Welcome back to "Notes On", a series where we watch a film and write down everything we can think of. Last week, we covered THE JERKY BOYS: THE MOVIE, and this week we are covering the 1994 action flick, ON DEADLY GROUND. Starring his royal heiness, Steven Seagal, ON DEADLY GROUND is a film that needs to be seen.
For those who didn't grow up in the 80s and 90s can understand how big of a star Steven Seagal was. He burst onto the scene with the Andrew Davis thriller ABOVE THE LAW. The film was a modest hit, making $18 million at the box office. It was when the film hit VHS in November of 1988.
This led to Seagal making a film a year (missing only one year) for the next 8 years. He made two films in 1990 with the Jamaican infused action film MARKED FOR DEATH along with the film where Seagal makes a threat to the villain by telling it to a turned off TV, HARD TO KILL. Both of these films were hits as was his next outing, 1991's OUT OF JUSTICE.
These hits would lead Seagal to make the biggest film of his career, UNDER SIEGE. Seagal plays a navy chef who is stationed on a naval warship who has to fight the terrorists who took over the ship and locked him in a freezer. UNDER SIEGE is a good flick. The action is tight and exciting and Seagal actually looks good doing the action. He is usually stiff but here he moves well. I chalk this up to director Andrew Davis putting a leash on Seagal.
Seagal would take 1993 off while he got together his dream project, ON DEADLY GROUND.
This is a passion project for Seagal. He is big on the environment, native Americans, kicking ass, and small towns. Seagal was so high on the idea of this being his magnum opus, he decided to direct the film himself. This being Seagal's baby, you would think he would bring something to the film that other directors wouldm't have but he doesn't. The film looks like a big budget Steven Seagal film. Nothing more. The action scenes are the same, the setting is the same, the bad guy is actually pretty damn good.
He doesn't even bring anything to the rest of the film either. Dialogue scenes are static and bland and the nightmare scene looks like it was shot in his backyard. The film, for the most part, looks like every other action film Warner Brothers released in the 80s and 90s. The image is rich and full of life even when the film is shot blandly. I have always loved the way these films look during that time.
ON DEADLY GROUND actually entertained me. This film has gotten a lot of shit over the years for the many awful scenes on display here but it is actually entertaining. I loved action scenes, the bad guys, and the bigness of the film. Sure, the film has its fairshare of crappy scenes but that doesn't make the film any less entertaining. I say check it out. You might like it like I did.
Seagal's career went downhill from here. Sure, UNDER SIEGE 2: DARK TERRITORY grossed $50 million but that was almost half of what the original made. 1996's EXECUTIVE DECISION was a hit but he only has a small role while THE GLIMMER MAN (also released in 1996) was a flop. 1997's FIRE DOWN BELOW was such a huge flop it killed Seagal's partnership with Warner Brothers. Seagal would go straigh-to-video after this with him only seeing three more films released theatrically (EXIT WOUNDS, HALF PAST DEAD, and MACHETE.)
VIEWING NOTES:
-I have never seen this film. I slipped it because I didn't want to sit through a terrible film, no matter how funny it could be.
-Seagal's character's name is Forest?
-Man, what a fucking cast. You have My Cocaine, Dr. Cox, the bad guy from ABRAXAS, the guy who learns what the most annoying sound in the world is, Kidda, Sheriff Hoyt, and French Fried Taters.
-I wonder how accurate the firefighting in this film is.
-Seagal likes to waste his cigarillo.
- I LOVE "Message Movies:! They always want to show the worst of some kind of hate but they don't want to say everyone is like this, so they put most of the hate into a few characters. This means we get some REALLY racist, sexist, or homophobic characters. Characters that have so much hate they should be the leader of whatever their hate is, not some schlub who spends most of his time in a bar after getting off from being a miner.
-Only Steven Seagal could talk big about someone being a racist while being racist himself in a martial arts film. Here he refers to the person he is standing up for a "this little native man".
-The bar room fight ends with "What can change the essence of a man" That is the greatest shit ever.
-My Cocaine is not slumming it here. He is pretty great throughout. The scene where he shoots the commercial is great.
