Post by Harkovast on May 2, 2016 21:15:30 GMT
It's kind of astounding that I've been writing reviews about shit movies and have only just reached the grand master of the shitty, straight to the bargain bin action movie himself, Steven Seagal.
Seagal is to action movies what Fifty Cent is to rapping.
Fifty Cent (or is it Fiddy Cent? Do I care? No) is demonstrably terrible at rapping. He slurs his words while speaking fairly slowly. So why do people like him?
Because of his image. He was famously shot many times and survived, proving he is a true authentic gangster. People listen to his music because they see it as 'real' and marvel at Fifty Cents reputation, even though he isn't actually very talented at his chosen career.
In the same way, when Seagal had his big hit "Under Siege" it was seen as something new and authentic. His akido moves were very different to the fighting we had seen before, leading some to assume they were a more authentic, realistic and deadly fighting style. There were even rumours that Seagal had once been in the CIA and thus was a real legit dangerous tough guy. The fact he couldn't actually act wasn't important. It was the aura around him, buying into the reputation that mattered.
Fifty Cent and Seagal also share hilariously inflated egos and tendencies to turn projects they work on into their own personal masturbation fantasy.
Fifty Cent made his own computer games, Bulletproof and Blood on the Sand, in which you play a super amazing version of Fifty Cent who kills everyone he doesn't like, is constantly told how awesome he is by everyone and acts like a total prick but is weirdly cheered for this obnoxious behaviour.
Steven Seagal follows this exact formula in basically every film he ever made.
Now Fifty Cent just needs to get really fat and grow a horrible pony tail and the perfect mirroring of their careers will be complete.
After Under Siege was a big hit, Seagal had a bit of influence and could make some demands for doing the sequel.
What Seagal wanted was to be able to create a film himself, with himself as director, producer and star.
What this created was sort of a perfect Seagal storm.
All Seagal films contain the same tropes, to the extent that you can pretty much create your own head canon that Seagal is the same character in all of them.
I'll address each of the these tropes as they pop up.
Our film begins with a fire at an oil rig in Alaska. A helicopter arrives and off steps Seagal, revealed in an epic, camera panning up beauty shot.
This means we actually see Seagal's horrible pony tail before his face.
Pony tail is an apt name for this hair cut, because if you lift it up you are bound to find an asshole underneath.
After this lingering, slow motion shot of our hero, we introduce the bad guy, Michael Caine. Now most of us would agree that Michael Caine is a slightly bigger star than Steven Seagal, and by slightly I mean to even compare Seagal to a legend like Caine is a joke. Nevertheless, after giving himself his own epic beauty shot, Seagal as director just has Caine open a helicopter door and be revealed sat inside. Its very clear who Seagal considers the bigger star. Caine might be getting his revenge on Seagal here, because through out the film he puts in a dreadfully hammy performance with a laughable fake American accent.
If at this point the audience was starting to think maybe Seagal has an inflated opinion of himself, there are very obvious dubbed in background voices to make clear that Seagals character is the most awesome human alive. This is a technique used through out the film whenever Seagal thinks we might be too stupid to react correctly to what we are seeing (basically every time we see a crowd of any kind.) These random voices make clear that now Seagal is on the case the fire is "...as good as out."
Seagal Trope 1- Seagal is presented as the most awesome guy who has ever lived.
Seagal sets some explosives and then dramatically sets them off. Everyone ducks for cover, except Michael Caine and Seagal because...I guess they are morons? This provides a great opportunity for Seagal to stand with an explosion going off behind him that he doesn't look at...though I don't know if it really counts if its just a controlled explosion you set yourself.
An old giffer is of the opinion that the crappy cheap equipment Michael Caine has them using is to blame, but Michael Caine says it is human error that caused it.
The old Giffer starts shouting that Seagal is a "WHORE!" to which Seagal responds that for $350 thousand he would fuck anything once. This is undoubtedly his best line in the film, so I'll give him props for that.
While I am giving credit where its due, Dr Cox from scrubs is in this film as Caine's right hand minion. He's honestly really good in the in the film. He's not a big guy, but wearing little round sunglasses and standing with his arms crossed he looks really menacing and I really buy him as a merciless enforcer for Caine. He's great at being the kind of evil prick you want something horrible to happen to later.
After work, Seagal goes to a bar where some red neck oil workers are causing trouble.
Red necks get a hard time in Hollywood. These poor slubs are the go-too dumb thug bad guys for heroes to beat up on.
These guys are oil workers from Caine's refinery, and Caine is so evil he only employs evil douche bag workers I guess. Interestingly, you would think since Seagal works at the refinery putting out fires he would know these guys and they would like him, but neither he nor them seem to have met before.
The old geezer from earlier comes over to Seagal and states again that faulty parts caused the fire (okay, Seagal, we get it!) Grandpa tells Seagal to sneak in and find some information about what's going on and once Seagal has this they will speak again. If you think the old guy isn't going to get killed in the mean time you don't watch enough films. Seagal also mentions that he has a stash of weapons in a cupboard that he wants to pick up later so they can "go into the mountains". Nice subtle set up there. I wonder if that will be important later.
The red neck oil workers are pushing around an old drunk Eskimo guy, which causes Seagal to have to step up to sort things out.
Now you know how this scene plays out, its a classic really. Bad guys are bullying someone, hero steps in and teaches them a lesson. This has even happened in Harkovast. It's a simple formula that you wouldn't think anyone could fuck up.
Seagal proceeds to beat up the oil workers who are polite enough to attack one at a time and do hilarious back flips and dives every time he twists their arms or shoves them. Maybe these are the oil worker gymnastics team, as they dive around and leap in the air wonderfully whenever Seagal lays a hand on them.
The workers are noticeable for all being short, helping to make Seagal seem huge.
Seagal Trope 2- Fighting short people.
This serves the purpose of inflating Seagals ego and making him seems more powerful. His arm twisting, wrist throwing fighting style would probably not work and look goofy on a really big opponent, so hurling around titchy enemies helps his moves work better.
The downside, of course, is that watching a big man beat up little people, especially when he's doing it very easily, starts to give off a vibe of bullying.
This gets especially bad here when he starts battering a tiny oil worker who looks to be about 60 years old.
Seagal also delivers a large number of grabs and kicks to the balls, with hilarious dubbed in cries of "my nuts!" and "my balls!" from his enemies.
Through out the movie Seagal has been wearing a leather coat with tassels, and here he reveals that he is in some way native American. Yeah just go with it.
Anyway, Seagal declares that it is "natives 8, oil workers 0" to which the oil workers leader laughs. This is a really weird bit of editing as Seagal literally did just beat up eight guys, so I'm not sure why the guy is still feeling confident.
After brutalising a few more of them he faces off with the leader and challenges the guy to a "hand slap game." Basically the oil worker puts his hands over Seagals hands and Seagal tries to slap the oil worker on the top of his hands.
If Seagal succeeds he gets a free punch, if he misses the redneck gets a free punch.
