Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

I'm not the biggest fan of Steven Seagal - he's made too many rubbish films and his physical changes haven't helped. However, he found a winner with "Under Siege." The film packs a lot into its 98 minute running time and it rushes by. The plot is fairly standard and includes all kinds of "superhero" type heroics. What makes it work, is the direction from Andrew Davis, the action scenes, the photography and production values but also the performance of Tommy Lee Jones. All you have to do, is to compare his acting with the feeble attempts of Steven Seagal for it to be painfully obvious who the actor is! Most of Steven Seagal's martial arts movies are pretty low budget and have never been given a huge release. "Under Siege" is an exception. Thanks to the films various credentials, the box office takings were bound to be better than usual. Gary Busey does well as an unbalanced villain (they had become his stock in trade long before).

"Under Siege" was the first big Seagal movie in terms of production values and higher budget after the 'four in a row' successes of "Nico - Above the Law" ('88); "Hard to Kill" & "Marked for Death" (both from '90) and "Out for Justice" ('91), reteaming the now established action star with the director Andrew Davis ("Code of Silence"; "Nico"; "The Package") in a screenplay penned by J. F. Lawton ("Pretty Woman" and the future writer / director of "The Hunted" starring Christopher Lambert) and produced by Seagal himself for Warner Bros., the Studio that was responsible for his screen debut 4 years before.It's noticeable that this movie was made based on the previous box office hit and critical praise of the first two "Die Hard" films with Seagal throwed in it, who was willing to enter mainstream to be equated to the likes of Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger or Bruce Willis, as a legit action star.The good thing is that Andrew Davis is a competent director in the action genre, the budget was there and the movie looks good either in the technical level and the artistic one, with nice wide shots of the U.S. Navy battleship USS Missouri in the open sea, the bad thing is, besides that, the movie lacks the thrilling factor, the suspense, the momentaneum and even the action / fight sequences are passable or staged a bit dull. There's no memorable fights like Seagal's first four films and the way he won the day against the terrorists it's far too easy and far fetched even for action movies standards (if we compare it with "Die Hard"...).The cast is probably the best in a Seagal film, with the two main villains played by Tommy Lee Jones, in a flamboyant performance that looks like the actor was having lots of fun performing it, and the forever baddie, Gary Busey, in "Lethal Weapon"'s Mr. Joshua mode, both upstaging the lead action star, plus a supporting cast of well known character actors such as the veteran Patrick O' Neal ("Alvarez Kelly"); Damian Chapa ("Street Fighter"), Raymond Cruz ("Training Day"), Bernie Casey ("Never Say Never Again"), Troy Evans ("Kuffs"), Nick Mancuso ("Rapid Fire"), George Cheung ("Rambo - First Blood - Part II"), Andy Romano, Colm Meaney ("Con Air"), Michael Des Barres (Murdoc from "MacGyver") and even Kane "Jason Voorhees" Hodder among lots of others."Baywatch" former star and Playboy Playmate, Erika Eleniak, was cast as the stripper blonde bimbo going gung ho to please Seagal's vanity desire of scoring with a beautiful young woman half his age, but their on-screen chemistry is less than zero and her character, besides being an eye candy for the viewer, is entirely pointless."Under Siege" was Oscar nominated for Sound and Sound Effects and that marked the zenith of Seagal's career and Seagal-a-side, its success was responsible for Andrew Davis helm the vastly superior "The Fugitive" 1 year later, which was nominated for several Oscars (including Best Picture) and earned Tommy Lee Jones the award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.In short, as a 'warm-up' to "The Fugitive", "Under Siege" earned his place in the history of action films, but being Seagal's biggest film, doesn't translate for Seagal's best film, it was just a failed attempt to promote him to mainstream, because besides its box office success, 2 years later the pony-tail'd action star was helping Eskimos against the evil Oil Tycoon, Michael Caine, in the God awful "On Deadly Ground"...I give it 5 stars and 1 extra for the production values and Davis' assertive (but unfortunately not that creative) direction.

