On Deadly Ground (1994)

Hot off the success of Under Siege, Steven Seagal returns in On Deadly Ground, his first and only directorial display.  Given the film's strange mix of martial arts, spirit guides, and environmental awareness all mixed into an Under Siege in the arctic, it's probably no surprise Seagal never went back behind the camera.  Seagal picked up a Razzie for worst director on this but it's still no where near his worst.

On Deadly Ground continues a trend set in Under Siege where Seagal is a retired special ops soldier in an interesting position.  In Under Siege he was a Navy cook, this time around he's Forrest Taft an environmental agent.  Hired by Aegis Oil Company, run by Michael Jennings (Michael Caine), he's usually called in to cleanup oil rig leaks before they get out of control.  Jennings isn't know for being particularly environmentally friendly, he'll do whatever he has to do to make a buck, even if that means using shoddy equipment in order to get a rig up and running before the land is transferred back to the Alaskan natives.  Waiting for the proper equipment would mean he'd miss out on the deadline needed to get the pumps operational and he'd lose the land and oil rights.  But using defective parts means certain ecologic damage.  Forrest approaches Jennings and informs him he's aware of the usage of defective equipment, Jennings responds by attempting to have him killed.  Unfortunately attempting to kill Forrest only makes him mad, and as you all know you don't want to make Steven Seagal mad!

On Deadly Ground is the strangest Seagal film I've seem thus far.  It's one that seems to be a little all over the place in terms of it's mixture of Native America spirit guides and blowing up oil tankers.  While I love Seagal as an actor star but his combination of writer and director seemed to be a little too much for him to handle, as the film seems to cram together too many aspects in a simple action film.  Surprisingly, On Deadly Ground has a lot of familiar faces, Michael Caine and a brief appearance by Billy Bob Thornton, just to name a few.  Caine plays a great bad guy, and his henchmen are pretty impressive as well, except when it comes to fighting Seagal, then they last about 30 seconds!  Overall, On Deadly Ground is a mediocre attempt to recreate the success of Under Siege, the two films are very similar at times.  The fight scenes aren't that great (although the homemade silencer was pretty awesome) and the story is a little convoluted.  On the plus side it's still pretty entertaining and has quite a few comedic one liners from Seagal and other characters describing Seagal prior to getting their butts kick.  While certainly one of Seagal's more underrated films, it's not horrible and doesn't deserve all the flack it seems to attract.

6/10