-This is Steven Seagal's only directorial outing and this makes me wonder: How much of this film is actually directed by Seagal? Was he behind the camera every step of the way, working with the cinematographer and assistant directors, OR was he one of those directors who doesn't do much and relies on others to get the film made.
-I love how the older guy who is Seagal's friend in the film has keeps his VHS collection in his gun cabinet.
-Did Seagal actually have an honest, human moment on camera. He is being taken care of by an Inuit tribe and an old woman is trying to feed Seagal some ABC food (Already Been Chewed) and he shoos her way. He then looks at her, sticks out his tongue and says "ew".
-They should make a film about a day in the life of Steven Seagal which is a 153 minute monologue has he goes about his day. He interacts with people but we never hear what they have to say because Seagal's inner monologue won't shut up.
-The score here is pretty damn good. I never once thought the score was for a lesser film. Sometimes you can tell if the composer thought the film wasn't any good but this one goes pretty hard at times.
-Seagal goes through some healing stuff and has a hallucination where he fights a bear. It was done in close up to hide the fact that Seagal was too chicken to fight a real bear so he fights a blanket made of fur from another, weaker bear. He hits it and stabs it before the bear gets really mad and throws him into the nearby river. It is done as tw cuts: the bear swiping to the left followed by Seagal falling into the roaring rapids of the local river. It is official: STEVEN SEAGAL LOST AN IMAGINARY FIGHT WITH AN IMAGINARY BEAR. He can't lose a fight in his films but he fantasizes about losing to bear?
-He is made a part of the tribe that saved him after knowing them for what, a week? I could be wrong on this but it feels like they barely know this guy.
-Sven radios the helicopter he got off of moments ago and tells him "He's staying one step ahead of us" and the pilot responds with "Roger that"
-Thank you Mr. Seagal, for giving us the definition of "Independent contractors" when said in an action film. Anyone who grew up in the 80s and 90s knew what an "independent contractor" is but you wanted us to think we were the dirt on the bottoms of your shoes and tell us what that is.
-According to Steven Seagal, billions of gallons of oil spills into the ocean every year. Good thing this film came out when it did because now its only a million. Way to save the environment, Mr. Seagal.
-Seagal is described as someone who is so top secret that looking up his name doesn't trigger as top secret. I would hope not. I don't want any of our top secret agents flagging as top secret. Seems to be a red flag if you ask me.
-Seagal makes sure we know what he is dealing with are explosives by showing us the word twice.
-Man, I love me some miniatures. Give me that over CGI any day of the fucking week.
-A guy riding a horse for the bad guy is blown up with a bomb and the horse survives.
-Seagal makes a silencer out of a 2-liter of pop (soda). I thought he was dumping out the liquids so he could make a bomb but nope...gun silencer.
-According to the always reliable iMDB.com, Steven Seagal has some nicknames including Chief and Steven "Slowhand" Seagal.
-Who the fuck fires a gun like that? The only way I can describe it is feels like he is pushing the gun forward while also pulling back on it. He also holds a machine gun weirdly as well. He puts the but of the gun as close to the top of his shoulder as possible when in reality, you are supposed to put the but of the gun deep into your shoulder. That motherfucker is going to kick and you don't want to lose the gun when it happens.
-The speed at which Seagal disarms Ermy and shoots him in the same motion is not impressive at all.
-These fight scenes are terrible.
-The way Seagal smashes that guy's face into the wall that drives a knife through it is impressive.
-The girl at the end says "This is for my grandfather" after My Cocaine is dropped into a vat of oil. She didn't do anything to give her the right to have a badass line. Why is she even speaking her? Seagal should have written a big one-liner for this scene, but he doesn't. She didn't do anything in that scene so she should not have a badass line.
-The big speech Seagal gives at the end of the film should have been shot and edited like it belonged in Oliver Stone's JFK. It would have helped the audience get through this snore-a-thon. Put a little military drum in there and everything would have been golden.
-I swear Seagal's badassery is brought up four or five times. Usually, you only get one of these. Maybe two but not this many.
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