| "You got to blow it big, and blow it now."
Steven Seagal says this about 2/3's into "On Deadly Ground". His
character, Forrest Taft, is a demolotions expert who works for Aegis
Oil Co., putting out oil fires. He's referrering to demolitions with
this line, but he might as well have been referring to his directorial
debut. Because, baby, he sure blew it.
"On Deadly Ground" is a bad movie, even for this action-adventure
genre. Even for a Seagal movie. I did not like "Under Seige" for its
stupid dialog, stupid character actions, inane centerfold sidekick and
general implausibility. I was sorely disappointed by it. But at least
it was just a stupid, disappointing movie. "On Deadly Ground" is a
stupid, really badly done movie. It beats out "Perfect World" for the
stupidest, really really done movie I've seen in recent history.
I expected more from "Perfect World". I didn't expect much from "On
Deadly Ground", having heard nothing but negative reviews thus far. But
hey, I like Steven Seagal and the action-adventure genre and besides,
I'm a really tolerant movie-goer. I've seen (and paid for) some really
horrible movies in my day. Remember "Creatures From the Deep", with
Doug McClure headlining the cast? I saw that at a movie theatre.
Remember "Tentacles"? I paid money for that.
It was the late 70's, of course, and we didn't have "straight to video"
releases, otherwise I'm sure such gems wouldn't have graced the silver
screen. So you get used to seeing bad, but not REALLY bad movies in
the theatres these days, esp. when said bad movie involves a fairly big
name star.
You'd think these people would watch the end product of their work.
Maybe they did and everyone was too afraid of saying, "You know, Steve,
this really isn't coming across well. Maybe we ought to try it
differently." Or maybe they were crunched for time.
Now that I mention it, it *did* feel like they were crunched for
time. More on that later.
The film revolves, more or less, around Forrest Taft, who as I
mentioned, works for the evil Oil Company, Aegis. Aegis is headed by a
"musta needed the money" Michael Caine, playing Mr. Michael Jennings.
Jennings has about as much depths as the film this movie was printed
on. It's safe to say he's very loud, and obviously an awful person.
Mr. Caine suffers one of the worst hair/make-up jobs I've seen, but I'm
starting to go off on a tangent again. Mr. Jennings has, of course,
his coeterie of equally evil henchmen, an officious, ruthless woman who
is the prettiest thing in this film (but alas, I have no idea what her
character was called, since I don't recall hearing a name), and his
hatchet man, Mr. MacGruder (the actor's name eludes me). Mr. Jennings,
not caring a lick for the environment, Eskimos or the lives of his
employees, has been using faulty parts in his oil rigs, causing them to
go up in flames. Enter Forrest Taft, who seems happily oblivious to
all the shady deals going on. When accused of whoring himself out to
Big Business by his oil rig foreman friend, Taft sez (and this really
was the best line in the whole movie): "For 350 thousand bucks, I'll
f*** anything once." Here, here. :)
Well once is apparantly enough for Taft as his foreman friend is killed
by the baddies (in one of the films sillest "tension" scenes) for
squealing to the EPA and press about Aegis' environmentally incorrect
policies.
[note: If you should see this, brace yourself and brace yourself big
time for a lot of preaching about how mankind has wronged the Earth,
the Eskimo's and everything else. Others have remarked how heavy
handed the Big Message is. It's not heavy handed. It's beyond heavy
handed. It's beyond preaching. It's so incredibly beyond heavy handed
and preaching that I can't think of a suitable adjective. It's done so
much and so often in such an obvious way that it was, unintentionally,
funny.]
Well, the death of his foreman friend pisses Taft off, and as we learn
quickly, he's not a man to piss off. Jennings wants to get rid of him
as well and sends MacGruder (a fairly interesting character ruined by a
wild script) off to blow him up. Needless to say, they fail to do the
job completely and here come the Native Americans to provide our next
dose of beyond-heavy-handed Political Correctness. Add major doses of
pseudo-spirituality, a very bizzare dream sequence that's part
soft-core porno (we do have to get our naked women in, after all :),
part Duran Duran video, part Luke Skywalker Visits that Big Evil Tree,
and part, oh hell, I dunno, and we have--voila! Our hero "reborn".
Now he's really pissed off. Together with the Eskimo chief's daughter
(as played uselessly by Joan Chen--I guess she needed the money, too)
Taft goes to extract Revenge. You can guess the rest of the movie from
there.
As I said WAY before, it seemed like someone was in a big hurry to
finish this film. We've got scenes that go nowhere and cuts between
scenes that make no sense. Example: Taft is dog sledding. He crests
a hill, slows down as the camera zooms in on him, as if he were looking
at something. We fully expect to see a shot of whatever has caught his
attention. But no, the scene now goes back to him dog sledding along
at full speed. Why did we need that "I'm looking at something
important shot"? Who knows.
We've got glaring continuity errors. The movie is supposed to be set
in Valdez (yeah, the oil spill Valdez, way up there in Alaska). When
Taft gets blown up, there's snow, snow and more snow! But the latter
half of the movie has to be shot in summer, even though I don't think
it took a whole seaon for him to get back home. Green forests everywhere.
Even on the big jagged mountains. Go fig.
We've got really silly dialog. Example: Seagal has trounced an
obnoxious bar type who was picking on a drunk Ind--er, Native American.
Segal (lecturing the bloodied opponent about his manners): "What does
it take? What DOES it take?" <-- said in that quiet, chiding way
Brute (who's thus far exhibited the sensitivity of a concrete block):
"I...I need time. To--to CHANGE." <-- said tearfully, and with
apparant sincerity
We've got bad editing, where it feels like whole scenes were chopped
out. Or maybe they just weren't filmed. We've got oodles of preaching
to the masses. We've got guys with guns who get killed galore. We've
got mercenaries. At one point, Taft sez: "I didn't want to turn to
violence." I for once, am glad he did. Tepid as the action in this
movie was, Seagal hasn't mastered the art of preaching while fighting
and that meant the more fight scenes, the better. :)
Good points? Uh, er. Well, Seagal is easy on the eyes, but even that
saving grace can go so far. A nice soundtrack by the guy who scored the
Conan movies. Some pretty outdoor scenery. And the sled dogs were
cute.
Basically, unless you're like me and couldn't quite believe it could be
all that bad, save your money. Wait for cable. Really. Even if you
like Seagal movies.
Rating *.5 out of ****
kim
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