Star: Steven Seagal

Marked For Death (1990) – Steven Seagal

This is the third movie in Steven Seagal’s career, and is a bit more miserable than his last one. Compared to Hard To Kill, this movie is less cool, less smooth, less exciting, more messy, more depressing, more into the old-school TV drama and horror genres and less of an enjoyable action hero movie.

Steven Seagal does a fair job as John Hatcher – the star of this movie. It’s just the plot and genre are not to my cup of tea. While some scenes are still decent, and the plot still has some qualities to it; because it’s a messy and and unpleasant to watch I’m going to call it a bit of a stinker compared to the baseline set by the better composed first couple of movies in his career. It’s clear there was some budget and resource put into this movie, but I like what I like and I don’t like what I don’t like, and for my taste this movie is about as bad as his poorest modern movies, and that’s saying something because some of them are unwatchable and I’m Steven Seagal fan saying it. I bet he struggles to watch his own worst movies back himself! Marked For Death (1990) is not unwatchable but it belongs in a category called (barely) watchable and I’m certainly in no hurry to rewatch it in the next few years (if ever) so long as I remember how weak it was. I’d rather rewatch The Glimmer Man twice in one night than rewatch Marked For Death twice in one year. But hey, if you like a bit of drama and horror, you might enjoy this one. Seagal is still here doing his thing, occasionally, and some scenes are decent.

While this movie was released in 1990 in USA (the same year as Hard To Kill – just a few months later), Marked For Death wasn’t released until 1991 in the UK for some reason.

Martial arts wise, Seagal is his usual self, with plenty of assertive Aikido on display. For example he does a nice pivoting block into Shiho-Nage, against a wide swinging hook with a knife, at nearly an hour into this movie, in the jewellery store scene. There’s lots of arm breaks here too.

Seagal’s partner-in-crimefighting in this movie, called Max, is played by Keith David, who gives a very basic NPC-style performance. I feel like he was only brought in, on Seagal’s side, to counter possible narratives of racism, since Seagal is primarily beating up a crew of Rastafarian Jamaican drugdealers in this movie, led by a character called Screwface, played by Basil Wallace in a way that I can only describe as weird while over-playing to and mixing-up stereotypes. Rastas are among the most peaceful and positive-spirited people in the world, in real life, in my experience.

The Patriot (1998) – Steven Seagal

The Patriot starts off seeming like a B movie in terms of cinematography, script detail and acting quality – seemingly worse than his worst early movie (Marked For Death). But it picks up and becomes a watchable movie with a mildly engaging plot, some decent scenes and a fair quality of work from the main man, Steven Seagal.

Within the first few minutes, it reeks of him not being challenged in the slightest way as he runs rampant with his own style of acting and storytelling. While there are advantages to this, in how he can unabatedly bring his visions and persona to life in the fullest form, there are of course downsides to such lack of critical feedback.

It starts to get a bit spicy within the first 10 minutes, then it deflates, then we get a bit of a plot twist as the core concept unravels.

Camilla Belle plays Steven Seagal’s androgynous-looking child in this movie. I honestly couldn’t tell if they were playing his son or his daughter until I looked it up.

Seagal drops a truth bomb or two in this movie, for example on the topic of western medicine vs alternative ways – at first I wondered how he got away with that, but it soon became apparent that it was little more than a bait & switch, as it proceeded to push modern western contagion theory, military enforced quarantine culture, and urgent blind acceptance of injectable cures. Add to that, how this movie also encourages its audience mistake patriotism for terrorism, then what we ultimately have, is 90 minutes of typical Hollywood filth, on a B movie budget!

We’ve already Steven Seagal go from skinny in his first few movies, to a stronger build in Under Siege, to getting chubby after that. Now he’s clearly gained weight on another level for this movie since his last one (Fire Down Below). He tried to hide his belly under a long trench coat in the opening scene here, but he’s not fooling anyone with that. He also took a break for a few years after this stinker, before coming back strong with Exit Wounds in 2001, so I guess he was going through a difficult time in his personal life around about when this movie was made and for some years after. Or maybe he just felt guilty about the shameful aspects of this movie, and entered a bout of depression?

