Gonna take my pies outta the oven?
Die Hard on a boat. What more do you want? Well not quite Die Hard, Die Hard is one of the best structured movies ever. This is like when the dumb thug copies the smart kids homework but can't really spell. It's all there but it's not as good as the original.
Under Siege is still a good movie. It's super enjoyable and doesn't take itself too seriously. Steven Seagal does though Somehow he is a producer on this.
Nevertheless (!) the movie surrounds the decommissioning of the USS Missouri and it being taken over by a group of terrorists. These terrorists ‘sneak’ onto the warship by disguising themselves as a surprise party for the Commander. They kill a bunch of the sailors and quickly take over the Missouri. See it turns out that when the US Navy retires a boat they travel to the retirement home with nuclear missiles. Maybe that was its retirement package? Either Way one thing I like about this movie is it doesn’t hang about. We get our hero, villains and action kicking off quickly. The 100 minute movie of the 90s was a thing of beauty. In, out, no faffing about. Lovely.
So our John McClaine this time is none other than Steven Seagal, Casey Ryback, an ex-marine and the ship's cook. Our Hans Gruber is Tommy Lee Jones and at times Gary Busey. That's three bananas actors in this. Somehow Steven Seagal acts like a normal human, one made of wood, but normal for his standards. I mean Tommy Lee Jones, Academy Award Winner Tommy Lee Jones, challenges a diet version of his Two-Face from Batman Forever in this movie. Half the time he is a cool calculated villain and the other half… complete nut job. And for reasons unknown to science, Gary Busey is similar. Just the scene where he drags up for the party is bonkers. I suppose this right around the heyday of these actors, yes Jones did have a long career but he probably peaked in the 90s. He got his Oscar then. And Busey, well Point Break is only the year before. Now look at him.
Anyway there are some things I do want to say about this motion picture…
Casey Ryback is cool, he’s kinda funny and his fighting scenes are good. Seagal, then, clearly could do some serious movies and that knife fight at the end is rad (yeah rad). I don’t know if its Seagal's lack of acting ability but his lack of emotion makes him enjoyable too watch. All action and business no nonsense.
But look, this movie is famous for one scene and I suppose you have to cover it when discussing Under Siege. There is only one female character with dialogue in multiple scenes. That is Erika Elenia’s Miss July ‘89, Jordan Tate. Yep, they cast an actual Playboy model turned actor to be the actor playing the playboy model. It could actually be brilliant casting. She tries her best in this movie but ultimately is only there as comic relief and to emerge from the cake. Legend has it that video rental stores had to order more and more VHS copies of Under Siege because the tapes wore out with people rewinding to he topless scene. Watching the movie again I found her character the strangest. Brought on a warship full of men to basically strip but instead he takes too many sickness tables and lives (can’t think of another to put this) inside a cake only to pop out when Casey is chasing the ship. She stayed there, presumably asleep, through a gun fight and mutiny and after all that comes around when the cake is pushed across the room. I guess it didn’t have to make sense, it's a 90s action movie that needed a naked lady. We lived in simpler times.
Regardless of whether the characters worked or the plot holds up to scrutiny… the movie is a fun time. Silly, enjoyable action.
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