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.
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.