Rather than fleeing, or sucker punching Seagal, the oil worker not only agrees but plays alone without trying to cheat. Oil working red necks may be bullies but they live and die by their honour I guess.
Seagal successfully slaps his opponent and the oil worker allows Seagal to then punch him.
The blow to his body causes the redneck to double over in pain. He then struggles back to his feet and attempts to continue.
Seagal taunts him shouting "Put your hands up! Put your hands up!" and generally mocking him, while dubbed in voices from the crowd jeer the oil worker, laughing at how stupid he is out how he will clearly get his ass kicked.
Once again, Seagal slaps his hands, the hits his opponent again, causing the oilworker to collapse to the ground. There is a weird dubbed in vomiting sound and Seagal comments as if the guy threw up, but there is no vomit on the ground so its all just seems bizarre.
Once again the redneck gets up and continues the game, even though he is no struggling to stand.
Now at this point you are probably thinking that this is starting to seem pretty sadistic. Seagal has gone from punishing the bully to being a far more monstrous bully himself. He is clearly revelling in this cruelty and enjoying the adulation of the crowd.
What makes the scene even worse is that the red neck bully ends up seeming kind of heroic. The guy clearly can't win, but mans up and continues with the twisted game. Seagal laughs at the mans claims of having "big balls" but this guy really does!
On the third attempt it is Seagal that actually breaks his own rules, striking the guy three times rather than once.
Unintentionally, the film makers are starting to seem like Seagal's game is going wrong because the guy won't quit so he has to try to cheat to win.
Once more, the red beck gets back up, bloodied and shaking but still willing to go on.
So some how Seagal has managed to turn racist red neck douche bag who was going to get taught a lesson into a sympathetic protagonist that we are routing for, and his own heroic character into a horrible monster we hate.
In this type of scene, where the hero challenges the villain to some sort of "test of will" the point is normally that the arrogant villain is made to show his truth colours and is revealed as a coward. The bully cant take his own medicine and loses his dignity, grovelling for mercy. The idea of getting this scene so wrong that you manage to reverse the roles is really astounding! Only someone of Seagal's titanic ego could fail to see how bad this scene makes him look.
The ending of this monstrous scene descends into farce as Seagal states "what does it take...what does it take to change the essence of a man?" to which the redneck responds "I need time...to change." and then starts to cry. Seagal says "I do too" and pats the guy on the shoulder and leaves.
Did...did they just bond somehow? Did Seagal impart wisdom by brutalising the guy in the face?
After...whatever the hell that was, the Seagal goes and accesses the bad guys computer and finds out that they are using faulty breaks that will cause a disaster.
This is because if the oil company doesn't get the plant up and running in 13 days the rights will revert to the local Eskimos. 'Cause that's how contracts work.
The bad guys realise he is onto them and decide to kill off the old geezer first because he is "the bigger threat". Obviously. That old guy sure scared the shit out of me.
Dr Cox goes over and horribly tortures Grandpa to death in a scene that is so grisly and tasteless that it starts to sway into parody. There is just something unintentionally hilarious to me about this old guy pulling funny faces while Doctor Cox beats up on him. Grandpa grumbling funny swear words and old geezer nonsense just makes it better.
Again, Doctor Cox is actually pretty great here, saying things like "This is just one guys opinion, but I think that would be bad for you." and "Have you listened to your yourself lately? Have you? Its just 'I', 'I', 'I'. There is no I in team! It is T, E, A, M, TEAM!"
The fact he is so calm and emotionless normally but here seems to getting increasingly deranged is great villain stuff. Its honestly a shame he isn't in a better film.
Next the bad guys try to kill Seagal by sending him to a fix another technical problem, at an out of no where way station that they then blow up.
They are nice enough to put Grandpa's body inside for Seagal to find it so he can realise its a trap and then wait long enough for him to get some distance away before blowing him up.
Seagal's body is found by the Eskimos who take him back to their village.
They all dress in animal furs, in huts and carry spears and appear to have not noticed that the modern world has happened.
The leader comes in dressed like a bird and making bird noises and translates what he says through his hot daughter (who is kinda the love interest...though I'm honestly not sure her and Seagal ever really hook up or kiss. I guess the only one who can turn Seagal on is himself.) I should clarify, she translates when the chief starts actually talking, she's not translating bird noises. I think this is a missed opportunity as that would have been awesome.
His daughter explains that her father thought Seagal was a bear and still thinks he might be. If these people have chosen a man who cant tell a shit actor with a pony tail from a polar bear as their leader its no wonder they are still living in huts without indoor plumbing.
Seagal responds that he "is a mouse, hiding from the hawks, in the house of a raven."
At first I thought he said "moose" which would have also made the scene better.
The leader (chief? Second crazy old guy in the film?) says this is "just what a bear would say."
Not an expert on arctic survival here, but I am fairly sure bears don't talk.
The crazy old guy then proceeds to use a knife to dig shrapnel out of Seagal's back.
I am not sure where this guy got his medical license, probably from a bear.
If you think the films portrayal of Native Americans is patronising at this point, just wait till Seagal goes on his vision quest.
Oh yeah, you didn't think we were getting out of this shit without a vision quest did you?
Seagal Trope 3- Seagal adopts elements of some other culture so he can spout pseudo-philosophical bullshit.
As an aside I should mention that Seagal tries to leave to avoid putting the tribe in danger but gets attacked by the sled dogs, which shows that the bad guys should have just set some dogs on Seagal as they totally kick his ass while he hilariously yells "Get off me, you fucking dogs!"
One of them bites him on the balls, so maybe these dogs are reincarnated oil workers.
Okay yeah I am just stalling to make you wait for the vision quest, cause its fucking awesome and I want to drag it out before I talk about.
The crazy old guy tells some bullshit story about bears and ravens cause that's what native Americans do all day.
Seagal has visions of topless native chicks, which is a good excuse to get some tits in the movie by pretending its not sleazy and exploitative. I don't think Eskimos go topless that often due to living in subzero temperatures, but what do I know? I'm not wise like Seagal or a man dressed as a bird who thinks bears can talk.
Seagal then fights a bear in his dream. He does better against the bear than the dogs, hanging onto it and stabbing it with a knife but is again defeated and it throws him in a river. Animals are Seagals weakness. Sadly the bad guys never exploit this by throwing a house cat at him.
Seagal then finds himself in a cave with a sexy naked native chick and an old native lady.
The sexy chick dances around and the old woman plays a rattle.
It's set up so Seagal has to choose between them. He puts his hands together and sort of nods to the sexy chick before going to speak to the old chick.
I don't really know what that is meant to demonstrate. The bad guys never try to seduce Seagal (hilarious as it would be if Dr Cox had done this) and we've already established that Seagal can only get wood for his own wooden acting.
I think I speak for most of us when I say I would have gone for the sexy naked chick, though the old woman sitting there the whole time might have put me off.
The old lady imparts various vague hippy shit and then Seagal emerges from a river...healed I guess?
