The Age of Commercialism

Simply Perfect

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

I'm not the biggest fan of Steven Seagal - he's made too many rubbish films and his physical changes haven't helped. However, he found a winner with "Under Siege." The film packs a lot into its 98 minute running time and it rushes by. The plot is fairly standard and includes all kinds of "superhero" type heroics. What makes it work, is the direction from Andrew Davis, the action scenes, the photography and production values but also the performance of Tommy Lee Jones. All you have to do, is to compare his acting with the feeble attempts of Steven Seagal for it to be painfully obvious who the actor is! Most of Steven Seagal's martial arts movies are pretty low budget and have never been given a huge release. "Under Siege" is an exception. Thanks to the films various credentials, the box office takings were bound to be better than usual. Gary Busey does well as an unbalanced villain (they had become his stock in trade long before).

I'm a fan of Schwarzenegger-movies (Total Recall, Terminator, True Lies), Van Damme-movies (Kickboxer, Time Cop, JCVD) and Stallone- movies (First Blood, Demolition Man, Cliffhanger). All three (nearly) always give 100% and try to entertain us on every level, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.Now we talk about a Seagal-movie...well, this is most certain the only good one i know, and that's not just because of his tongue-in- cheek performance, but more because of Andrew Davis direction.I'm also a fan of the Ford-movie "The Fugitive", which Andrew Davis made a year later (also starring Tommy Lee Jones, and a few other actors from this film), also because of the direction and creative action-sequences, but most of all because it's a suspenseful and emotional Thriller with great performances.Under Siege on the other hand is more of an Die Hard-clone (they even reenact the famous "Jump from an explosion with a rope attached"- scene) with fun action, comedy and over-the-top villains.And it works pretty well as such, but it's never as good as it's "predecessor", or the movies i mentioned above, still entertaining and well made, but not as memorable.All in all i liked all the performances fine, was engaged for the most part, and found the setting to be very interesting and well used, the perfect entertainment for a rainy afternoon...

Rogue CIA operative William Strannix (Tommy Lee Jones) and his gang of mercenaries take over the battleship USS Missouri with inside help from batshit crazy Navy officer Krill (Gary Busey). At first things are going pretty smoothly for them but it turns out they forgot one little thing: the ship's cook, former Navy SEAL Casey Ryback (Steven Seagal). Watch Ryback Die Hard it up and take out the bad guys one by one, leading to the inevitable final fight with Strannix for the fate of the world...or something like that.Awesome actioner with a wonderful cast. Steven Seagal's best and most polished movie. When you have Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey as villains, the script pretty much writes itself. Both are terrific with colorful performances like you might expect. Seagal does his usual stuff, which is probably hit or miss with most people. I actually like his early movies so I can't complain. Special mention to beautiful Erika Eleniak, who has probably her best film role in this. She's a comedic sidekick character and is quite good at it. She also has a brief topless scene, which hurt absolutely nothing. It's a fun movie. One of the few Seagal movies that can be enjoyed on its merits without the slightest hint of irony.

Gee, I don't know - Seagal takes on thirty terrorists all by himself and comes out on top? I don't think so, but action fans love this kind of stuff and I'm a little partial to Seagal myself. Personally I prefer him when he's beating up on your standard bunch of saloon thugs or billiard room bullies where it's more up close and personal. At least you had Tommy Lee Jones and Miss July Gary Busey on hand here to add a maniacal touch to the festivities. Man, didn't Busey just creep you out in that dress and makeup? Probably the most unbelievable part of the story had Erika Eleniak go from a sniveling crybaby to an elite killer assassin in the space of an hour or so. Anyone could buy that, right? Well stuff like this is made for diversion and it's not the worst hour and a half you can spend. I'd have preferred a little more in the way of martial arts instead of the big guns but there are other Seagal films so you take what you get. Sure would like to have a birthday cake like that though.