Seagal divorced Kelly LeBrock in 1996 – the same year as he got written out of Executive Decision after a dispute behind the scenes – then he had mild success with The Glimmer Man (1996) and a little less success with Fire Down Below (1997) before making The Patriot (1998) under the wing of his own production company in partnership with some others. Then he took 3 years off, and came back strong with Exit Wounds co-starring DMX, Anthony Anderson, Michael Jai White and Eva Mendes.

Honestly, The Patriot is watchable – it’s a shame about its malevolent intent, but if you can overlook that and try to enjoy the movie, it’s not too bad if you’re bored and haven’t seen it before or recently enough to remember much about it. I won’t be in any hurry to rewatch it, but several years down the line I might forget almost everything about The Patriot and then be simultaneously mildly entertained and disgusted by it all over again – who knows.

The Patriot (1998) starring Steven Seagal

Above The Law (1988) – Steven Seagal

Not a bad attempt for Steven Seagal‘s first movie, but it lacks some of the uncompromising vibe that his later movies had, such as The Glimmer Man. In filming Above The Law, Seagal seemed more willing to do whatever he were told to do even if it didn’t suit his style that was yet to fully come out.

This was his first real role in a movie, although he did previously assist some movie stars with their martial arts training about 5 years earlier – initially The Challenge (1982) and then Never Say Never Again (1983) where he was training Sean Connery and ended up breaking Sean’s wrist. No wonder he disappeared for 5 years before coming back into the movie industry. Still, he came back with a bang – Above The Law is a respectable movie, it gets a bit slow & dry at times but it still had a good bit of action and we see a good amount of the Steven Seagal we’ve come to know & love. Seagal’s performance was decent here, but a bit more compromising & awkward, like a normal actor, compared to his later movies where he seemed to be calling the shots more and his style was more naturally suited to him without bits that don’t match that vibe.

Supporting cast members include a young Sharon Stone who plays the role of Seagal’s wife! She looks a bit more ‘real’ here – a bit chunkier and less ‘made up’, but still a smart & attractive lead female that Seagal must have been honoured to have in his first movie, although it’s equally possible he didn’t think much of it, since Sharon Stone didn’t become very famous until the 90s. In fact her most famous performance (due to controversy) was Basic Instinct in 1992, the same year as Seagal’s biggest movie, when he did Under Siege in 1992. Some would say Sharon Stone’s breakout movie was Total Recall in 1990 with Arnie. Either way, she was a relatively small player at the time of Above The Law in 1988, but she puts plenty of effort into this minor role – if anything, she’s over-dramatic.

Pam Grier also does a decent job as the lead female in this movie – she plays Seagal’s partner police officer.

Hard To Kill (1990) – Steven Seagal

This is Steven Seagal‘s second movie, released two years after his debut (Above The Law).

This movie (Hard To Kill) is very simplistic in plot, but it contains much of the good action that Steven Seagal is known & loved for.

The plot is basically, Seagal playing a cop called Mason Storm, who films a senator doing a dodgy deal, then they come after him and his family, killing his wife and putting him into a coma. Mason Storm recovers, with the help of a friend from Internal Affairs (Lt Kevin O’Malley, played alright by Frederick Coffin), who also finds and protects his son. Seagal then finds a new girlfriend and attempts to expose the corruption while staying alive and also keeping his new girlfriend alive (they don’t know his son is alive until near the end of the movie). Plenty of bungling baddies with guns come after him since they discover he’s still alive, and Seagal generally beats them all up as he meets them, with his gun or empty handed. That’s pretty much the entire plot in a nutshell.

Just like in Above The Law, Seagal’s character here in Hard To Kill is a bit more charming & polite – more vulnerable, less “badass”, compared to his later movies after he made the big time with Under Siege about two years after this one.

This movie also features some classic Aikido movies during some of its fight scenes, as well as having several generic training scenes such as punching a wooden post, and doing kata-type moves in thin air.