Unfortunately Seagal then goes for a dog sled ride for no real reason and just after he leaves Cox and his minions show up looking for him. Dr Cox shoots the crazy old guy (cause Cox loves to kill all the old guys in Seagal's life.)
Since the villages are just armed with spears they are powerless to stop this because Eskimos can't work guns for the same reason they are living in huts.
The hot daughter says to Cox "I will watch you die!" Which she actually never does, so its weird that they put the line in the movie.
Seagal returns so the old guy can say goodbye to him as he dies (rather than to his friends and family or anything.)
Okay seriously, if you are a social justice warrior and hate cultural appropriation, just make people watch this film. Seeing Seagal getting told he's a spirit warrior with an amulet to help him in the next world is so cringe inducing that any frat boy will pull off his fancy dress war bonnet in horror at looking like as big of a tool as Seagal does here.
It turns out the natives have a snowmobile they keep (for emergencies) that Seagal uses to go to the old guys house (the oil worker old guy, not the crazy bird costume old guy). Despite having ransacked the place, the bag guys didn't bother to check an upstairs cupboard in which oil worker old guy left the information they need and a load of weapons and supplies. How lucky. There are even a set of clothes that fit the native chick, I guess she was the same size as the old guy? Why don't they just throw in a winning lottery ticket too? I mean if we're going to get silly, lets just go full on.
Bad guys arrive and Seagal shoots two of them. Another two come in, including a guy that helped Cox kill the old guy.
They fire guns at each other and honestly this is probably as good as the action gets in this film as they trade gun fire a little without Seagal instantly beating them all.
Seagals weapon jams and the bad guys all blaze wildly at his cover so they run out of bullets. Rather than reload, one of the bad guys throws his gun at Seagal (no seriously), missing completely and then rushes at him only to get whupped senseless. The one that helped kill the old giffer is then also decides not to reload and comes at Seagal using his pistol as a club. Seagal grabs a whale bone club that the villains used to torture grandpa previously and beats the bad guy to death with it.
Oooh! Irony! Poetic justice! That's visual story telling right there.
Michael Caine and his minions decide that they need some more back up to stop Seagal so they call in some mercenaries.
These guys are lead by the awesome marine drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket who outshines even Doctor Cox with his raw awesomeness.
Man this guy is so bad ass, when he shows up it just instantly elevates everything he's in.
If the United States Marine Corps had a voice, it would talk like this guy.
Seagal goes and meets with a hippy guy with a computer and John Lennon glasses. I have no idea who this guy is or why he is in the movie. He gets about one line of dialogue and Seagal refers to him as Johnny. This guy is also not in the movie after this scene and doesn't get killed. Maybe he's a ghost. I'm going to assume he is the actually the spirit of John Lennon.
Seagal explains the bad guys evil plan that the audience has already heard loads of times.
Seagal says "Its like I always say...we gotta blow it and we gotta blow it now."
Was....was Seagal a prostitute in the past?
Is that how he met John Lennon?
Who else has he blown?
I thought old oil grandpa was calling him a whore metaphorically, but apparently he really is always saying how much he has to "blow it".
The native woman says they shouldn't resort to violence and should go to the police or press. She tells Seagal to think about what her father taught him.
She doesn't say they should dress up as birds, which is what her father would have really wanted, I think.
Anyway, Seagal then goes on a weird, kinda racist rant about how does she think a magic ghost will come and stop the bad guys plans and that hocus pocus spirit stuff wont help.
Firstly, I didn't think the press or police were magic hocus pocus, so it doesn't really seem like he's actually answering what she said. Going to the police seems like an entirely reasonable and superior plan. The press has been shown in this film (via more dodgy dubbing over on crowd scenes) to hate Michael Caine, so why wouldn't they jump at the chance to uncover Caines evil plan?
Also, for all the stuff in this film about respecting natives and beating on rednecks for racism, in addition to doing spirit journeys and mystical stuff, he now just turns around and shits on her beliefs for no reason.
She doesn't really respond and he never apologises. I suppose Seagal is meant to be Native American here so its okay for him to say it? Who the fuck knows.
Seagal opens a secret door to a room where John Lennon keeps all his weapons and loads up on machine guns and shotguns. John Lennon is not the peace loving hippy we assumed people! If John Lennon here is a ghost, and I think we can all agree he is because its funny, then Seagal should be nicer when he talks about the spirit world if he wants to borrow all his guns.
Seagal then gets on a horse with the native woman. I don't know why he brings her along as she doesn't have any combat training and it seems to just be putting her into danger.
John Lennon does not come with them and is not in the film again. See? Him being a ghost actually makes this make more sense!
Seagal asks the native woman is she can ride and she says "Of course, I'm Native American". I didn't know Eskimos road a lot of horses around in the snow. So the Eskimos have dog sleds for normal travel, a snow mobile for emergencies and horses for... I dunno, vacation? The fact the eskimo woman is played by a Chinese America just adds another level of stupid to the action.
Full Metal Jacket Guy (FMJ from this point onwards) is coming in his helicopter and complains that they have no information on Seagal before he started working for Michael Caine. This raises questions about Caine's hiring policy as he seems to hire people with no idea who they are and without seeing any previous qualifications or references. They realise this must mean he was in the CIA or the NSA.
Seagal Trope 4- Seagal has a secret history in the CIA or other secret, elite organisation.
Seagal heads to a secret cave he has full of explosives where he also has a transmitter that sends out a signal that will attract the bad guys into a trap.
I don't know why he has such a device, or a cave of explosives or why the bad guys are looking for a signal while hunting for Seagal. Do they believe Seagal is a radio?
Seagal also grabs even more weapons here, because I guess even John Lennon doesn't have enough weapons for Steven Seagal.
There's a sentence you weren't expecting to read today.
The bad guys helicopter is blown up, but the rest of them are coming after him on horse back because the one native America bad guy said he knows the land and that's what you should do. Not sure why they still send in the helicopter anyway, which is confusing enough to distract from the fact they give the native guy the tracking skills in yet another bit of stereotyping.
Seagal somehow has time to set even more traps. He sets some shit obvious traps that cause the bad guys to go off the trail and run into his real traps that kill some of them, including one that knocks a guy off his horse and causes him to roll slowly into to some sticks that some how impale him right through his body.
There's a kind of cool bit here where Dr Cox starts panicking and firing his gun wildly, show that he's not such a cool professional and FMJ yells at him "CEASEFIRE! Damn it man, there's no one out there, what the hell are you shooting at?"
I want a better movie with these two as the bad guys.
At this point we see that one of the mercenaries is Billy Bob Thornton. He's quite funny in the film, which serves to deflate the overly serious tone and for that I salute him. Thornton has a small shitty roll but he manages to be pretty memorable with a few funny lines before he gets killed later on (oh come on, that's not a spoiler! Do you think Seagal is going to let them off with a warning?)
After Seagal and Chinese native chick escape, one of the mercs (its not clear which one, maybe native tracker guy) gets to utter to immortal line that all Seagal films have the bad guys say eventually-
"This guys good!"
