Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

Being a big fan of action heroes such as Arnie, Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, you would expect me to also be a bit of a Seagal man no? Well you would be wrong, at least mostly.

I’m not sure why, but for some reason I just never got into the man whose name spellchecker always tries to change into ‘Seagull’’s movies, maybe something to do with the fact they often had atrocious names like Hard to Kill. But, the thing that makes this most surprising is that the one movie of big Steve’s I have seen, I actually love.

Under Siege is based around former Navy Seal, and now Cook Casey Ryback (Seagal – Exit Wounds). Ryback’s current place of employment is the soon to be decommissioned USS Missouri.
But, on the ship’s last voyage, it is taken over by terrorists led by ex-CIA nutcase William Stranix (Tommy Lee Jones – Batman Forever) and Ryback’s on ship rival turned traitor Commander Krill (Gary Busey – Predator 2) who plan to steal the ship’s Tomahwak missiles and sell them off. But when the rest of the crew is locked up in a secure bay, Ryback is only locked in his meat locker. Naturally, he bursts out and along with a little help from Playmate Jordan Tate (Erika Eleniak – The Opponent),who was brought on board to do a striptease for the now deceased Skipper’s birthday., he causes all sorts of havoc for the terrorists. Along the way he recruits some more buddies in the form of a group of sailors not locked up, and the team blow up the submarine the terrorists were planning to escape in.
With his plan in tatters, Stranix launches some T-Hawks at Honolulu, and its going to be a race against time to see if Ryback can get to the ship’s bridge and get the disc with the destruct codes, and sink Stranix…

The acting in Under Siege is really quite good. Anyone who doubts Tommy Lee Jones’ talent is quite frankly a fool, and here he shines as the madman.
Gary Busey has made a career out of being the baddie in action movies, so here he is right at home.
Eleniak really isn’t there because she is an actress of any great calibre, but because she is sexy as hell. But, the role she is playing really doesn’t require a great level of performance, so she works well.
And, we can’t forget Seagal. The man is quite frankly a legend. Not because he is by any means a great, or even good actor, but because of the fact he is devastatingly hilarious. His deadpan delivery of the lines actually hits bad, but is so bad that it actually reverses itself and becomes epic. This hilarity isn’t just relegated to the land of fiction, read any interview with him and discover just how hilarious the man is. Anyway, Casey Ryback is the kind of movie that needs someone like Steven Seagal in it.

The music is actually really quite good in an action movie way, and will be in your head for a good while after watching. Its all well suited to the movie.

Despite being ‘just a Seagal picture’, Under Siege feels like it is so much more. There is no blatant stock footage of ships and such in this movie; you really get the impression they are on a ship. It’s a well-made movie, no two ways about it. You could actually picture this movie being in the cinema, which isn’t something you could say about a lot of action movies made by Steve, or many of his contemporary’s movies.

If you want to look for faults, they are there. If Stranix knew Ryback previously, why didn’t he say anything when he first learned his name? Why didn’t the government have the detonation codes for the missiles?

But, Under Siege is such a fun movie that they really don’t affect the viewer’s enjoyment at all. Regardless of your views on Seagal, I really would recommend Under Siege to you if you are into action movies. It has a mix of guns and martial arts so covers both types of action hero movies perfectly.
Movies like this don’t get made much anymore, which is a shame, because its mindless entertainment. It may be a few notches short of Die Hard, but it certainly does give it a shot.
The action comes thick and fast, and is wildly entertaining.


It also shows for Seagal, what Hard Target shown for Van Damme. That with a good director and money behind their pictures, that they can make action pictures that go beyond ‘alright’ to greatly entertaining.

After seeing this for the first time since my age hit double figures, I’m now actually tempted to pick up some of Seagal’s other movies.

Year: 1992
Titles: Under Siege

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening