June 8, 2022 • 43 mins
Steven Seagal is one of the biggest action stars of the '90s, starring in some of the biggest action films of the decade. He ended up dropping off the radar completely in the early 2000s, being relegated to the Walmart bargain bins and truck stop DVD corners. Mainstream action fans all but forget his talents, but no longer.
The Kulturecast's Chris Stachiw and film critic Trevor Gumbel continue their journey with a look at one of Seagal's final theatrical films: On Deadly Ground. Starring Seagal as an expert at putting out oil fires, he must take down the greedy Michael Caine and his goons who are trying to open a new oil refinery. It's also directed by Seagal, so there's that.
On Seagal is on iTunes, Google Play, and all podcatcher apps; leave a review! If you want to find more episodes, head on over to onseagal dot com. Follow Chris on Twitter @casualty_chris, Trevor @caseneuromancer, and the podcast @onseagal.
The Kulturecast's Chris Stachiw and film critic Trevor Gumbel continue their journey with a look at one of Seagal's final theatrical films: On Deadly Ground. Starring Seagal as an expert at putting out oil fires, he must take down the greedy Michael Caine and his goons who are trying to open a new oil refinery. It's also directed by Seagal, so there's that.
On Seagal is on iTunes, Google Play, and all podcatcher apps; leave a review! If you want to find more episodes, head on over to onseagal dot com. Follow Chris on Twitter @casualty_chris, Trevor @caseneuromancer, and the podcast @onseagal.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Mmm, Hello, and welcome backto the Onstagal Podcast, where recover everything
(00:33):
Stephen Seagal from Ponytail to Toe.I am Trevor Grumble and with me as
always is my co host. Oh, Trevor, I've talked. This is
the second time I have to talkabout this movie on a recording. And
what's your name? What's your namethere, Bud? If you're listening to
this show, you know who Iam. It's it's Chris Stash. You.
It's me. It's me, It'sChris Stash. You. God,
(00:57):
we're here, aren't we. We'rehere to talk about a movie that Trevor
had never seen before now I haven'tand directed it. Yes he did.
He directed, Oh, he suredirected. And you can't fucking tell he
directed this. Yeah. So onthis episode of the Ensagal Podcast, we
are going to be taking a lookat nineteen self directed Steven Seagal Magnum Opus
(01:22):
on environmental destruction on deadly Ground.Yes, in this land of frozen beauty,
we're a proud people make their home. Age's oil is making a killing.
(01:49):
People here want to talk about thepoisons in their environment. Ages want
please not online and operation on thirteendays then they oil rights everybody to the
mesky muscle and that I stop.But there is hope. And now he's
here. Steven Seagal is on deadlyground. You're an oil man, but
(02:15):
I put out the fires if Istop spills. We are being lied to
by some of the most sophisticated peopleon Earth. I know we had out
disagreements. How much money is enough? I don't need that kind of problem
right now. I could group theproblem. You mean mercenaries. Now this
(02:36):
land has a friend and you haveseen a great spirit. These people have
a warrior. Did you beat upon this sanative man and this corporation farming
a buddy or farming? The manhas a big problem. And who the
hell is this guy? Sad say, this company company CIA? What memory
(03:00):
is? He's a damn problem,Steven Sagal. I'm talking him about Michael
Caine. He need a miracle tostop us. Now it's can I reach
out and touch somebody here on deadlyground? So the film is directed by
(03:30):
Steven Seagal, It's written by EdHorowitz and Robin you Russing, and it
stars well who does it starts?Stars Steven Sagal, of course, and
it starts. A bunch of othergreat character actors, Michael Caine, Joan
Chen, John c McGinley, ArleyErmy Billy, Bob Thornton, spend Only
Thornson is in there as well,Mike Starr. There's a lot of really
(03:51):
good Richard Yon, great character actors. There's a lot. There's a lot
of those actors where you're like,hey, I've seen that guy somewhere.
There's a lot of that guys.Yep. And uh, John Chen,
did you mention? Yeah? Idid? Okay, she's great, she's
great too. Yeah. And Sagalin this movie plays Forest Taft, a
firefighter and blowout specialist who works forAgis Oil, a oil company that is
(04:14):
going to be building an oil rigin Alaska to take advantage of the oil
that's in Alaska. And they're buildingit was they're building this new oil rig,
ages one with substandard parts and Forestfinds out and they tried to kill
him because of it. Yep,nineteen ninety four was a hell of a
year for the name Forest Boy,wasn't it. Yeah? Only you know
(04:36):
this forest wasn't this prominent. Soyeah. So so Trevor, let's get
right to it. You had neverseen on Deadly Ground. Before I've seen
it, I had not a handfulof times. Now, what did you
think of sitting down to catch onDeadly Ground? This movie was fascinating in
(04:56):
its absolute self righteousness, self aggrandizing, self praising. This was Steven Seagal
at his masspratory goodness best. Itis not written by Seagal, but when
I was watching it, I couldhave sworn it had been written by Seagal,
because he is portrayed as like thissaint like figure that's supposed to save
(05:20):
this Native American land against this evilcorporation headed by Michael Kaine in a very,
very bad die job. I couldhave sworn the ship was going to
just run down his face like RudyGiuliani at a press conference. I was
shocked to see Michael Kaine in thisWell, and to your point, Trevor,
the weird thing about this movie isfor a movie not written by Seagal,
(05:42):
it really does feel like it,yeah, because every moment of it,
Seagal is never criticized. He isonly lifted up as this zen like
saint who who who is like thesavior of mankind? But he doesn't start
out that way. He starts asworking for the Ages Corporation, who blows
(06:02):
up one of the things at thebeginning because the pump wasn't working or something
like that. Yeah, well they'reusing these they're covering the fact they're using
substandard parts in their in their oilrigs and Michael, and Michael Kane wants
to keep using him because he wantsto get this contract and keep the land
because if he hadn't, if hedidn't, if he didn't drill in time,
(06:25):
the land would go back to thetribe, and he didn't want that.
If Ages one doesn't get opened ona certain day, the oil rights
revert to the original owners, whowere the natives. Yes, so,
uh, Steven Seagal finds out aboutthis. Actually, no, let's go
let's go to earlier in the film. Should we talk about the bar scene.
(06:45):
There's a lot to talk about withthis movie. Yeah, there is
a lot there. This is atwo and a half hour movie, and
there are some scenes in this moviethat stick out as kind of the big
ones. Yeah, I mean thisis one of them, the bar scene.
Yeah, because if you're Steven Seagaland there's a bar in your film,
you know what's going to happen.It's not going to be just a
(07:08):
drink. It's gonna be a fight. And he gets in a fight with
Mike Star because he starts um berating and abusing this Native American who's I
think drunk. Yeah, so hestarts like trying it was taunting him without
goals, taunting him. I thinkhe tripped him or something. So Steven
Seagal sees this and decides he's notgoing to stand for that. He just,
you know, he he challenges MikeStar to the um grade school,
(07:33):
slap my hand before I can slapyours. Fight slap fight. And you
know, if if Segal misses,Mike Star gets to punch him. If
Mike Star misses, Seagal gets topunch him. And you know how it's
gonna go. Mike Star is notgonna get any hits on him. Steven
Seagal just kicks the shit out ofhim. And at the end, Chris,
what does Steven Seagal say to him? What is like, what does
(07:56):
it take to change a man?What does it take to change a man?
And something like that, I needtime. Yeah, he starts tearing
up. He goes time and walksaway, pats him on the shoulder and
just walks and he takes the naiveAmerican drunk, naive American takes him home.
Will go on, You will begoing on a spirit quest. It's
like very weird, like eight yardLine. As they're leaving the bar,
(08:18):
it's like, you will be goingon a quest soon. My friend like,
what the fuck? This movie isawkward as hell. Well, the
thing that cracks me up about thisbar scene is contrast this bar scene with
was it two movies ago? Yeah, and Out for Justice Beating the Ship.