Seagal Trope 5- Bad guys talking about how amazing Seagal is.
Seagal now heads to the Aegis refinery for the final battle.
Seagal cuts the end off a plastic bottle and tapes it to his gun as a make shift silencer.
This wouldn't work but looks so hilarious I don't even care.
He uses this to murder a guard in the face (which actually makes a ton of noise since he shoots the guy through some glass so Seagal made his gun look stupid for no reason.)
Seagal begin sabotaging the place.
He goes to a piper with a patch on it and cuts the patch so liquid starts coming out. I have no idea what I pipe would have a patch on it you can cut...maybe Seagal can just cut metal?
The FBI are called in by the bad guys to arrest Seagal as a terrorist, but don't appear in the movie again and flee once the refinery starts to go into melt down. Let's say John Lennon took care of them with ghost magic.
Seagal murders another guard by strangling him while he's taking a piss (he urinates up against the side of the machinery in the refinery...don't they have toilets in this place? Caine's cost cutting really is out of hand!)
Seagal then batters another couple of guards with his super fighting skills. That's four people he's ambushed and murdered who were guilty of nothing but standing guard in a building.
The bad guys talk amongst themselves about how Seagal is "the patron saint of the impossible" and generally lick his balls verbally through the final battle, the best bit being FMJ giving one of his trade mark, self written speeches. You can tell when this guy makes his own dialogue because its always-
A- Totally insane
B- Absolutely awesome.
I can't do justice to this master of saying cool stuff, so I will just post what he says verbatim-
"My guy in D.C. tells me that we are not dealing with a student here, we're dealing with the Professor. Any time the military has an operation that can't fail, they call this guy in to train the troops, OK? He's the kind of guy that would drink a gallon of gasoline so he could piss in your campfire! You could drop this guy off at the Arctic Circle wearing a pair of bikini underwear, without his toothbrush, and tomorrow afternoon he's going to show up at your pool side with a million dollar smile and fist full of pesos. This guy's a professional, you got me? If he reaches this rig, we're all gonna be nothing but a big goddamned hole right in the middle of Alaska. So let's go find him and kill him and get rid of the son of a bitch!"
Billy Bob Thornton starts talking about how he thinks he should have the stock in on his machine gun, because when he has it out he feels like kind of a pussy and he wants to feel good about himself when he kills Seagal. This is as weird as it is hilarious, which makes it sad when Seagal blow him up with a bomb in a lift.
Everyone starts to evacuate from all the damage from Seagal's sabotage.
Seagal sees Dr Cox and an evil business woman who worked for Caine getting in a helicopter so he shoots it up to stop them. He grabs Dr Cox and tries to force him into the helicopters back rotor. Cox says he has evidence that can help bring down Caine, but then pulls out a metal rod and tries to club Seagal with it so Seagal throws him into the blades killing him.
Probably should have just flown away in the helicopter as the blades are still running so I am not sure what Seagal shooting the helicopter actually did.
The evil business woman tries to drive off but doesn't look where she is going, crashes her car into a tanker, gets covered in petrol and burns to death.
Seems a bit harsh!
Mind you it saved Seagal from having to beat an unarmed woman to death, which I guess even he realised might have made him look like more a jerk.
Seagal gets into gun battles with the mercenaries and basically just casually mows them down, killing one virtually every time he fires his gun while they blaze ineffectually.
FMJ emerges having hidden in some oil with a shotgun trained on Seagal and Native Chick. Now obvious FMJ guy is way more bad ass than Seagal and could easily kill such a poser. Even in a movie made by Seagal, its impossible to come up with a realistic way to have Seagal beat the guy.
So they fall back on another classic Seagal trope-
Seagal Trope 6- Bad guy doesn't shoot Seagal and instead walks closer to him allowing Seagal to do some Aikido to shoot the guy with his own gun.
Even when he does the move it looks really fake, like the guy is hesitating to fire and not holding his gun properly to let Seagal take it. Wouldn't his finger snag on the trigger to stop Seagal taking it anyway?
Having easily dispatched the main bad guys he fights a load of small mercenaries or miniature security guards or who ever the fuck this short guys are.
They can't shoot him because it might explode the refinery, which, fair play to the movie is actually a reasonable excuse to have everyone resort to close combat.
Though if the bad guys were smart they could just wait outside the room with their guns and shoot him when he tries to leave.
But instead they all grab knives and wrenches and ineffectually run at Seagal who beats the shit out of them with hilarious ease.
Seagal gets in another nice nut shot with a pole to the balls and one attacker is identified as Russell when someone shouts "Russell, get him!"
I honestly had high hopes for Russell. Russell seemed like such a bad motherfucker, I was sure Seagal was going to be in trouble. But a pipe blow to the head puts him out of action. Damn it, Russell! We believed in you! You were meant to get him!
Having killed everyone who poses a threat, Seagal confronts Caine.
Caine is evil and racist and says Eskimo chick (yes, she is STILL tagging along for some reason) is the "slope bitch" seagal has "been banging" and that the two of them bought "hookers better than her for 5 bucks in Bangkok."
Seagal does not dispute this claim, so apparently this is something Seagal and Caine's characters used to do, back in the day. Does this mean Caine does know Seagal's past and just didn't bother to tell him minions? And why does the past involve having sex with hookers in a city famous for its transexual prostitutes?
This shows shocking racism from Caine because the eskimo woman is clearly not form Thailand. We already established she is Chinese.
Caine has no weapon and says he is leaving, since Seagal wouldn't shoot him in the back.
Seagal instead lasso's Caine's legs and dangles him over a vat of oil.
Umm...okay so first you were murdering security guards, then you murdered people who are trying to flee...now we are just straight up murdering an unarmed man who is not attacking in any way?
Caine calls Seagal a coward who doesn't have the guts to shoot him.
Seagal says he wouldn't dirty his bullets and shoots the rope so Caine falls in the oil and dies.
Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.
How does Seagal keep making me admire the incredibly evil villains more than him?
Seagal than blows up the oil rig but in such a way that it does not environmental damage, unlike if it had blown up on its own which would have done lots of damage.
Still with me?
If you are expect Seagal to get arrested for all these murders he committed while the FBI were looking to arrest him for terrorism, you clearly underestimate Seagal's insanity and ego.
Instead he gives a 3 and a half minute lecture about the importance of protecting the environment and how big business have made clean energy but are keeping it secret.
Apparently Seagal wanted this to be a ten minute talk but during test screenings people were literally walking out of cinema.
I just wish there was some way to bring back the original version so we can watch this car crash in the full glory Seagal intended.
This movie is the perfect vision of Seagal's fragile ego.
It marked the moment when Seagal's star slipped and never fully recovered.
This movie lost money because, shockingly, no one wants to watch a hero casually over come incredibly easy opposition, face no serious threats and then lecture the audience about clean energy.
Weird, I know!
Seagal Trope 7- Seagal doesn't get hit during the entire movie.
Yeah, for all that fist fighting the bad guys don't even manage to hit him one time.