Steven Seagal’s naughty antics are also in full effect here, as he takes every opportunity to grope both of his women in this movie while filming romantic scenes with them. Especially the first one, where Bonnie Burroughs plays his wife Felicia Storm who gets murdered in the first few minutes of the movie. Bonnie has retrospectively spoken up about how Seagal behaved inappropriately towards her, including how he inappropriately touched her to “help her get on top of him” as they rehearsed and re-shot that scene several times. Apparently there was no Intimacy Coordinator in those days, like there are these days, enduring such romantic scenes are not breaching anyone’s expectations and making them uncomfortable. The second romantic scene was a bit less naughty, and that was with his then real-life wife, Kelly LeBrock who plays the lead female in this movie – the nurse who helps Seagal escape the hospital and recover. LeBrock was well known for starring in Weird Science (1985), then Seagal somehow managed to marry her in 1987 before his Hollywood debut in 1988. She was his third wife, and stayed with him till 1996, around the time of all the drama on the set of Executive Decision where he was killed off earlier than originally planned, never to be welcomed back to that level of Hollywood again.

Out For Justice (1991) – Steven Seagal

This is the fourth movie in Steven Seagal’s career, and within just a few minutes it’s already clear that this is a better composed movie than his last one.

Out For Justice (1991) is an alright movie by Seagal’s standards – some would even say he’s in his prime here. This movie gets more fun as it develops, and has some really nice touches throughout. It builds towards the ending quite well, while having a decent level of screenplay, budget and supporting actors involved, and things generally seem coordinated to a basic standard, unliked Marked For Death which was all over the place.

In this Warner Bros movie, Steven Seagal plays a senior Brooklyn cop who wears his own clothes and knows the area and its people better than anyone else. When his best friend, Detective Bobby Lupo, is killed in a busy street by a local nutcase on a rampage (called Richie Madano, played kind of adequately by William Forsythe), Seagal’s character Detective Gino Felino takes it personally and puts his life on hold to track down the killer.

With wacky country rock music and cringingly fake Brooklyn accents throughout, this movie is hardly a blockbuster, but it was still a step in the right direction towards helping Seagal secure his relatively huge next role in Under Siege (1992) which was objectively speaking, the peak of his career, according to most movie buffs, although true fans of Steven Seagal are just as happy with movies like Glimmer Man (1996) where he seems to have had more authority to do his own thing and bring his own vision to life albeit on a seemingly much humbler budget (which may be true after factoring in Seagal’s change of personal salary since he was a much bigger star by this time, even if he was starting to get shitlisted from the best movies already).

Out For Justice is no masterpiece though. It’s very much like a boring slow drama, if you look past the action scenes. While it’s a clear step up from Marked For Death, it’s still very much lacking depth of script, and the entertainment value is quite turbulent with boons & lulls. There are no significant female roles in this movie either – there’s a plenty of similar female characters playing people’s wives & lovers, but none of them get much screen time here.

Seagal performs a bit better than usual in this movie – he’s quite active (not yet overweight) and does plenty of good Aikido in his fight scenes. He’s mentally on the ball, and physically in good shape too. He’s really putting in the effort required for him to deserve his big break in his fifth movie, Under Siege, which was released the following year. I reckon the producers of Under Siege were impressed by his screen charisma and took pity on him having such a basic plot to work with here in Out For Justice. It’s less disjointed than his previous movie Marked For Death but is still very one-dimensional, almost as if the game plan here was to simply wing it and let the story write itself as Seagal roams around interrogating and beating people up while looking for the killer. It’s the kind of story young kids might come up with at school. Seriously lacking in the plot department, but Steven still kind of makes it work as a mildly successful action hero flick.

Steven Seagal in Out For Justice (1991)

On Deadly Ground (1994) – Steven Seagal

This was Steven Seagal’s 6th movie, which he made between Under Siege 1 (1992) and Under Siege 2 (1995). So he’s already been recognised as a star from Under Siege, which in most movie critics’ eyes remains his biggest & best movie ever, to this day.

On Deadly Ground tells the story of land cherished by natives and locals, ravaged by oil moguls who are happy to kill in order to secure the longevity of their oil rights on this land.

This movie of course stars Steven Seagal, as the main hero of the movie. He’s in his prime here, and plays a Native American working for an oil company who discovers foul play and is almost killed but survives to rescue the land for the locals. The action scenes are generally good, and the plot is simple but alright.

In this movie we’re also treated to a baddie played by Michael Caine. Supporting actors are not bad either.

It’s an OK movie all round – not as strong as Under Siege, and not as cool as Glimmer Man, but still very much OK, on a par with most of the movies at the beginning and middle of his career.

