By Geno McGahee
I have been watching a lot of Steven Seagal movies lately. He had a tremendous run of good films and has recently had a run of terrible straight to video films, but the point is that he had a good run.
In 1994, Seagal starred as Forrest Taft, an environmental agent that works for a big oil company headed up by Michael Jennings (Michael Caine). Now, there aren’t many actors better than Michael Caine, and he really does well as the evil oil guy. He’s using sub-standard materials to beat a deadline and it’s resulting in terrible spills in Alaska, but he points to human error rather than the truth. He does a commercial where he informs the people of the safety of his oil company and it’s hilarious. The director tells him of the shot that he’s planning and he just looks at him with disgust and tells him to “shut the fuck up”. Caine is over the top in this one and those sort of bad guys are the most fun.
In one of the most ridiculous Seagal scenes in history, he is at a bar and after talking to an older oil worker, his eyes begin to open up a little to the idea that he’s working for the bad guy. That’s when he sees the DUMB & DUMBER bad guy, Mike Starr, playing the role of “Big Mike.”
Big Mike is an oil worker that has a chip on his shoulder and is taking it out on an intoxicated Native American, which is amusing the other oil guys at the bar. Taft walks over, kicks everyone’s ass and then goes up to Big Mike and challenges him to that game where you slap the other person’s hands if they don’t move them away quick enough. The price to pay is that Taft gets to punch Big Mike if he can hit his hands. Taft, being so quick, quickly beats up Big Mike and that’s when he asks the question: “What does it take to change the essence of a man?” Big Mike cries and says that he needs time. Taft smiles and says that he does too and walks out with his arm around the drunk Native American guy that says as they walk out the door: “You’re going to go on an important journey.” I was a little nervous at this point. A drunk guy hugging Seagal and saying that they’re going on a journey? I thought that Seagal may be walking funny in the next scene.
After the old oil guy is killed brutally by Jennings’ goons, Taft does some research and discovers the shady dealings. When Jennings finds out that Taft is sneaking around, he sets him up and tries to kill him, but he survives and now it’s on and this is when the movie really loses its footing. Taft teams up with the Alaskans and get him in touch with the spiritual world and he fights the inner grizzly bear and it becomes just silly. This film had a lot going for it, initially, but when the focus shifted to the spiritual mysticism crap, it lost it.
Seagal beats up a lot more bad guys and then takes on Jennings, one on one, and takes him down, which gives the land back to the Alaska natives, but by this time, I had lost interest.
ON DEADLY GROUND had a great cast and started out rather well, but it seemed too intent on sending a message and the movie failed because of it. Michael Caine is one of my favorite actors and he steals the show again with this performance but it can’t save the final product. Seagal is much better when he’s a straight up badass rather than this deep character with a bigger purpose. As much as I like Seagal and love Caine, this film falls flat.
Rating: 5/10
Geno, sometimes a person has to listen to the wind and follow it’s guidance, especially if you want to take on a hundred bad guys like Billy Bob Thorton who can’t decide which way to hold a machine gun, or R. Lee Emery who leads the mercenaries against Seagal, or John C. McGinley as Caine’s henchman, plus Mike Starr and others. What does it take to change the essence of man? Maybe a thousand life times. Still, the fight scenes were pretty damn good, and Michael Caine does steal the movie as he does most everyone he’s in. Also, Seagel directed this film, and the composer who did the original music to Robo Cop (I forget his name) did the soundtrack to On Deadly Ground. A journey of a thousand miles begins with but the first step, grasshopper.
I’m going to have to watch ALL of Seagal’s movies to determine an order here. I plan to watch EXIT WOUNDS and OUT FOR JUSTICE next.