But I can see why Seagal is so insecure.
If I ran like this and people filmed it and put it in a movie, I'd be insecure too...
Seagal is to action movies what Fifty Cent is to rapping.
Fifty Cent (or is it Fiddy Cent? Do I care? No) is demonstrably terrible at rapping. He slurs his words while speaking fairly slowly. So why do people like him?
Because of his image. He was famously shot many times and survived, proving he is a true authentic gangster. People listen to his music because they see it as 'real' and marvel at Fifty Cents reputation, even though he isn't actually very talented at his chosen career.
In the same way, when Seagal had his big hit "Under Siege" it was seen as something new and authentic. His akido moves were very different to the fighting we had seen before, leading some to assume they were a more authentic, realistic and deadly fighting style. There were even rumours that Seagal had once been in the CIA and thus was a real legit dangerous tough guy. The fact he couldn't actually act wasn't important. It was the aura around him, buying into the reputation that mattered.
Fifty Cent and Seagal also share hilariously inflated egos and tendencies to turn projects they work on into their own personal masturbation fantasy.
Fifty Cent made his own computer games, Bulletproof and Blood on the Sand, in which you play a super amazing version of Fifty Cent who kills everyone he doesn't like, is constantly told how awesome he is by everyone and acts like a total prick but is weirdly cheered for this obnoxious behaviour.
Steven Seagal follows this exact formula in basically every film he ever made.
Now Fifty Cent just needs to get really fat and grow a horrible pony tail and the perfect mirroring of their careers will be complete.
After Under Siege was a big hit, Seagal had a bit of influence and could make some demands for doing the sequel.
What Seagal wanted was to be able to create a film himself, with himself as director, producer and star.
What this created was sort of a perfect Seagal storm.
All Seagal films contain the same tropes, to the extent that you can pretty much create your own head canon that Seagal is the same character in all of them.
I'll address each of the these tropes as they pop up.
Our film begins with a fire at an oil rig in Alaska. A helicopter arrives and off steps Seagal, revealed in an epic, camera panning up beauty shot.
This means we actually see Seagal's horrible pony tail before his face.
Pony tail is an apt name for this hair cut, because if you lift it up you are bound to find an asshole underneath.
After this lingering, slow motion shot of our hero, we introduce the bad guy, Michael Caine. Now most of us would agree that Michael Caine is a slightly bigger star than Steven Seagal, and by slightly I mean to even compare Seagal to a legend like Caine is a joke. Nevertheless, after giving himself his own epic beauty shot, Seagal as director just has Caine open a helicopter door and be revealed sat inside. Its very clear who Seagal considers the bigger star. Caine might be getting his revenge on Seagal here, because through out the film he puts in a dreadfully hammy performance with a laughable fake American accent.
If at this point the audience was starting to think maybe Seagal has an inflated opinion of himself, there are very obvious dubbed in background voices to make clear that Seagals character is the most awesome human alive. This is a technique used through out the film whenever Seagal thinks we might be too stupid to react correctly to what we are seeing (basically every time we see a crowd of any kind.) These random voices make clear that now Seagal is on the case the fire is "...as good as out."
Seagal Trope 1- Seagal is presented as the most awesome guy who has ever lived.
Seagal sets some explosives and then dramatically sets them off. Everyone ducks for cover, except Michael Caine and Seagal because...I guess they are morons? This provides a great opportunity for Seagal to stand with an explosion going off behind him that he doesn't look at...though I don't know if it really counts if its just a controlled explosion you set yourself.
An old giffer is of the opinion that the crappy cheap equipment Michael Caine has them using is to blame, but Michael Caine says it is human error that caused it.
The old Giffer starts shouting that Seagal is a "WHORE!" to which Seagal responds that for $350 thousand he would fuck anything once. This is undoubtedly his best line in the film, so I'll give him props for that.
While I am giving credit where its due, Dr Cox from scrubs is in this film as Caine's right hand minion. He's honestly really good in the in the film. He's not a big guy, but wearing little round sunglasses and standing with his arms crossed he looks really menacing and I really buy him as a merciless enforcer for Caine. He's great at being the kind of evil prick you want something horrible to happen to later.
After work, Seagal goes to a bar where some red neck oil workers are causing trouble.
Red necks get a hard time in Hollywood. These poor slubs are the go-too dumb thug bad guys for heroes to beat up on.
These guys are oil workers from Caine's refinery, and Caine is so evil he only employs evil douche bag workers I guess. Interestingly, you would think since Seagal works at the refinery putting out fires he would know these guys and they would like him, but neither he nor them seem to have met before.
The old geezer from earlier comes over to Seagal and states again that faulty parts caused the fire (okay, Seagal, we get it!) Grandpa tells Seagal to sneak in and find some information about what's going on and once Seagal has this they will speak again. If you think the old guy isn't going to get killed in the mean time you don't watch enough films. Seagal also mentions that he has a stash of weapons in a cupboard that he wants to pick up later so they can "go into the mountains". Nice subtle set up there. I wonder if that will be important later.
The red neck oil workers are pushing around an old drunk Eskimo guy, which causes Seagal to have to step up to sort things out.
Now you know how this scene plays out, its a classic really. Bad guys are bullying someone, hero steps in and teaches them a lesson. This has even happened in Harkovast. It's a simple formula that you wouldn't think anyone could fuck up.
Seagal proceeds to beat up the oil workers who are polite enough to attack one at a time and do hilarious back flips and dives every time he twists their arms or shoves them. Maybe these are the oil worker gymnastics team, as they dive around and leap in the air wonderfully whenever Seagal lays a hand on them.
The workers are noticeable for all being short, helping to make Seagal seem huge.
Seagal Trope 2- Fighting short people.
This serves the purpose of inflating Seagals ego and making him seems more powerful. His arm twisting, wrist throwing fighting style would probably not work and look goofy on a really big opponent, so hurling around titchy enemies helps his moves work better.
The downside, of course, is that watching a big man beat up little people, especially when he's doing it very easily, starts to give off a vibe of bullying.
This gets especially bad here when he starts battering a tiny oil worker who looks to be about 60 years old.
Seagal also delivers a large number of grabs and kicks to the balls, with hilarious dubbed in cries of "my nuts!" and "my balls!" from his enemies.
Through out the movie Seagal has been wearing a leather coat with tassels, and here he reveals that he is in some way native American. Yeah just go with it.
Anyway, Seagal declares that it is "natives 8, oil workers 0" to which the oil workers leader laughs. This is a really weird bit of editing as Seagal literally did just beat up eight guys, so I'm not sure why the guy is still feeling confident.
After brutalising a few more of them he faces off with the leader and challenges the guy to a "hand slap game." Basically the oil worker puts his hands over Seagals hands and Seagal tries to slap the oil worker on the top of his hands.
If Seagal succeeds he gets a free punch, if he misses the redneck gets a free punch.
Rather than fleeing, or sucker punching Seagal, the oil worker not only agrees but plays alone without trying to cheat. Oil working red necks may be bullies but they live and die by their honour I guess.
