Steven Seagal jumps the shark
A firefighter (Seagal) working for Aegis Oil in Alaska sees the light after oil rig workers perish using substandard equipment. The pompous CEO (Michael Caine) sends his heavies to take care of the interlopers (John C. McGinley and Sven-Ole Thorsen). R. Lee Ermey and Billy Bob Thornton show up in peripheral parts in the second half.
"On Deadly Ground” (1994) was Seagal’s fifth film and the first after his hit “Under Siege.” He used his clout to get Warner Brothers to allow him to direct this movie, which he won a Golden Raspberry for after the flick was critically panned and flopped at the box office. To date, it’s his only directorial effort, not including a recent documentary. He rebounded with the successes of "Under Siege 2: Dark Territory" (1995) and "Executive Decision" (1996), but the cracks were clear and he would have to move on to the direct-to-video market.
Costing a whopping (at the time) $50 million, there are expected highlights, such as the scenic beauty of the Great Northwest, several dynamic action sequences and the environmental message is still relevant and potent. Unfortunately, it comes across sanctimonious. Worse, the characters are caricatures and the proceedings too comic booky with unintentionally amusing dialogues. You wonder how the actors could say the lines with a straight face. It’s like Seagal & his team had no concept of subtlety.
This isn’t helped by the glaring plot holes: Why would a wealthy oil company wait until the last possible minute to complete and begin operating an oil rig or else forfeit the land rights to the Eskimos, especially since they had a whopping 20 years to do it? Would the expert heavies of such a major corporation totally ransack a house for a floppy disk, but miss the upstairs closet in the room with the computer? Would a group of Eskimos living in the most primitive conditions (huts with no appliances) just happen to keep a high-powered snowmobile hidden in case of an emergency? And, even if they did, how would it so readily start and function in such a freezing environment?
Then there are bits that simply don’t ring true or are eye-rolling, like the racist loudmouthed Caucasian in the bar, who unconvincingly repents; or the Indian mysticism and laughable vision quest.
As I said, the environmental message is good, but it’s conveyed in such a heavy-handed way that it became laughable for a lot of viewers. I’m mostly talking about Seagal’s well-meaning speech at the close, which originally ran well over 30 minutes before studio execs insisted that it be cut to about 4 minutes.
A similar Seagal movie done right came out three years later, “Fire Down Below.”
It runs 1 hour, 41 minutes, and was shot in Alaska (Valdez, Worthington Glacier and Nome), Washington (Seattle and Wenatchee National Forest), California (the Fletcher Oil Refinery in Carson) and Wyoming (Cody).
GRADE: C