Yeah, every shut out everybody inthe bar. And in this movie,
(08:41):
he beats up one guy and that'sit. Well, I mean,
I think they're trying to portray himas a peaceful man who only rehearsed to
violence as a last resort um.Like I said, a Zen like almost
Buddhist type of character. It's veryEastern religion, like I mean, they
do it with the Native characters whereit's like Native spiritualism and all the Bison
(09:03):
spirit and all that shit. Likephilosophy wise, this movie is all over
the place. Its junks. It'sjunk philosophy, it's junk pudo, it's
pseudo philosophy, it's West pseudo philosophythat yeah, that bros Will watch and
think it's deep. This was thething at the time. I mean,
the X Files is guilty of doingthis too. It's it's just it's very
(09:26):
surface level interpretation, very just whitewashedinterpretation. And this looks that's Stephen Seagal
is a Caucasian man. It's attemptingto interpret indigenous cultures through his Steven Seagal
lens like that's that's just that's theway it is. I mean, and
it's disingenuous as fuck. It feelsvery disingenuous. Um, yeah, it's
(09:48):
just but I don't think there's anyway that it wouldn't feel disingenuous. Treever
Like, that's the problem Stephen Seagal. I genuinely believe that Stephen Seagal cares
about these things. But then Ihave a hard time reconciling that with the
fact that he is now a youknow, someone who hangs out with Russia
and yeah, a country that doesn'tcare about a lot of the things that
(10:09):
I was being led to believe StevenSeagal cared about because he verbally said as
much. But I don't know.It's it's weird because this is a This
movie has a very hard core environmentalmessage of like, oh, yeah,
you know, taking the environment seriously, we need to be taking care of
the environment. The environment is isthe only one that we've got. Oh,
I mean all good things that Iagree with. And now Steven Seagal
(10:33):
doesn't believe in any of that,apparently, and this movie feels even more
disingenuous than it may have to beginwith. H Yeah, I mean it
feels like Seagal was maybe at thetime believed it, but has since been
more corrupted. I guess you couldsay it's a it's for lack of a
better term, Well, part ofme wonder if he ever genuinely believed it
(10:56):
to begin with, or if itwas all just an act. Well,
I mean, look at the filmshe's done lately, Like we talked about,
um, what was that? Whatwas that film where he played a
doctor, a doctor well, wherehe lived in No, he lived in
attrition, attrition in that film.He's very Buddhist, very centered. He's
he's like the Sigal in this film. Yeah, and that was more recent,
(11:16):
and that's the character that he's gonnaend up playing in the Glimmerman too.
Yeah, I mean weird, LikeI don't understand his career in a
lot of ways because we it seemsto oscillate between the violent guy and then
the peaceful Buddhist guy. Well,like I said, his character and Attrition,
that was a more recent film,and that was after he met Putin.
So is he like Ullye signaling yeah, pulling, pulling our dicks about
(11:39):
this thing, because that's the wayagain, me sitting here now looking at
this film that he made in ninetyfour, which again, this message in
ninety four in a big budget movielike this is it's pretty big visibility for
an environmental message, and but it'snot really Yeah, seventeen years later,
it just it rings. It doesn'tring very true. It's very hollow.
(12:03):
But even in ninety four or themessage wasn't executed very well and it just
went well at the other well,it's also it's also very surface level.
It's poorly executed. It's essentially tackedon to the end of the movie.
Not essentially tacked on, it's completelytacked on to the end of the movie.
So we considering how much shit heblows up on the oil refinery and
the tankers and shit, you wouldn'tknow he was an environmentalist because I think
(12:26):
of all the fumes he's letting intothe air, polluting. I mean,
that's that is the funny thing aboutit is what he is doing is probably
far wan what would have happened.He's destroying the environment. I mean,
at the end of the movie,he destroys the ages one oil rig and
in doing so, god knows whathe does to the environment in the surrounding
areas. You see a big cloudof black smoke and you're like, Wow,
(12:50):
that's going to kill a lot ofbirds and probably affect the sea life.