I was impressed to hear the speech at the end of this movie, lasting nearly 4 minutes, where Steven Seagal dropped a ton of truth bombs about the problems in this world, backed by government and big business. He mentions several issues, from suppressed technology to intentionally polluted air & water supplies. How did Steven get away with that, at the end of a movie co-starring Michael Caine? Maybe they allowed it because he had a mistaken explanation of the motives behind these problems. It’s a common mistake to assume it’s all about the money – the people causing these problems couldn’t care less about making money – they have an infinite amount of it since they control the whole financial system. 100 years ago they were printing money for fun. These days it’s all digital, they just type numbers into a computer.

Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995) – Steven Seagal

Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995) has a very similar story to the original Under Siege (1992) where Seagal’s character, an ex SEAL working as a chef, found himself on a military battleship that got hijacked by pirates led by a crazy ex-CIA man, except this time it’s a public train he’s on that gets hijacked by a different crazy ex-CIA man.

While some people prefer this sequel, most people agree the original was slightly better in pretty much every way, myself included – I rate this sequel as OK, just one level below the original which I rated as Decent. I feel like the original had a bit more of an atmosphere – a bit more stage setting – a bit more general production value. Still, they’re near enough alike that it’s well worth watching this sequel soon after watching the original. They follow on quite nicely from each other, since the first had a bit more of a backstory and the second gets stuck in sooner with less building or questioning.

This time, Steven Seagal‘s character Casey Ryback is on board the hijacked train with his only remaining relative, his niece (Sarah Ryback, played adequately by Katherine Heigl) – the daughter of his recently deceased brother who was also a decorated military hotshot but not quite as decorated as himself.

The main baddies in this movie are also played adequately by Eric Bogosian (the brains) and Everett McGill (the top braun). Everett McGill in this movie looks remarkably like the Tekken 3 character Brian Fury who I would be willing to bet was based on him since that game was released into arcades just under 18 months after the release of this movie. Everett also has a bit of a Clint Eastwood vibe about him, while Eric Bogosian seems to have shared hairdresser with Elliott Gould.

Fire Down Below (1997) – Steven Seagal

Continuing the environmental protection theme of On Deadly Ground, this time Steven Seagal plays a federal government agent called Jack Taggart, tasked with tackling a rich businessman disposing of toxic waste in a small Appalachian town with the help of the locals who are intimidated into co-operating. Many federal agents have attempted to tackle this issue in this location before, but they’ve all been dealt with, until now.

Steven Seagal does a good job as his usual self in this movie – he’s still kind of in his prime here – well, in the latter end of it. He plays the lead role here – the whole movie is kind of based around him. This was his first movie after The Glimmer Man (1996) which is many people’s favourite Steven Seagal movie of all time. Before that, he had a brief stint alongside Kurt Russell in Executive Decision (1996) but was written out early due to conflict behind the scenes and from that moment on his level of Hollywood backing decreased, his trajectory to stardom declined, and he focused more on his own style of movie with humbler budgets from that moment on. In this movie, Fire Down Below, Seagal even showcases his guitar skills.

Kris Kristofferson (from Blade) plays the chief baddie in this movie. He does a decent job of it. Marg Helgenberger plays the lead female role, befriended by Seagal’s character – she puts in a fair performance too. Other supporting actors do alright here too – no superstars, but their performances are all respectable in this movie.

The back end of this movie is pretty well executed, which is a rare thing – most martial arts action flicks have weak endings, but this one had plenty of script creativity until the final moment – it’s not a complicated plot, but had plenty if energy continuously to create the desired vibe and plenty of scene changes to keep things interesting.

Overall I rate this movie about equal to Under Siege 2 – a bit better than On Deadly Ground, and almost as good as Under Siege 1 and The Glimmer Man. Therefore this is about the third best movie in Seagal’s career up to this point, when he’s still in his prime but not for much longer.

