Customer Reviews

Under Siege

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(36)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Steven Seagal is finally coming to Scotland, Edinburgh specifically, to play with his band Thunderbox. Although he has a few more chins than he used to, my boyfriend is thinking of going to see him in concert, so what better way to celebrate the fact a major star is coming to Edinburgh, than to watch a movie?

I'm normally not that fussed about Mr Seagal. I own one of his movies (Marked For Death), but I've discovered, since watching this, that I have so much more respect for him when he doesn't have that ponytail. Which just looks silly on a guy that big anyway. I knew I was going to be watching this, as it was "reserved" for watching on the brand new, HD DVD player that now resides in my boyfriend's sitting room. It was my first viewing of a HD DVD and overall, I was very impressed.

Shock horror, you do actually get to see Steven SMILE in this film, which made me start to like him even more. Normally, he's all serious. It did look like he was going to start dancing at one point, which would have left me cringing, but thankfully, he didn't. Gary Busey and Tommy Lee Jones join him in this movie, including some female nudity from Erika Eleniak, who proves she can handle a gun that looks bigger than her. This is a very stereotypical action movie of the nineties, where terrorists take over whatever it is. In this case, it's a very big naval battleship. Tommy Lee Jones looks like he came straight from the sixties to this point in time. There's not much to the story, but Seagal saves the day, leading everybody along in the process to believe that he's nothing but a lowly cook.

The HD is very impressive, looks great on a 50 inch big screen (some guys have cars - my boyfriend has all his TV stuff and DVDs), the picture has been remastered, and is brighter and sharper than you can possibly imagine. There's no extras on this unfortunately, just a trailer, but some other HDs boast of in movie experiences etc. Shame they couldn't have brought back Steven for a "look back on..." or a commentary, I'm sure it would have been worthwhile.

Definitely the best Seagal movie in my eyes. Get it, watch it!

I would say 90% of the whole movie was cleaned and sharpened for HD. Other 10% of random scenes exhibited alot of grain and snow. Still a major improvement over the DVD release that I have viewed multiple times. Only wished they cleaned the whole movie. You won't miss the untreated scenes, extremely grainy. Otherwise, still a great movie in my opinion.

This review, and the rating that I gave it, is for the transfer to Blu-ray ... not on the movie itself.

For the many fans of Steven Seagal who are thinking about buying this movie, you probably have already seen this movie before and while it's your typical action movie, it still is, and remains, very entertaining. Under Siege was one of Steven Seagal's earlier movies, before he started doing direct-to-video movies which have been described as nothing more but water-logged with poor script-writing and the attempt by Hollywood to turn rap-stars into movie stars.

When I decided to purchase Under Siege, I was expecting a seamless transition to the High Def format. However, most of the movie doesn't seem to transfer very well to the Blu-ray format. While the close up scenes appear to transfer well, when the camera pans out, the rest of the movie seems to have a gritty image to it which results in "artifacts" (or defects" in the image quality. While I don't know if this was intentional, it does seem to be distracting.

While I did watch this Blu-ray release on a 32" Samsung, and the overall review of the Blu-ray transfer isn't that great, the Blu-ray version of this movie is still very watchable.

They say the villain makes or breaks an action-adventure flick. But in UNDER SIEGE, it's Navy-cook-turned-hero Steven Seagal, not villains Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey, who carries the film. Seagal's quiet demeanor is the calm before the storm of karate chops for Jones, Busey, and the rest of the antagonists who pick the wrong ship to hijack. The martial-arts actor even proves funny in UNDER SIEGE, in his non-verbal way. When he's not out-fighting them, he out-thinks them. The film ends on a weird note with the passionless kiss Seagal gives actress Erika Eleniak. See UNDER SIEGE - Steven Seagal mops the deck with those creeps, so who needs kissing, anyway?

This is an engrossing tale taken from the mold of DIE HARD but it stands on its own thanks to a great performance by Seagal. This is probably his best film. It has great production values and an incredibly good cast. Most importantly, it entertains resoundingly.

i really liked this seagal flick i think its one of his best. His dry humor worked perfectly in this movie , if he turned out more movies like this one he would be a house hold name. The adition of gary bussey and tommy lee jones were great villans, over the top and very cool. Seagal plays a cook/ ex navy seal, and tommy lee and bussey plays terrorists, bussey is sort of the serious no nonsense type , and tommy lee is more the hippy type/lunatic.
The scenes of the battleship were amazing, i like this flick because its not ALL about seagal like his other movies usually focusing on him an leavin the movie to follow. There are some cool scenes with tommy lee and bussey in this one you feel seagal is in the movie as opposed to seagal an then the movie.The action is of course great , seagal is in top form in this one showing of he really is a martial arts master, the best fight scenes are of seagal an tommy lee mixing it up with knives in the films finale, truly amazing becuz tommy lee actually holds his own against seagal . Over all a great action movie i only wish the sequel was as good.