So yeah, good job, Seagal, you just fucked us. But
anyway, before that, Seagal meetswith his friend, a co worker played
by Richard Hamilton, who was probablybest known for playing uh D in Men
in Black, the first one,who Will Smith replaces his Tommy y Jones's
(13:11):
partner. He alerts Siagal of thesubstandard um substandard pieces the parts sorry,
because he got into the syst Agis'scomputer network and saved a file proving that
they're using substandard parts for their tankersand their oil, using substandard parts,
(13:31):
knowingly using substandard fual because every itshows that every test that the part is
put through has failed. Only likea couple I think passed. Most of
them failed. So m Michael Kinefinds out about this sends John C McGinley
and spent Ole Thorson to his houseto basically just kick his ass and kill
(13:52):
him. U and John, canwe talk about John C bill Ginley's performance
Something isn't it? It is something? He plays a very coded gay character
to a very coded gay character,very effeminate, very kind of over the
top, and it's kind of enjoyableto watch him in this performance. It's
(14:13):
an enjoyable performance to watch because Ilove John C McGinley in anything, because
he's a wonderful actor and he's morethan just doctor Cox on Scrubs. To
me and spent La Thorson, whowas Lafour's in Mall Rats? I was
about to say, who has beenin a ton of stuff? Yeah,
but I only I mean, Ifeel bad that I only know him from
(14:35):
Mall Rats. I mean, yeah, but he's one of those I mean,
he's one of those actors that's beenin a ton of things because he's
a stuntman. So he was inYeah, he was in Terminator two,
he was in Ghostbusters two, hewas an End of Days. He's been
in Batman and rob and like,he's been in a ton of stuff.
He's very recognizable. But yeah,the thing that similarly to yourself that I
(14:56):
know him from is Lafour's from EvenGot Two Kills. Yeah, I mean
that's what I do him, Allconvicted, Even Got two Kills. Yeah,
he's great. I mean they're great, you know, and they're great
heavies. I mean yeah, hehas an intimidating you know screen. Look,
that's I mean, that's what theyhired for. John C. McGinley
(15:18):
needs someone that isn't him. Yeah, yeah, exactly, someone that isn't
a scrawny little you know, becauseI mean he's kind of scrawny in this
movie. Well, I mean hemostly played when when they go to his
house, he's mostly playing the theIntimiday Tour, but not the the the
Assaulter, right, He's mostly playinglike, where's the disc? Tell me
where disc? Isn't just throwing shitaround trying to find the disc in his
(15:41):
house. What I think is funnyis they don't look in the most obvious
fucking place they could have looked,which is where it was in that closet
in the backpack, and they don'tsearch the backpack. I'm sorry. These
are the dumbest heavies in the historyof Hollywood. Well, I mean,
these are the same guys that endup running into trade wire in the woods
and getting themselves blown up. Sowell, I mean or shooting just wildly
(16:04):
into the trees predator style. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, stop
shooting. Why are you shooting atlike, oh my god? Yeah,
Well, it's just it goes toshow like the John c. McGinley character
is like woefully out of his deathexactly. Um, he plays it well,
he plays he plays it like he'suh, he's almost playing it like
(16:26):
he was the uh I forgot thename of the hacker in uh die Hard,
the one who doesn't do any physicalSure, I mean he's I mean,
look, he's playing at very EricBogojin in Undersiege two. He's not
He's not the intimidating He's not theintimidating character. No, he he's the
(16:47):
brain's not the bron He tries hardto be a threatening character, but he
just comes off kind of silly,ends up killing Joan Chen's father in the
process. Oh yeah, and andvision he was coming at me. The
whole Vision Quest thing at the atthe Native American tribal camp is so ham
(17:08):
fisted and unnecessary, and I thinkit would if I was a Native American,
I'd be offended by the portrayal.It's just it's just so it's so
surface level, like are you goingto take the elderly grandma or the naked
seductress? Like well, like yousaid, it's pseudo philosophy, it's pseudo
Native American philosophy. Spiritualism bullshit prettymuch, and they do the bare minimum
(17:33):
of I thought. I think atleast they did the bare minimum of research
into Native American spiritualism. I'm notsure they did any research. Let's let's
not give them even credit for that. Okay, Well, they did little
research and just wrote down whatever theysaw in like a movie back in the
fifties, that's fair. Or theyprobably just watched the movie Vision Quest and
wrote from there. And then youhave Arley Ermias in this movie. Oh
(17:56):
god, I mean he's great,but he's always underutilized. He's very underutilized.