Seagal successfully slaps his opponent and the oil worker allows Seagal to then punch him.
The blow to his body causes the redneck to double over in pain. He then struggles back to his feet and attempts to continue.
Seagal taunts him shouting "Put your hands up! Put your hands up!" and generally mocking him, while dubbed in voices from the crowd jeer the oil worker, laughing at how stupid he is out how he will clearly get his ass kicked.
Once again, Seagal slaps his hands, the hits his opponent again, causing the oilworker to collapse to the ground. There is a weird dubbed in vomiting sound and Seagal comments as if the guy threw up, but there is no vomit on the ground so its all just seems bizarre.
Once again the redneck gets up and continues the game, even though he is no struggling to stand.
Now at this point you are probably thinking that this is starting to seem pretty sadistic. Seagal has gone from punishing the bully to being a far more monstrous bully himself. He is clearly revelling in this cruelty and enjoying the adulation of the crowd.
What makes the scene even worse is that the red neck bully ends up seeming kind of heroic. The guy clearly can't win, but mans up and continues with the twisted game. Seagal laughs at the mans claims of having "big balls" but this guy really does!
On the third attempt it is Seagal that actually breaks his own rules, striking the guy three times rather than once.
Unintentionally, the film makers are starting to seem like Seagal's game is going wrong because the guy won't quit so he has to try to cheat to win.
Once more, the red beck gets back up, bloodied and shaking but still willing to go on.
So some how Seagal has managed to turn racist red neck douche bag who was going to get taught a lesson into a sympathetic protagonist that we are routing for, and his own heroic character into a horrible monster we hate.
In this type of scene, where the hero challenges the villain to some sort of "test of will" the point is normally that the arrogant villain is made to show his truth colours and is revealed as a coward. The bully cant take his own medicine and loses his dignity, grovelling for mercy. The idea of getting this scene so wrong that you manage to reverse the roles is really astounding! Only someone of Seagal's titanic ego could fail to see how bad this scene makes him look.
The ending of this monstrous scene descends into farce as Seagal states "what does it take...what does it take to change the essence of a man?" to which the redneck responds "I need time...to change." and then starts to cry. Seagal says "I do too" and pats the guy on the shoulder and leaves.
Did...did they just bond somehow? Did Seagal impart wisdom by brutalising the guy in the face?
After...whatever the hell that was, the Seagal goes and accesses the bad guys computer and finds out that they are using faulty breaks that will cause a disaster.
This is because if the oil company doesn't get the plant up and running in 13 days the rights will revert to the local Eskimos. 'Cause that's how contracts work.
The bad guys realise he is onto them and decide to kill off the old geezer first because he is "the bigger threat". Obviously. That old guy sure scared the shit out of me.
Dr Cox goes over and horribly tortures Grandpa to death in a scene that is so grisly and tasteless that it starts to sway into parody. There is just something unintentionally hilarious to me about this old guy pulling funny faces while Doctor Cox beats up on him. Grandpa grumbling funny swear words and old geezer nonsense just makes it better.
Again, Doctor Cox is actually pretty great here, saying things like "This is just one guys opinion, but I think that would be bad for you." and "Have you listened to your yourself lately? Have you? Its just 'I', 'I', 'I'. There is no I in team! It is T, E, A, M, TEAM!"
The fact he is so calm and emotionless normally but here seems to getting increasingly deranged is great villain stuff. Its honestly a shame he isn't in a better film.
Next the bad guys try to kill Seagal by sending him to a fix another technical problem, at an out of no where way station that they then blow up.
They are nice enough to put Grandpa's body inside for Seagal to find it so he can realise its a trap and then wait long enough for him to get some distance away before blowing him up.
Seagal's body is found by the Eskimos who take him back to their village.
They all dress in animal furs, in huts and carry spears and appear to have not noticed that the modern world has happened.
The leader comes in dressed like a bird and making bird noises and translates what he says through his hot daughter (who is kinda the love interest...though I'm honestly not sure her and Seagal ever really hook up or kiss. I guess the only one who can turn Seagal on is himself.) I should clarify, she translates when the chief starts actually talking, she's not translating bird noises. I think this is a missed opportunity as that would have been awesome.
His daughter explains that her father thought Seagal was a bear and still thinks he might be. If these people have chosen a man who cant tell a shit actor with a pony tail from a polar bear as their leader its no wonder they are still living in huts without indoor plumbing.
Seagal responds that he "is a mouse, hiding from the hawks, in the house of a raven."
At first I thought he said "moose" which would have also made the scene better.
The leader (chief? Second crazy old guy in the film?) says this is "just what a bear would say."
Not an expert on arctic survival here, but I am fairly sure bears don't talk.
The crazy old guy then proceeds to use a knife to dig shrapnel out of Seagal's back.
I am not sure where this guy got his medical license, probably from a bear.
If you think the films portrayal of Native Americans is patronising at this point, just wait till Seagal goes on his vision quest.
Oh yeah, you didn't think we were getting out of this shit without a vision quest did you?
Seagal Trope 3- Seagal adopts elements of some other culture so he can spout pseudo-philosophical bullshit.
As an aside I should mention that Seagal tries to leave to avoid putting the tribe in danger but gets attacked by the sled dogs, which shows that the bad guys should have just set some dogs on Seagal as they totally kick his ass while he hilariously yells "Get off me, you fucking dogs!"
One of them bites him on the balls, so maybe these dogs are reincarnated oil workers.
Okay yeah I am just stalling to make you wait for the vision quest, cause its fucking awesome and I want to drag it out before I talk about.
The crazy old guy tells some bullshit story about bears and ravens cause that's what native Americans do all day.
Seagal has visions of topless native chicks, which is a good excuse to get some tits in the movie by pretending its not sleazy and exploitative. I don't think Eskimos go topless that often due to living in subzero temperatures, but what do I know? I'm not wise like Seagal or a man dressed as a bird who thinks bears can talk.
Seagal then fights a bear in his dream. He does better against the bear than the dogs, hanging onto it and stabbing it with a knife but is again defeated and it throws him in a river. Animals are Seagals weakness. Sadly the bad guys never exploit this by throwing a house cat at him.
Seagal then finds himself in a cave with a sexy naked native chick and an old native lady.
The sexy chick dances around and the old woman plays a rattle.
It's set up so Seagal has to choose between them. He puts his hands together and sort of nods to the sexy chick before going to speak to the old chick.
I don't really know what that is meant to demonstrate. The bad guys never try to seduce Seagal (hilarious as it would be if Dr Cox had done this) and we've already established that Seagal can only get wood for his own wooden acting.
I think I speak for most of us when I say I would have gone for the sexy naked chick, though the old woman sitting there the whole time might have put me off.
The old lady imparts various vague hippy shit and then Seagal emerges from a river...healed I guess?
Unfortunately Seagal then goes for a dog sled ride for no real reason and just after he leaves Cox and his minions show up looking for him. Dr Cox shoots the crazy old guy (cause Cox loves to kill all the old guys in Seagal's life.)