Steven Seagal in Fire Down Below (1997)

Seagal’s career after Fire Down Below

His following movie – The Patriot (1998) – was originally intended for cinemas but ended up being straight-to-VHS, then Seagal took a few years off and came back strong with Exit Wounds (2001) alongside DMX. Anthony Anderson (the funny fat guy from Romeo Must Die), Michael Jai White, Eva Mendes, Tom Arnold, Bill Duke, etc. Then he did a couple more movies with small theatrical releases in some countries (Ticker 2001 and Half Past Dead 2002) before focusing mainly on straight-to-VHS/DVD movies for the rest of his career, beginning with The Foreigner (2003), Out for a Kill (2003) and Belly Of The Beast (2003) all in the one year. He kept up this pace of about 3 movies a year until 2011 when he slowed down a bit, but he continued to release at least one movie a year until 2019 (when his last movie was released) and in 2016 he had a mad spell of 7 movies in one year!

Exit Wounds (2001) – Steven Seagal

Barely 10 minutes in and it’s clear this is a high level of Steven Seagal movie compared to his usual standard. Instead of diving straight in as a mysteriously highly qualified operative working in a comparatively humble law enforcement role, this time we kick off with an action-packed yet concise backstory showing Seagal working for one police force and performing outstandingly but irritating someone and getting sent away to work for a different force, all within the first 10 minutes. Then we get a nice dose of humour to introduce his new role, and it’s clear this movie has mostly all departments covered and is well set to be comfortably one of his best movies if not the very best of them. Unfortunately, the energy dies off a bit, and it turns into a bit of a muddled action comedy mashup with some high level action scenes here & there still.

While it may be an upgrade from Under Siege in terms of giving the exact style Seagal prefers, and may be an upgrade in plot, cast and music from The Glimmer Man, there is a downside in how it’s a bit too “matter of fact” – less of a delicate atmosphere being built like we had with The Glimmer Man. The grace of execution is lacking somewhat – kind of like what happens when you ask a bunch of kids to produce a show, they all want to act cool but they entirely overlook the fine art aspect that high calibre mature actors tend to aspire for. For this reason, with its unique set of pros & cons putting it better in some ways than Seagal’s best movies, and worse in other ways, overall I rate Exit Wounds (2001) as a high OK, just a tad shy of Under Siege and The Glimmer Man, about equal to Under Siege 2 in terms of general entertainment value. I rate this movie as belonging in his top 5 of all time, just about.

Due to its light-hearted vibe and comedy value, it may be his best movie for people who are looking for a genre like this, a bit like Romeo Must Die (2000) starring Jet Li which also features some of the same supporting cast members as we see here (DMX and Anthony Anderson), or Cradle 2 The Grave which is another Jet Li movie featuring DMX and Anthony Anderson but also features Tom Arnold – all three of these supporting actors are also in Exit Wounds. But for people who’re looking for a slick action hero vibe, everyone seems to be a bit too jovial and Seagal appears to be having a bit too much fun – he smiles a lot in this movie – it’s like he’s not the boss this time round, he’s just being paid well and is enjoying the ride, making a break from producing his own flops like his last movie (The Patriot, 1998) which caused him to take a few years off before coming back with this one where he’s working better with others now.

As expected, Steven Seagal is by far the main character in this movie. DMX and Anthony Anderson play major supporting roles. Tom Arnold and Michael Jai White also play significant roles, but not so ever-present. Eva Mendes also plays a minor role in this movie. They all do a decent job, so far as lighthearted action movies go with a bit of humour.

Ticker (2001) – Steven Seagal and Tom Sizemore

Steven Seagal stars in this movie as a hotshot senior bomb squad technician who doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty and has a very casual borderline-delusional shallowly-serious demeanour & stride like even bombs & bullets can’t touch him.

Terrible Irish accents from Dennis Hopper and Michael Halsey are almost comical.

Oh and it’s a terror-themed movie in 2001 – what a surprise.

Tom Sizemore co-stars in this movie, as possibly the main character – a detective trying to track down the Irish terror cell. Dennis Hopper plays the main baddie. Rappers Nas and Ice-T also take minor roles in this movie. And Jaime Pressly (star of Poison Ivy III) plays a major role, as a captured member of the terror group. Joe Spano (the FBI guy from early seasons of NCIS) plays the police captain responsible for managing Seagal’s and Sizemore’s characters.