I mean his character gets killed offso uh so, like underwhelmingly Anticlimacticum,
they make it expect anything else atthis point, like no, because
they build him up as like thisum navy seal, he's a mercenary,
(18:19):
mercenary who can just hunt anything.But when he gets to Seagal, Segal
just what fucking shoots him and thatwas it. Yeah, He's like,
I'm gonna blow your head off,and then he just grabs the shotgun and
goes no and just turns it onhim. Like well, I guess that
can be said for a lot ofthe fight scenes to film, they're very
anti climactic. There is because thereis no good action in this movie like
(18:41):
that because because we mentioned before,nothing can hurt Stephen Seagal in a Stephen
Seagal film, And this may belike the biggest offender that we've seen.
Yeah, not one scratch goes onhim, not one He just he's never
really in danger, Like even evenwhen he's taken to that kind of oil
you know, that oil pump tocheck what's going on, and that's you
(19:03):
know, it's obviously a trap totrying to blow him up. Like even
then, I'm not sitting there thinkingto myself like, oh they got him
this time, Like no, Imean, I never for once felt that
he was in any sense of dangeror I never got the sense that the
villains even had a shot that theyknew what they were doing. That moment
when they come into Richard Hamilton's houseand Seagal and Joan Channer there, there's
(19:26):
like four guys and they get justoverwhelmed by Seagal immediately. Yeah, they
get wasted almost immediately, no threatto him whatsoever. And the one the
people who get away are supposed toget away because they're supposed to go in
the next scene, and they're supposedto build up their villain, so you
want to hate him more so youwant them to die at the end even
more. And should we talk aboutthe main villain, Michael Kine. I
(19:47):
mean, we haven't talked about MichaelCaine at all. But that's because Michael
Kine is barely in this movie.What he is, it's just strange performance.
He's barely a villain he plays.He plays Michael Jennings, who's the
CEO I think of agis. Yeah, Um, there's a there's kind of
a funny scene where, um,he's doing a commercial standing behind a deer
(20:12):
and meant, you know, talkingabout how Agis will stave, the Agis
is good for the environment we protectblah blah blah. Director says cut.
Michael King immediately goes into asshole mode. Get me a fucking tell I touched
this deer blah blah blah. Anddid you notice who plays a director,
Irvan Kirshner, who is in Angusas well? Yes, he I was
(20:33):
going to mention that to you.He plays a grandpa's chess partner, yea
in this movie, in that moviein the same day. Yeah, and
he was better in the other moviein Angus with very little dialogue. Yeah.
Well, I don't know why.I mean it was, I don't
know why he was in that movieversus why was he in this movie.
I mean, well, I'm gladhe was in Angus because yeah, but
in this like, what was thepoint? What a weird? I think
(20:56):
I think they just Steven Seagal neverput a better director in your direction directorial
debut, because it just goes howto show how shitty you are as a
director. Because Irvan Krishner directed EmpireStrikes Backs, which a lot of people
believe is the better Star Wars filmof the trilogy, We're not going to
get into a debate about this,Chris, I'm sorry, why because you
(21:17):
don't think it is? No.I love Empire strikes Back. I just
don't want to get I don't wantto get off track too much. Empire
strikes Back. There's no other,no other movie. Okay, we can
go into clerks and tell talk aboutyou know another Kevin Smith reference, Jesus
Um. You know, Empire strikesBack. That's it. It's a great
film. Yeah, Star Wars.I mean I prefer Attack of the Clones.