Since the villages are just armed with spears they are powerless to stop this because Eskimos can't work guns for the same reason they are living in huts.
The hot daughter says to Cox "I will watch you die!" Which she actually never does, so its weird that they put the line in the movie.
Seagal returns so the old guy can say goodbye to him as he dies (rather than to his friends and family or anything.)
Okay seriously, if you are a social justice warrior and hate cultural appropriation, just make people watch this film. Seeing Seagal getting told he's a spirit warrior with an amulet to help him in the next world is so cringe inducing that any frat boy will pull off his fancy dress war bonnet in horror at looking like as big of a tool as Seagal does here.
It turns out the natives have a snowmobile they keep (for emergencies) that Seagal uses to go to the old guys house (the oil worker old guy, not the crazy bird costume old guy). Despite having ransacked the place, the bag guys didn't bother to check an upstairs cupboard in which oil worker old guy left the information they need and a load of weapons and supplies. How lucky. There are even a set of clothes that fit the native chick, I guess she was the same size as the old guy? Why don't they just throw in a winning lottery ticket too? I mean if we're going to get silly, lets just go full on.
Bad guys arrive and Seagal shoots two of them. Another two come in, including a guy that helped Cox kill the old guy.
They fire guns at each other and honestly this is probably as good as the action gets in this film as they trade gun fire a little without Seagal instantly beating them all.
Seagals weapon jams and the bad guys all blaze wildly at his cover so they run out of bullets. Rather than reload, one of the bad guys throws his gun at Seagal (no seriously), missing completely and then rushes at him only to get whupped senseless. The one that helped kill the old giffer is then also decides not to reload and comes at Seagal using his pistol as a club. Seagal grabs a whale bone club that the villains used to torture grandpa previously and beats the bad guy to death with it.
Oooh! Irony! Poetic justice! That's visual story telling right there.
Michael Caine and his minions decide that they need some more back up to stop Seagal so they call in some mercenaries.
These guys are lead by the awesome marine drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket who outshines even Doctor Cox with his raw awesomeness.
Man this guy is so bad ass, when he shows up it just instantly elevates everything he's in.
If the United States Marine Corps had a voice, it would talk like this guy.
Seagal goes and meets with a hippy guy with a computer and John Lennon glasses. I have no idea who this guy is or why he is in the movie. He gets about one line of dialogue and Seagal refers to him as Johnny. This guy is also not in the movie after this scene and doesn't get killed. Maybe he's a ghost. I'm going to assume he is the actually the spirit of John Lennon.
Seagal explains the bad guys evil plan that the audience has already heard loads of times.
Seagal says "Its like I always say...we gotta blow it and we gotta blow it now."
Was....was Seagal a prostitute in the past?
Is that how he met John Lennon?
Who else has he blown?
I thought old oil grandpa was calling him a whore metaphorically, but apparently he really is always saying how much he has to "blow it".
The native woman says they shouldn't resort to violence and should go to the police or press. She tells Seagal to think about what her father taught him.
She doesn't say they should dress up as birds, which is what her father would have really wanted, I think.
Anyway, Seagal then goes on a weird, kinda racist rant about how does she think a magic ghost will come and stop the bad guys plans and that hocus pocus spirit stuff wont help.
Firstly, I didn't think the press or police were magic hocus pocus, so it doesn't really seem like he's actually answering what she said. Going to the police seems like an entirely reasonable and superior plan. The press has been shown in this film (via more dodgy dubbing over on crowd scenes) to hate Michael Caine, so why wouldn't they jump at the chance to uncover Caines evil plan?
Also, for all the stuff in this film about respecting natives and beating on rednecks for racism, in addition to doing spirit journeys and mystical stuff, he now just turns around and shits on her beliefs for no reason.
She doesn't really respond and he never apologises. I suppose Seagal is meant to be Native American here so its okay for him to say it? Who the fuck knows.
Seagal opens a secret door to a room where John Lennon keeps all his weapons and loads up on machine guns and shotguns. John Lennon is not the peace loving hippy we assumed people! If John Lennon here is a ghost, and I think we can all agree he is because its funny, then Seagal should be nicer when he talks about the spirit world if he wants to borrow all his guns.
Seagal then gets on a horse with the native woman. I don't know why he brings her along as she doesn't have any combat training and it seems to just be putting her into danger.
John Lennon does not come with them and is not in the film again. See? Him being a ghost actually makes this make more sense!
Seagal asks the native woman is she can ride and she says "Of course, I'm Native American". I didn't know Eskimos road a lot of horses around in the snow. So the Eskimos have dog sleds for normal travel, a snow mobile for emergencies and horses for... I dunno, vacation? The fact the eskimo woman is played by a Chinese America just adds another level of stupid to the action.
Full Metal Jacket Guy (FMJ from this point onwards) is coming in his helicopter and complains that they have no information on Seagal before he started working for Michael Caine. This raises questions about Caine's hiring policy as he seems to hire people with no idea who they are and without seeing any previous qualifications or references. They realise this must mean he was in the CIA or the NSA.
Seagal Trope 4- Seagal has a secret history in the CIA or other secret, elite organisation.
Seagal heads to a secret cave he has full of explosives where he also has a transmitter that sends out a signal that will attract the bad guys into a trap.
I don't know why he has such a device, or a cave of explosives or why the bad guys are looking for a signal while hunting for Seagal. Do they believe Seagal is a radio?
Seagal also grabs even more weapons here, because I guess even John Lennon doesn't have enough weapons for Steven Seagal.
There's a sentence you weren't expecting to read today.
The bad guys helicopter is blown up, but the rest of them are coming after him on horse back because the one native America bad guy said he knows the land and that's what you should do. Not sure why they still send in the helicopter anyway, which is confusing enough to distract from the fact they give the native guy the tracking skills in yet another bit of stereotyping.
Seagal somehow has time to set even more traps. He sets some shit obvious traps that cause the bad guys to go off the trail and run into his real traps that kill some of them, including one that knocks a guy off his horse and causes him to roll slowly into to some sticks that some how impale him right through his body.
There's a kind of cool bit here where Dr Cox starts panicking and firing his gun wildly, show that he's not such a cool professional and FMJ yells at him "CEASEFIRE! Damn it man, there's no one out there, what the hell are you shooting at?"
I want a better movie with these two as the bad guys.
At this point we see that one of the mercenaries is Billy Bob Thornton. He's quite funny in the film, which serves to deflate the overly serious tone and for that I salute him. Thornton has a small shitty roll but he manages to be pretty memorable with a few funny lines before he gets killed later on (oh come on, that's not a spoiler! Do you think Seagal is going to let them off with a warning?)
After Seagal and Chinese native chick escape, one of the mercs (its not clear which one, maybe native tracker guy) gets to utter to immortal line that all Seagal films have the bad guys say eventually-
"This guys good!"
Seagal Trope 5- Bad guys talking about how amazing Seagal is.
Seagal now heads to the Aegis refinery for the final battle.