Seagal has a big belly already in this movie, making him hobble slowly when he tries to walk fast, and his action work is significantly reduced from previous movies to the point where he’s not even the clear number 1 star of the show any more. Sizemore is kind of the main guy in this movie, based on screen time and acting talent. And in the closing credits, Dennis Hopper is listed 2nd, so Seagal is officially deemed only the 3rd main character in this movie, which is weird since it portrays him as some kind of untouchable hotshot throughout, and the main hero at the end, as if it were just another show based around him, but lacking in screen time and action work compared to what we’re used to from his other movies.

The penultimate ten minutes, when the drama moves over to City Hall, is pretty poor to say the least, reminiscent of Seagal’s worst ever movies, even though prior to that things were pretty captivating, and in the very final 5 or 10 minutes things pick up a little bit as Seagal and Sizemore try to defuse a bomb each at different ends of the building. Although the very last few minutes, from when Seagal focuses on his own task, to when the movie ends, that stretch is barely watchable – it’s 99% suspense and white noise, very little actually happening.

Even though this movie is a bit of a cheap mess, its cast quality, acting quality, genre, pace of action, and its general atmosphere, make it an OK movie in my eyes, relatively speaking, if we can forgive its underlying motives which are hard to avoid in Hollywood, hence relatively speaking. It’s no worse than most of Seagal’s early movies prior to Under Siege (1992). Indeed it’s about equal to Above the Law (1988), Hard To Kill (1990), and Out For Justice (1991). And it’s not nearly as bad as Seagal’s worst early movie, which was unequivocally Marked For Death (1990) in my humble opinion.

Half Past Dead (2002) – Steven Seagal and Ja Rule

This is an OK action movie, for Steven Seagal fans. It’s got some weak bits and some strong bits.

This movie stars Steven Seagal alongside Ja Rule, and they make a funny duo in how they both have a very awkward fake ghetto accent. Just like many people in the martial arts community have been making fun of Seagal, many people in the rap community have been making fun of Ja Rule – both accused of being terribly fake. Having said that, I do believe Seagal is half way legit. The YouTubers who mock him generally don’t know what they’re talking about. As for Ja Rule, I can’t disagree with the criticism. But his acting is satisfactory here – he makes a good team with Seagal – their acting is equally cringeworthy.

The plot of Half Past Dead is quite a fun concept, at least for the first half of the movie. Seagal is his usual hotshot self, but gets shot and nearly killed by the FBI while working for some gangsters alongside Ja Rule. Then they both end up in Alcatraz – a prison on an island, that’s theoretically impossible to escape from (until it gets raided by an elite squad of parachuting mercenaries). This is all within the first half hour.

Another plot twist, or revelation, occurs half way in, as we learn who Seagal’s character really is.

Style wise, a lot of the action scenes are clearly taking inspiration from The Matrix, with similar music as they rock up with machine guns, then later walking up walls and doing axe kicks in slow motion while wearing long black coats, etc. It’s like some kind of poundshop Matrix impersonation.

Supporting cast is not bad. It’s an OK movie. But the plot becomes a bit dead after half way through. It should be called Dead Past Half. After a strong story has been built, and things are starting to get really interesting, it then gets stuck in a hole and never moves on. We just get a load of white noise music accompanying meaningless flickering gunfire scenes, like kids suddenly took over the movie and made a mess of it. It has a very respectable first half, and very weak second half. Maybe they ran out of budget and cut the story short? I fast-forwarded through the last 15 minutes and didn’t miss anything worth rewinding & slowing down for.

Half Past Dead (2002)

The Foreigner (2003) – Steven Seagal

The Foreigner (2003) is an OK movie starring Steven Seagal. Not to be confused with the far superior movie from 2017 that goes by the same name and stars Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan – that version of The Foreigner was one of the best martial arts packed action hero movies ever made, not because the plot was very busy, but because Jackie’s performance was outstanding and the simple plot was executed like a work of art. Seagal’s movie, however, is somewhere between run-of-the-mill and boring, with occasional spikes of the good stuff, so far as movies from the likes of Seagal or Jackie are concerned. But it’s not all bad. It’s got several cool bits. Several helpings of a post-prime Seagal in his element.

