Libramedi Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Married Baby Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Celia A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Comeuppance Reviews When a team of baddies led by the diabolical William Strannix (Jones) takes over a battleship, the USS Missouri, with the goal of stealing the Tomahawk missiles contained onboard, things don't look good for the crew of the ship or the stateside higher-ups. When a helicopter carrying SEAL Team 5 sent to save the ship doesn't make it, Strannix appears to be on the verge of accomplishing his mission. He just didn't count on one thing: Casey Ryback (Seagal). Ryback is the self-described "lowly, lowly cook" on the vessel, but the truth is that he's a highly-trained SEAL himself with more than enough know-how to singlehandedly bring down the evil plans of the bad guys. Tagging along with Ryback is Jordan Tate (Eleniak), Playboy's "Miss July '89" (which Eleniak was in real life as well). Hey, if you fall asleep in a giant cake you're supposed to pop out of, strange things happen. Will Ryback stop Strannix and his plans for world domination? You probably already know the answer... Under Siege is mainstream Hollywood action that even people who are not typically action movie fans have seen. It was wildly popular at the time, despite the fact that it's the first Seagal movie to break with the "Three Word Title" tradition. Seagal re-teamed with Above the Law (1988) director Davis - who also directed Chuck Norris in Code of Silence (1985) - and the results have that glossy, professional Hollywood sheen to it that even action movie "noobs" will find palatable. The fact that Davis's next film was The Fugitive (1993) makes sense; it's a natural extension of the groundwork laid down with Under Siege. Most of the street-level grit found in the early clutch of Seagal titles such as Out For Justice (1991) is missing here, presumably in a bid to garner a larger audience. It seems to have worked, even though Seagal's viewing public was already pretty darn huge at the time. While the movie does lose a bit of steam towards the end because it doesn't have to be as long as it is, all in all Under Siege is solid. It's nothing to go wild about, but it's like the USS Missouri itself: big, solidly built, steady, and professionally cared-for. To Under Siege's eternal credit, it's not a submarine slog, bogey slog, ship slog, or any other kind of slog, which it easily could have been. It's simply what we call a "DieHardInA" movie, which were everywhere in the 90's. It seemed every time you turned around, terrorist bad guys were taking over buildings, ships, nuclear plants, water treatment facilities, PathMarks, Waldenbookses, CompUSA's or any other kind of structure that holds human beings. For a more in-depth look at the 90's DieHardInA trend, please see our review of Sudden Death. In that case it was a hockey rink, in case anyone needed reminding. One of the main reasons Under Siege stays afloat (sorry) is the cast. First off, we have our old buddy Seagal, who is actually pretty likable here and you do root for him. He's backed up by the spunky Eleniak as his sidekick, and on the baddie side we have Tommy Lee Jones, who of course is excellent as the evil Strannix, and he has Gary Busey as his sidekick. Now that's a power-team if there ever was one. Colm Meaney as another bad guy adds color, as do other incidental characters played by familiar faces such as Bernie Casey, George Cheung, Nick Mancuso, Andy Romano, and Dale Dye, among many others. Interestingly, Tommy Lee Jones gets into a knife fight with Seagal in the climactic battle, and Jones also played a knife expert in The Hunted (2003), and those to date are the only two TLJ movies on Comeuppance. Overall, by our standards at least, the violence is relatively toned-down. Sure, Seagal tears somebody's throat out and shoves another guy into a circular saw, but somehow it all feels more muted than usual. Under Siege was perhaps the peak of Seagal's Hollywood career and is not bad by any means. It's a bit mainstream for our personal taste but if you're trying to get a non-action fan into action movies, this is a good and easy way to break them in to the genre.

TwoWardrobes Erika Eleniak jumping topless out of a giant cake. 10 stars.Rest of it, don't remember. Think there was something about a boat and a cook who wasn't really a cook. I dunno, 5 stars?Split the difference and call it 7.On reflection, extra star for the cake bit, 8 stars.

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.

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.