Seagal cuts the end off a plastic bottle and tapes it to his gun as a make shift silencer.
This wouldn't work but looks so hilarious I don't even care.
He uses this to murder a guard in the face (which actually makes a ton of noise since he shoots the guy through some glass so Seagal made his gun look stupid for no reason.)
Seagal begin sabotaging the place.
He goes to a piper with a patch on it and cuts the patch so liquid starts coming out. I have no idea what I pipe would have a patch on it you can cut...maybe Seagal can just cut metal?
The FBI are called in by the bad guys to arrest Seagal as a terrorist, but don't appear in the movie again and flee once the refinery starts to go into melt down. Let's say John Lennon took care of them with ghost magic.
Seagal murders another guard by strangling him while he's taking a piss (he urinates up against the side of the machinery in the refinery...don't they have toilets in this place? Caine's cost cutting really is out of hand!)
Seagal then batters another couple of guards with his super fighting skills. That's four people he's ambushed and murdered who were guilty of nothing but standing guard in a building.
The bad guys talk amongst themselves about how Seagal is "the patron saint of the impossible" and generally lick his balls verbally through the final battle, the best bit being FMJ giving one of his trade mark, self written speeches. You can tell when this guy makes his own dialogue because its always-
A- Totally insane
B- Absolutely awesome.
I can't do justice to this master of saying cool stuff, so I will just post what he says verbatim-
"My guy in D.C. tells me that we are not dealing with a student here, we're dealing with the Professor. Any time the military has an operation that can't fail, they call this guy in to train the troops, OK? He's the kind of guy that would drink a gallon of gasoline so he could piss in your campfire! You could drop this guy off at the Arctic Circle wearing a pair of bikini underwear, without his toothbrush, and tomorrow afternoon he's going to show up at your pool side with a million dollar smile and fist full of pesos. This guy's a professional, you got me? If he reaches this rig, we're all gonna be nothing but a big goddamned hole right in the middle of Alaska. So let's go find him and kill him and get rid of the son of a bitch!"
Billy Bob Thornton starts talking about how he thinks he should have the stock in on his machine gun, because when he has it out he feels like kind of a pussy and he wants to feel good about himself when he kills Seagal. This is as weird as it is hilarious, which makes it sad when Seagal blow him up with a bomb in a lift.
Everyone starts to evacuate from all the damage from Seagal's sabotage.
Seagal sees Dr Cox and an evil business woman who worked for Caine getting in a helicopter so he shoots it up to stop them. He grabs Dr Cox and tries to force him into the helicopters back rotor. Cox says he has evidence that can help bring down Caine, but then pulls out a metal rod and tries to club Seagal with it so Seagal throws him into the blades killing him.
Probably should have just flown away in the helicopter as the blades are still running so I am not sure what Seagal shooting the helicopter actually did.
The evil business woman tries to drive off but doesn't look where she is going, crashes her car into a tanker, gets covered in petrol and burns to death.
Seems a bit harsh!
Mind you it saved Seagal from having to beat an unarmed woman to death, which I guess even he realised might have made him look like more a jerk.
Seagal gets into gun battles with the mercenaries and basically just casually mows them down, killing one virtually every time he fires his gun while they blaze ineffectually.
FMJ emerges having hidden in some oil with a shotgun trained on Seagal and Native Chick. Now obvious FMJ guy is way more bad ass than Seagal and could easily kill such a poser. Even in a movie made by Seagal, its impossible to come up with a realistic way to have Seagal beat the guy.
So they fall back on another classic Seagal trope-
Seagal Trope 6- Bad guy doesn't shoot Seagal and instead walks closer to him allowing Seagal to do some Aikido to shoot the guy with his own gun.
Even when he does the move it looks really fake, like the guy is hesitating to fire and not holding his gun properly to let Seagal take it. Wouldn't his finger snag on the trigger to stop Seagal taking it anyway?
Having easily dispatched the main bad guys he fights a load of small mercenaries or miniature security guards or who ever the fuck this short guys are.
They can't shoot him because it might explode the refinery, which, fair play to the movie is actually a reasonable excuse to have everyone resort to close combat.
Though if the bad guys were smart they could just wait outside the room with their guns and shoot him when he tries to leave.
But instead they all grab knives and wrenches and ineffectually run at Seagal who beats the shit out of them with hilarious ease.
Seagal gets in another nice nut shot with a pole to the balls and one attacker is identified as Russell when someone shouts "Russell, get him!"
I honestly had high hopes for Russell. Russell seemed like such a bad motherfucker, I was sure Seagal was going to be in trouble. But a pipe blow to the head puts him out of action. Damn it, Russell! We believed in you! You were meant to get him!
Having killed everyone who poses a threat, Seagal confronts Caine.
Caine is evil and racist and says Eskimo chick (yes, she is STILL tagging along for some reason) is the "slope bitch" seagal has "been banging" and that the two of them bought "hookers better than her for 5 bucks in Bangkok."
Seagal does not dispute this claim, so apparently this is something Seagal and Caine's characters used to do, back in the day. Does this mean Caine does know Seagal's past and just didn't bother to tell him minions? And why does the past involve having sex with hookers in a city famous for its transexual prostitutes?
This shows shocking racism from Caine because the eskimo woman is clearly not form Thailand. We already established she is Chinese.
Caine has no weapon and says he is leaving, since Seagal wouldn't shoot him in the back.
Seagal instead lasso's Caine's legs and dangles him over a vat of oil.
Umm...okay so first you were murdering security guards, then you murdered people who are trying to flee...now we are just straight up murdering an unarmed man who is not attacking in any way?
Caine calls Seagal a coward who doesn't have the guts to shoot him.
Seagal says he wouldn't dirty his bullets and shoots the rope so Caine falls in the oil and dies.
Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.
How does Seagal keep making me admire the incredibly evil villains more than him?
Seagal than blows up the oil rig but in such a way that it does not environmental damage, unlike if it had blown up on its own which would have done lots of damage.
Still with me?
If you are expect Seagal to get arrested for all these murders he committed while the FBI were looking to arrest him for terrorism, you clearly underestimate Seagal's insanity and ego.
Instead he gives a 3 and a half minute lecture about the importance of protecting the environment and how big business have made clean energy but are keeping it secret.
Apparently Seagal wanted this to be a ten minute talk but during test screenings people were literally walking out of cinema.
I just wish there was some way to bring back the original version so we can watch this car crash in the full glory Seagal intended.
This movie is the perfect vision of Seagal's fragile ego.
It marked the moment when Seagal's star slipped and never fully recovered.
This movie lost money because, shockingly, no one wants to watch a hero casually over come incredibly easy opposition, face no serious threats and then lecture the audience about clean energy.
Weird, I know!
Seagal Trope 7- Seagal doesn't get hit during the entire movie.
Yeah, for all that fist fighting the bad guys don't even manage to hit him one time.
But I can see why Seagal is so insecure.
If I ran like this and people filmed it and put it in a movie, I'd be insecure too...