Seagal proves himself worthy in his directorial debut.
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The god that is "tough guy" action star Steven Seagal makes his directorial debut in "On Deadly Ground", the follow-up to his previous and most successful movie ever, Under Siege. As compared to most movies of the genre, "On Deadly Ground" ties in a rather interesting plot, yet is still no exception to the typical Seagal films.
This film was made in 1994, Seagal's heyday, at the ripe old age of 43. Now that he's 51 and still making movies, he looks considerably younger here, than he does in his most recent attempt, "Half Past Dead". The ponytail is alive and well here. "On Deadly Ground"s plot is somewhat believable, except for the fact that Seagal is basically a one-man army, taking out the FBI amongst others. Well, so the plot isn't believable, but it is very original, yet retains the classic "tough guy" movie stereotype.
Seagal plays Forrest Taft (got to love that name), who is labeled the roughest of Alaska's oil-rig roughnecks, specializing in fighting oil-well fires; he just also happens to be skilled in the martial arts, as well as survival and explosive skills he learned as a high-level CIA operative. Taft is basically a troubleshooter for Aegis Oil president Michael Jennings (Michael Caine). As with most oil companies, Aegis puts profits over environmental safety.
Here's the deal: The company has 13 days to get their Aegis-1 oil rig up and running or the control of the land will be given back to the Eskimos (who sold the land to Aegis 20 years ago). Determined not to let this happen, Jennings takes action. It turns out that the preventers that are going to be used on Aegis-1 are faulty, and it will take 90 days to order working ones. With no choice Jennings uses them and an oil refinery explodes, killing dozens of workers. Jennings blames the explosion, as well as other oil spills, on Taft and another oil worker (played by Billy Bob Thornton). After telling the press that they have both been killed, he hires a group of hitmen to fulfill his promise.
To make a long story short (and not spoil the ENTIRE film), Taft meets up with a group of natives. After the hit men kill the leader of the tribe in a failed attempt of searching for Taft, a Native Alaskan activist, played by Joan Chen, joins forces with Taft, in order to avenge her fathers death. In fact, Seagal never makes any moves on her, which I find very surprising. Taft soon tells the bullies at Aegis that they stand on deadly ground (get it?) if they mess with the land he loves. How cute.
For "On Deadly Ground", like all Seagal movies, it's best to leave your brain at the door. Although in comparison to his other films, I thought the acting was pretty decent, and there are some familiar faces here. "On Deadly Ground" tries to come across as more than a senseless action movie, by trying to tie in a unique storyline, but ultimately ends up failing. They should have just stuck with more action scenes, then putting in small sub-plots, like Taft's "walk to find himself". They ultimately end up making the film cheesier.
"On Deadly Ground" thrives on action, and there is a lot, but not enough. There are about a handful of great action scenes (especially the bar fight scene), as well as plenty of big guns, huge explosions, and a bunch of snooping around. The action scenes are great, but the scenes leading up to them can get rather tedious. Seagal does do his fair share of bad one-liners, making up for the lack of action.
I found that the most interesting part of the movie was the final three minutes. Seagal gives a monologue dealing with the destruction of the environment by oil companies. He delivers it with convincing passion, something that is not seen in any of his films. It is accompanied by some rather horrific videos that will definitely trigger a few minds. I am glad that Warner Bros. cut it down to three minutes from the original fifteen! "On Deadly Ground" proves worthy to be the headline Sunday afternoon TBS matinee.
