On Deadly Ground (1993) Steven Seagal

Production Budget: $50 million
Worldwide Gross: around $42 million

Seagal was at one time the next big thing in Hollywood.  After small successes like Above the Law and Hard to Kill and his mega hit Under Siege, Seagal was being called the next Arnold or Stallone.  His fighting style was unlike anything anyone had ever seen.  He couldn’t be touched.  Somehow he could kill ten men with his wuss slaps.  He took on a battleship full of crazed mercenaries, Tommy Lee Jones, and Gary Busey and he only received a cut on his eyebrow.  Gary Busey did nothing!?  The man is crazy!  He’s Mr. Joshua for cryin’ out loud!  What people didn’t realize at the time was that Seagal was an a**hole.  He had that stupid pony tail, always dressed in black (hey pal, only Johnny Cash can do that), and always had that constipated look on his face.  He also had a tendency to exaggerate about his past.  At one point he said he was CIA black ops, and then when people called him on that steaming pile of dog dookie, he said he was the reincarnation of a Buddhist holy man.  Then he changed to Captain Planet.  He started to wear these frilly leather coats, alligator boots, and donning huge Indian medallions.  I’m sorry, but if you wear dead animals, you are not the next protector of the environment.  And we haven’t even got to the Elvis fat years yet.

But anyway Seagal got mucho dinero to make his message movie and On Deadly Ground was one of them.  Seagal is Forrest Taft (stop laughing its tough.  It is!), an ex-black ops oil worker/explosives expert/fire expert/environmental hero/fry cook (I think).  Michael Caine has black hair and is evil and the only way to stop him is to blow up an oil rig.  Yeah, that won’t irreparably damage the environment.  The plot makes no sense and is only a vehicle to include the typical Seagal fight scenes and Seagal’s mad ramblings on the environment.  Really the best rant on this movie is at jabootu.com.  I’ll give you the best example of his anti-government ramblings.  This is at the end when he delivers a four minute speech to an Indian council.

“I’d like to start out by saying, thank you to all the brothers and sisters that have come here today representing this cause. I have been asked by Mr. Itok and the tribal council to speak to you and the members of the Press about the injustice that has been brought against us by some Government Officials and Big Business (1). How many of you out there have heard of alternative engines? Engines that can run on anything from alcohol to garbage or water (2). Or carburetors that can get hundreds of miles to the gallon. Or electric or magnetic engines, that can practically run forever. You don’t know about them because if they were to come into use, they’d put the oil companies out of business. The concept of the internal combustion engine has been obsolete for over fifty years. But because of the Oil Cartels and corrupt government regulation, we and the rest of the world have been forced to use gasoline for over a hundred years. Big Business is primarily responsible for destroying the water we drink, the air we breathe and the food we eat (3). They have no care for the world they destroy, only for the money they make in the process. How many oil spills can we endure? Millions and millions of gallons of oil are now destroying the ocean and the many forms of life it supports. Among these is plankton, which supplies sixty to ninety percent of the Earth’s oxygen (4). This supports the entire marine ecosystem which forms the basis of our planet’s food supply. But the plankton is dying. I thought, well, let’s go to remote state or country, anywhere on Earth. But in doing a little research I realized that these people broker toxic waste all over the world. They basically control the legislation, and, in fact, they control the Law. The Law says, “no company can be fined over $25,000 a day (5).” For companies making $10,000,000 dollars a day by dumping lethal toxic wastes into the ocean, i’s only good business to continue doing this. They influence the media so that they can control our minds (6). They have made it a crime to speak out for ourselves, and if we do so we’re called “conspiracy nuts” and we’re laughed at (7). We’re angry because we’re all being chemically and genetically damaged, and we don’t even realize it. Unfortunately, this will effect our children. We go to work each day and right under our noses we see our car and the car in front of us (9) spewing noxious poisonous gasses that are all accumulative poisons. These poisons kill us slowly, even when we see no effect. How many of us would have believed if we were told twenty years ago that on a certain day we wouldn’t be able to see fifty feet in front of us. That we wouldn’t be able to take a deep breath because the air would be a mass of poisonous gas (10). That we wouldn’t be able to drink out of our faucets, that we’d have to buy water out of bottles. Our most common and God-given rights have been taken away from us. Unfortunately, the reality of our lives is so grim that nobody wants to hear it (11). Now, I’ve been asked what we can do? I think we need a responsible body of people that can actually represent us rather than Big Business (12). This body of people must not allow the introduction of anything into our environment that is not absolutely biodegradable or able to be chemically neutralized upon production (13). And finally, as long as there is profit to be made from polluting the Earth (14), companies and individuals will continue to do what they want. We have to force these companies to operate safely and responsibly, and with all our best interests in mind (15). So that when they don’t, we can take back our resources and our hearts and our minds and do what’s right.”

Did your eyes glaze over on that?  Sorry, but I had to listen to it.  This was the beginning of the end of Seagal’s big screen career.  He became fat and old and is only doing Direct to Videos.  The DTVs are weird because in most of them he doesn’t do his own dialogue.  This guy with a weird southern accent does his lines.  Oh, he’s also shilling his energy drink.  Please try Steven Seagal’s lightning bolt and listen to his rock band (which is actually successful in Europe.  Silly Europeans).

Is it any good?  Hell no.  But I see Seagal movies in a “so bad its good” way.  It’s funny to see Seagal beat the racism out of someone. Seriously, he beats a man half to death and asks “What does it take to change the essence of a man” and the man realizes the error of his ways.  I didn’t know beating someone’s ass made you so introspective. Or how bout when Seagal wrestles a bear.  A bear for crying out loud!  I thought only Fedor could take on a bear.  We also have R. Lee Ermy doing what he usually does.  I personally love when he tries to build up how badass Seagal is by saying something to the effect of “You could drop him in the middle of Antartica with only his skivvies and he would show up at your pool the next day with a tan and a fistful of pesos.”  That is just brilliant.  This movie is simply hilarious and is funnier than most comedies out there today.  You aren’t a movie fan until you are a Seagal connoisseur.