijacked, leaving no-one bar the cook and one bartender free to strike back.
Look the only thing different here is that the vehicle is on rails and not floating – oh and at some point in the last three years Ryback made the crucial decision to lop off his signature ponytail. In fact this is even more Die Hard than the first film, and actually more violent than both those films.
Seagal even cracks a scratch in this one, and possibly copped two hits. Who knows if they made six or seven more sequels he might have been mildly hurt. But he’ll never, never ever be John McClane, no matter how much he tried.
Final Rating – 7 / 10. This is limited. This is derivative. This is… somehow still OK.
Under Siege shouldn’t be bagged for being a rip-off of an all time classic (even if I might be the only guy still bagging them), but they still don’t belong alongside the Lethal Weapon series either.
They are a couple of decent action films starring a man (and in the case of the first, 2 men) at the very peak of their powers. It’s just that their peaks weren’t touching the sky.
OGR