Much like Steven Seagal’s last movie (Half Past Dead), this movie loses steam about half way though – not that it was ever very exciting to begin with, but the plot was building up and Seagal was looking cool. But from around the half way mark, things became a bit gritty and not much happened except a bit of storyline entanglement, and only a few simple action scenes to show for it, aside from frequently irritating music as the movie regularly tries to create a vibe of suspense during slow drama scenes. It’s like they were trying to be clever, and trying to turn it into a thoughtful legal drama like NCIS, but they only ended up getting boring like Law & Order. Or maybe the director left half way through, since in the second half there was much ado about nothing. Action was happening, but it wasn’t making much sense in the end. I tuned in for the Glimmer Man and I ended up getting a poor man’s drunken Columbo with a gun. The only reason I rate it higher than barely watchable is because it starts off stronger than it finishes.

It’s also quite strange how another man is clearly dubbing over Seagal’s voice for much of the last few scenes. Maybe Seagal has a dispute with the directors or the producers over his lines. Or maybe they realised how poor the script was and tried rewriting it after filming was already finished.

Script aside, the supporting main cast are actually not bad. They include Max Ryan as the main adversary. If he’s not the illegitimate child of Bruce Forsyth (who seems to have given him his first big break on The Price is Right) then I’m a monkey’s uncle.

Under Siege (1992) – Steven Seagal

Under Siege (1992) was the fifth movie in Steven Seagal‘s career, and in most objective movie buffs’ perspective, remained his biggest and best role of all.

This movie is generally very well made. It has good timing, good acting, good budget, good sets, good sound effects, good camera work… It’s a decent movie all round. The plot is a bit simplistic and this makes the movie a bit one dimensional but it’s generally well executed and is right up there as one of the best movies in Steven’s career, if not the very best – some people prefer Under Siege 2 although most believe the first was the better one, and some people prefer Glimmer Man, but Under Siege is still right up there in everyone’s eyes as one of the best if not the very best movie he’s ever made.

Cast includes Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey as the main baddies – they both do a decent job, if a little unpleasant but that’s probably the fault of the director more than the actors; and Erika Eleniak plays the lead female role – not very impressively in my humble opinion but I guess she’s just doing her job and is not there to act like a trained navy seal, she’s there to play the role of a bimbo and that’s exactly how she comes across so maybe she deserves credit in a way? Fortunately she doesn’t take up too much screen time, so it’s not a big problem. Many other supporting cast members put in strong performances – too many to mention right now.

All in all, I personally rate this movie as Seagal’s joint best performance – roughly equal to The Glimmer Man – on a par with most of Van Damme’s above-average movies like Inferno and Assassination Games. Under Siege is not just an OK movie, it’s better than OK, it’s rather decent. I wouldn’t go so far as to describe it as pretty good, but it’s only one level shy of that. It’s just a couple of levels shy of Very Good. Indeed, the entertainment value of Under Siege is solid and quite consistent. Any boring bits are rare and don’t last long. It’s a fairly strong product that was quite deserving of its sequel.

In its day, this movie was easily the best so far in Steven Seagal’s career. He later went on to make one or two more on a similar level, but this is a level he never significantly topped, if ever at all.

The best moment in this movie is probably when the bad guys, having just taken over the ship and locked away all but one of its crew members, get hold of the captain’s personnel files and realise the harmless Cook running loose (played by Seagal) is actually a former Navy SEAL.

Steven Seagal in Under Siege (1992)

Sequel

If you enjoyed Under Siege (1992) you should definitely check out its sequel Under Siege 2 (1995), which has a very similar style except in the sequel Seagal is re-taking control of a train instead of a ship.

The Glimmer Man (1996) – Steven Seagal

A fun concept with some good action and good humour although it does get slow at times. It’s a decent movie if you haven’t seen it in a while. Steven Seagal is in his element here as a wildcard former agent of undisclosed calibre, turned Buddhist monk, now working as Lieutenant Jack Cole, helping the police track down a killer who has made things personal. Seagal’s real life personality and fantasies come out in this movie. Supporting cast are decent, including Seagal’s sidekick Detective Jim Campbell played by Keenan Ivory Wayans, and Seagal’s hotshot adversary Donald Cunningham played by John M Jackson.

The movie lacks a significant female role and could do with a bit more of a busy script, but overall it’s a fairly enjoyable movie if you’ve not seen it in many years. I rate it one of Seagal’s best ever movies – possibly joint best – possibly second best just behind Under Siege and just ahead of its sequel, but now we’re splitting hairs – they’re all on a similar level.