UNDER SIEGE (1992)
Rating: 3.5 out of 4 /Buy the DVD Here
Tagline: It’s not a job…It’s an Adventure!
Directed by Andrew Davis
Starring: Steven Seagal, Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Busey, Erika Eleniak, Colm Meaney.
THE PLAN: When an ex-CIA operative and his band of terrorists take over the USS Missouri intent on stealing and selling its missiles, only one man can put a stop to it: the cook!
THE KILL: Steven Seagal wasn’t necessarily a new breed of action hero when he hit the scene big in the late 80s: his brand of flying kicks and punches mixed with a monotone delivery and an overall air of self-importance was fairly par for the course back in the day. But this actual Seagal movie WAS a bit different. Seagal didn’t play the super-human, like Stallone, Arnold, and the rest. He was more interested in being the badass, the street tough. He didn’t want to kick the ass of a mercenary or a terrorist, he wanted to take down mob guys, hoodlums and thugs. I don’t know if it’s respectable that he kept himself relatively down to Earth, or a show of “those other action-hero punks couldn’t REALLY handle the streets like me” bravado. All I know is, the trend changed for him with 1992’s UNDER SIEGE.
Trailer!
No mystery as to why Seagal felt the need to jump aboard the mega-action flick bandwagon: by 1992, two DIE HARD movies had already come out and shot major life into the genre. The formula – one seemingly simple average man against an army of hostage-taking professional killers – is just so compelling. Plus it’s easy to move around: of course we’ve all heard, at this point, “Die Hard on a (fill in the blank).” So it was that UNDER SIEGE is basically DIE HARD ON A SHIP. It’s not ashamed of this, nor should it be, because we don’t go to these movies for mind-blowing creativity, we go for mind-blowing things blowing up.
Seagal is Casey Ryback, a cook aboard the USS Missouri, which is out on its final voyage at sea. Before the party can really start, a band of mean-as-hell terrorists – aided by Navy turncoat Krill (Gary Busey) – take the ship over, its crew hostage, and begin their plan of hijacking the numerous missiles the ship holds. Of course, no one has counted on the cook, who is no ordinary cook, as it turns out. Ryback is a highly-decorated former Navy SEAL, who’s serving out his time in the kitchen due to insubordination. Ryback quickly gets some unusual help in the lovely form of Miss July 1989 (played by real Miss July, Erika Eleniak), who just happens to be waiting inside a large party cake (if you see it, it makes sense). Long story short, these two save everyone’s asses.
What’s that, gun? You… want me to kill everyone..?
UNDER SIEGE is impressive, large-scale entertainment from very early on. For starters, it makes Seagal quite likable, even funny – something his previous films, for all their charms, really do not. The setting is a claustrophobic one – we’re in the bowels of the ship for most of the running time – but it allows for neat little cat-and-mouse games and chases. Plus it’s really cool when everyone’s firing their machine guns and the bullets make those sharp “ding-ding-ding” sounds all over the place. Director Andrew Davis proves himself just as capable as a McTiernan at orchestrating action mayhem – it’s never confusing or overly noisy, it’s lean and efficient, never wasting a moment.
I haven’t even gotten to what’s best about UNDER SIEGE though: the villains. Every action movie needs a hissable (but entertaining) bad guy, and this one has two great ones. First, Gary Busey as a traitorous, volatile nutcase. With those wacky eyes and wide, freaky smile, Busey is never really convincing as an actual Naval Commander, but he sells the shit out of the fact that he’s simply out of his mind, and very happy to be so. Tommy Lee Jones plays Strannix, the leader of this takeover. He’s a wild man too, although in a different way than Busey’s Krill. Strannix was a CIA operative back in the day (he’s seemingly still living back in the day) and at first it appears as though his hijacking is out of bitterness and resentment toward the US Government… But as was the case with DIE HARD, it turns out the terrorists don’t have any political or moral motivations – they’re simply after money. Jones plays the “paranoid anti-government ex-hippy” like a hopped-up radio DJ gone mad in some scenes, in others he plays the calm, cold and sly thief. It’s a schizophrenic performance, and a wonderful one.
Duuuuuuuuuuuddde….
For most of his fans, this is easily the high point of Steven Seagal’s career, the perfect melding of sleek hand-to-hand combat and big-budget pyrotechnics. I’d have to agree (although I’m inclined to prefer the truly nasty OUT FOR JUSTICE every now and then). For people who don’t quite dig the martial artist, this is the one that might change their minds, at least for two hours.
TOP DEATH: Without giving too much away, one of our bad guys gets the old “knife in the skull/skull through a radar screen” treatment.
TOP ACTION: It’s not easy to pin down one specific scene, since honestly so much of the film is one long chase/shootout. Let’s call it even and say the whole flick falls under “Top Action!”
FEMALE EXPLOITATION: Oh hell yeah. We get a real Playboy bunny playing a Playboy bunny, and she shows us why in the “pop out of the cake” scene I’m sure we all remember vividly.
For $100, I’ll remove the black boxes…
HOMOEROTIC MOMENT: Well, we DO get to see Gary Busey in a dress at one point, and if you ask me he (the character AND the actor) is enjoying it just a little too much.
TOP DIALOGUE: Strannix (gazing at Ryback’s work): Why didn’t you hire this person? I don’t know what his price would have been, but it would have been WORTH it.
DRINKING GAME: Slug one back every time Miss July whines annoyingly. Brother, you’ll be drooling like an invalid by the time this thing is done!
TRIVIA: A year after this film, director Andrew Davis would direct Tommy Lee Jones his way to an Academy Award in THE FUGITIVE.
The film’s screenwriter, J.F. Lawton, previously wrote PRETTY WOMAN.
Although most of the film was shot on an actual battleship, it wasn’t the Missouri, it was the USS Alabama.
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