Leofwine_draca
One of the many films to use DIE HARD as inspiration, UNDER SIEGE is so good that it's nearly on par with DIE HARD and its sequel. While DIE HARD was confined to a tower block, UNDER SIEGE's setting is a battleship, containing hundreds of corridors and different locations. It's a good setting too, and totally realistic, you always believe that the action is really taking place on the moving ship. Even in the enjoyably bad SPEED 2, a ship was put to good use as the setting for the action, I don't know why. Perhaps because of the fragility of the ship, perhaps because of the isolated setting. It's a winner though and I'm sure in future we'll see more films like these set on ships (and what happened to turn up after I'd written this review? Two films called DEEP RISING and VIRUS. I rest my case.) Secondly, the direction is pretty good. Andrew Davis is an excellent director and it shows in this film. There are never any boring moments, and the action is kept moving constantly. The film starts off slowly, gets fast quickly, and moves into hyper-drive for the finale. The actual action scenes are filmed with relish, shootouts occur and are quickly over in cramped locations, bullets fly and things explode realistically. These adrenaline-pumping moments are countered nicely by cuts to either the goodies or the baddies going about their business, delivering choice dialogue.Which leads me on to the acting. Surprisingly, the principal players are all good in their roles, although some of the supporting cast appear never to have seen a camera in their life. It's left up to Seagal, Eleniak, Jones, Busey, and Meaney to have endless fun in their clear cut, well-defined roles, stereotypical perhaps but very enjoyable. Seagal in particular has matured from being just another wooden cop in NICO: ABOVE THE LAW to his smart, funny, kind yet lethal cook in this film. He's at his most likable here, delivering punchlines and wisecracks all the time, which instantly endear him to the audience. He's a father figure, a protector, someone who'll never let you down, well except when he gets badly wounded by a grappling hook in a rare moment where we feel sorry for his character. Erika Eleniak stars in an obviously out of place role as the stripper who joins in with the shooting, she's not a good actress but then the role doesn't require her to be one - just the opposite in fact. Eleniak and Seagal enjoy some punchy dialogue when they team up, in much the same way Busey and Jones do.Tommy Lee Jones gives an outrageously over the top performance. Dressed as an ageing rocker, he soon provides himself to be the brains behind the plan, and delivers many witty remarks. He's not much of a fighter though, as will be glaringly obvious when you see a stuntman doubling for Jones in the final fight between him and Seagal. Gary Busey gives an amusingly wild performance as the sadistic, traitorous officer, "outstanding" in every way, he even dresses in drag in a comedy highlight. Colm Meaney isn't given much to do except look mean, but there's the novelty value of hearing him use lots of unsavoury language you wouldn't find in STAR TREK.And then, there are the acclaimed fight scenes we normally associate with Seagal films. Arms are broken, legs are broken, necks are hit so hard they break, people are punched out and shot in the head, torso, everywhere. As well as these expected deaths, Seagal uses his sneaky knife throwing trick to get an opponent in the neck, makes a microwave bomb which peppers another guy's face with shrapnel, kicks someone into a bandsaw, drops an iron girder that impales another baddie, and in the excellent finale, goes one on one with Jones in a knife fight. As you may guess, UNDER SIEGE is one of my fun favourites when it comes to action films. It's the film which led me to seek out the rest of Seagal's work, a successful hit. Not original, but enjoyable in every other way.
OllieSuave-007
This is an action-packed and suspenseful flick from start to finish, where Steven Segal stars as Navy S.E.A.L. turned cook Casey Ryback, who must stop a gang of terrorists that seized control of the U.S.S. Missouri. Segal proves he is a force to be reckon with with his skilled martial arts moves and knowledge of trap-making. It's satisfying seeing him take on the terrorists left and right, giving them a taste of their own medicine.Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey play some pretty annoying bad guys and it's great to see them deck it out with Segal. The subplot of the Pentagon generals scrambling in how to deal with the bad guys and the hostage situation gives the movie added suspense, wondering if they will resort to launching an all-out assault on the ship, which puts the hostage sailors in more crisis.I just wished more drama concerning the trapped sailors were added, which overall, it's an exciting action flick that every action movie fans should see! Grade A-
Duncan Gosseyn
I like Steven Seagal's other other early films but Under Siege was a bit disappointing due to a lack of hand to hand combat. There are too many gunfights. I mean, gunfights aren't bad or anything, but all of the actors who have ever played the hero of an action movie use guns. When I watch a Steven Seagal movie, I hope to see him use Aikido (or broken pool cues, at least) to dispatch bad guys. And the knife fight at the end was pretty bad. Tommy Lee Jones is a good actor but I still can't believe that he'd last more than five seconds against Seagal in a knife fight. But this movie was still pretty fun. I thought the setting was interesting. The stakes are high. In Die Hard, terrorists plan to steal hundreds of millions of dollars but here terrorists try to blow up Honolulu. And Erika Eleniak is quite beautiful. My favorite Steven Seagal movie is probably Above the Law, though.