Seagal's first four films undoubtedly constitute his best work as far as his fans are concerned. This DIE HARD clone set on a Battleship wins mass appeal based on its premise alone and cements its stature as "Best Seagal Movie" with very strongly directed and acted scenes involving the villains. There's a wonderful little cat 'n mouse feel to the film and even manages to stay interesting during the scenes in between the action with Seagal stalking the ship's lonely corridors and various rooms, encountering various obstacles along the way.However, there were a few worrying trends beginning to surface when this film was made. Most obviously was Seagal's weight, which was starting to become a bit of a distraction by this film and even more-so with each concurrent film following this (aside from his commendable attempt to trim down for EXIT WOUNDS). This would be the first film of many to feature his image on the cover heavily digitally doctored to reduce his double-chin.Additionally this is the first Seagal movie to introduce him working with a team of lackies responsible for doing a lot of his dirty work, presumably as a way to make his one-man-army routine have some semblance of realism. Okay, well MARKED FOR DEATH had some of this too, but they were at least interesting characters. Unfortunately though, they also serve to steal attention and screen time away from our hero, villains, and quality kills to the point where (as in all his modern films) Seagal is barely even in the thing.Now, Seagal never was the most approachable or friendly-looking guy but this film is the first time the villains are much more charming and compelling than he is. Given that Jones and Busey are charismatic actors, their characters are actually interesting and off-kilter while Seagal is just an even more one-dimensional version of himself, with all kinds of the shoehorned-in CIA and Special Forces ego-trip background motifs that have been with him since is first film. The entire movie I was rooting for them to just shoot him and felt a little sad with each terrorist fatality. It introduces the bumbling and annoying sidekick, epitomized by Ms. Eleniak who is utterly useless in this film aside from as comic relief and the all-too-brief birthday cake scene. Seagal unforgivably makes her change in the very next scene, adding to the unlike-ability of his character.UNDER SIEGE is a fun film, possibly the most fun of all DIE HARD's clones. It's got its share of disappointments though and plenty of brilliant villains whose IQ decreases by 100 points whenever they get a chance to kill the hero. At one point, one of them even dies twice if you watch closely, possibly another nod to a Seagal earlier work regarding a villain in MARKED FOR DEATH. We have the success of UNDER SIEGE to thank for the existence of Seagal's insane tour de force in the legendarily awful ON DEADLY GROUND, which was financed to secure his appearance in this film's inevitable sequel.

I guess the most memorable part of "Under Siege" was wondering whether such a thing could ever actually happen. No, not the SEAL- turned- cook part - the hijacking of a battleship. Like, could a terrorist group of about 30 men really take over a warship on the high seas?Well, the way this movie presented it, it would seem that they could! Bearing in mind that this movie was made long before the events of 9/11 and, had it been made about what happened then, I can imagine that a lot of reviewers would be writing things like, "Man!! THAT could never happen!" and we all now know the answer to that one don't we?So let's assume that it could be possible for a group of lunatic terrorists to take over a battleship and then offload all its strategic weaponry onto an enemy submarine. At least we now have a believable plot which then leaves us with Steven Seagal. Next question: Could a highly-trained Navy SEAL be busted to cook for insubordination? Obviously that would seem so too. Since I don't want to include any spoilers here that aren't already in the IMDb summary, suffice to say that Rybeck (Seagal) is (or was) a very efficient SEAL in his day because he very effectively deals with the gang of hijackers culminating with, firstly, the traitorous third officer Krill (not very well played by Gary Busey) and then the lead hijacker (very well played by Tommy Lee Jones).The reason for having ex-Playboy bunny Erika Eleniac on board as a "surprise" for the captain's birthday party was just sufficient to have her (and her ample bosom) in the movie although her extremely rapid change from bimbo to hard-nosed killer was a bit hard to take. Oh well, I guess we had to have it - after all, it is Hollywood!