Seagal puts in a better performance than any of his other movies. But the best parts of this movie were the scenes totally stolen by Tommy Lee Jones. The conversation between Jones and his former CIA superior ("...deforestation, irreversibly progressive depletion of the global gene pool. It all adds up to oblivion, pal. Governments will fall, anarchies will reign. It's a brave new world.") is priceless, and matched only by Alan Rickman's list of demands in the original "Die Hard." If Marisa Tomei can win an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in "My Cousin Vinny," (which I loved, by the way) then Jones should have won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance in this movie. Jones (with Gary Busey pitching in to help in places) is the only thing that saves this movie from being a standard, cookie-cutter Seagal shoot-'em-up. Jones gets this movie two more stars than it would've had without him as William Strannix. Bravo!

One-man-army flicks became popular in the 80s with the "Rambo" movies and, later, with the "Die Hard" films. 1992's "Under Seige" is a film in that mold.

THE PLOT: Casey Ryback (Steven Seagal) is a Navy Seal and hero who works as a cook on a battleship to finish out his 20-year stint in the service (the Captain saved him from court martial for insubordination by graciously getting him the gig). A group of terrorist thugs masquerading as entertainers come aboard and take over the ship. Gary Busey plays the second-in-command who's in league with the psychos. They purpose to steal the ship's nuclear missles. There's one problem: Ryback is loose on the ship and he's a professional killing machine, a veritable one-man-army.

It takes about 25-minutes for the story to set up, and then the action kicks in. From there it's Ryback v.s. the thugs all the way to the end. The film runs 1 hour and 38 minutes before the credits roll.

A few notables:

-- Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey are truly exceptional as the psychotic villains.

-- Steven Seagal is perfect and even likable as the Rambo-like hero. The sequel "Under Seige 2: Dark Territory" takes place on a train, and it's a good one-man-army flick as well, but not as good as this one. Anyway, I've only seen a handful of Seagal films and "Under Seige" is by far his best.

-- Erika Eleniak co-stars as the playboy bunny who came aboard to entertain during the big party. She has a notorious pop-out-of-the-cake scene where she's wearing very little clothing. Aside from this brief scene she appears fully clothed throughout the entire picture. Anyway, this infamous cake scene has become quite the running joke between me, my wife, my brother-in-law and sister. Generally speaking, red-blooded males will cherish the scene (their carnal side, that is) whereas wives and girlfriends will hate it or, at least, dismiss it with a role of the eyes. It's all in good fun, but I wouldn't let the kiddies see it.

-- The entire film is confined to a battleship at sea, which makes it almost claustrophobic. So don't watch "Under Seige" if you're in the mood for picturesque landscapes (like, say, "First Blood").

-- While seeing the film it dawned on me how knowledgeable the screenwriter(s) must have been about all-things military. A truly exceptional job.

-- I was also impressed with the directing, cinematography and editing. Such things usually don't occur to me while watching films, so it has to be pretty outstanding for me to notice. Needless to say, this is, technically speaking, a first-rate picture.

So why not 5/5 Stars? Because all one-man-army films must be judged in comparison to "First Blood," the Citizen Kane of one-man-army flicks. And "Under Seige" falls a bit short. It's quite compelling but no where near as ultra-captivating as "First Blood."

UNDER SIEGE certainly could be a DIE HARD film if you change the lead character but this film works just fine is one of Seagal's best. Steven Seagal's stoic performance works to his advantage against the over-the-top performances of villains Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey. Seagal uses everything but the kitchen sink to save the day aboard the Battleship Missouri. This is a good one.

Steven Seagal (Above the Law, Under Siege 2:Dark Territory, On Deadly Ground, Fire Down Below, Out for Justice, Hard to Kill, Executive Decision) stars in this awesome action thriller directed by Andrew Davis (Above the Law, Chain Reaction, Collateral Damage) along with Tommy Lee Jones (Men in Black, Space Cowboys, Batman Forever) and Gary Busey (Lethal Weapon) As all fans know, when you see Seagal on the cover, you will get yourself a definite bloody action movie with a lot of dying and killing as well as martial arts, guns, and knives.

The story is quite simple: Steven Seagal is a cook on a military ship that is transporting missiles. He has several other helpers and friends but there is one person he hates: Gary Busey. They always get into fights for no absolute reason. Anyway, the army men and guards call for concerts and entertainment but they have made one mistake: the music company they picked are not musicians and singers, they are international terrorists led by Jones. Busey finally reveals himself as a terrorists and helps take off some guards. Soon, these terrorists brutally kill all the guards and the captain. Holding over 160 people hostage, the villains demand money and say that if the government makes one attempt to stop them, they will use the missiles on the ship to shoot them down and bomb the U.S.A! But between the midst of all that, we see that Steven Seagal has not been captured......and now it's up to him to save everyone! What, of course, follows is a gigantic barrage of guns, guts, blood, knives, bombs, grenades, martial arts, and a little nudity.

If you are a real action fan, I recommend this. I hope to see the second but I heard it wasn't so good. A good film would be Above the Law, in which Seagal and Davis work for the first time. That film also features Sharon Stone and Pam Grier. I suggest you go rent this to see if you like it but trust me: IT IS BLOODY!

Rated R for strong violence, language, and very very very brief nudity.