(21:37):
But you know you're fucking trolling nowand what how Okay you know what
I'm and now you're gonna try tofucking no sell it. Not gonna happen.
What light about sand That light aboutsaid? I felt that in my
heart? Yeah, okay, didI oversell it? Okay? Well,
but I'm not going to sell it. And you know who doesn't sell it
at all? Michael Caine in thismovie is an unnecessary character because you essentially
(22:02):
had the squirrelly, shitead character already. Yeah, but I think they wanted
like a like a name villain,like with a name, and I think
this film is just a paycheck filmfor Michael Kane. Well, he said
as much. Yeah, um,yes, this is I think what Cullen
said when we talked about this lastyear was that Michael Kane said, you
(22:25):
know, like, you know,I would you know, I'm going to
take a movie for a paycheck,I should at least pick somewhere that has
good scenery. Yeah, and thismovie has beautiful scenery. Let's let's admit.
But I don't. But I don'tthink he wanted to be in fucking
Frozen Alaska making a movie. Ithink you know, he took the paycheck
for Jaws the Revenge and he wasin the Caribbean. So yeah, Jos
(22:45):
Are Revenge. His Jaws Are Revengequote is one of my favorites of all
time. Uh. He says somethinglike, I've never seen the film.
By all accounts, it's terrible,but I have seen the house that it
built and it's wonderful. Yeah.Yeah, Michael Kane. That's one thing
I respect about Michael Kane is hewill freely admit when he does a movie
for a paycheck. Not wrong withthat, nothing wrong. You want to
get you need, you need topay your bills. I mean, you
(23:06):
know, I need to have somecash, do a shit film. Sure.
Yeah. I mean, if UveBowl offered me a few thousand dollars
to do a couple of days workon his film, I'd say sure,
why not. I may discriminate,but ultimately our good friend Verne of Seagology
fame, and yes, you know, just being a very well spoken writer.
(23:27):
He says that you can't understand Seagalif you haven't seen On Deadly Ground,
And he said that as much whenwe had him on a couple episodes
back, Trevor, would you agreewith that sentiment now having seen it?
I this is, by all accountsthe Seagalist of Seagal films. Is a
Siagal film to end all Seagal movies. Yes, this is the epitome of
(23:48):
Steven Seagal films. Because if youwant to understand seven Tagal, You're right,
you have to see On Deadly Ground, because that is Seagal at his
most sigal. Yeah, he's adirector's cherry even like it's it's just everything
about this movie, screamed Steven Seagal. Yes, it's overblown, it's pretentious,
it's sanctimonious, it's uh, it'sfull of its own. It loves
(24:12):
the way its own fart smell likeSteven Seagal. Again, If if you
wanted to have a movie where Stevenseagalplay Superman, this is it. But
do you see where I say it'sfascinatingly, um, fascinatingly, it's just
fascinating. It's not a range movie. It is a not It is not
a boring film to watch. Youwon't know, you won't get angry at
(24:34):
it, You'll just be fascinated bythe even though there's no action, It's
not a boring movie because the choicesthat are made are just so strange.
Yeah, I mean, I thinkthe most ridiculous part was near the end
where seagalum is chasing John C.McGinley and I forgot that woman's name who
(24:55):
who's like the legal lawyer for MichaelCaine or something, right, I don't
know she's she's given a name,is she? I don't know. They're
going they're running to the helicopter toescape, and Segal basically just shoots the
helicopter and makes it basically unusable.Yeah, Seagal and Beginley have a pretty
pathetic fight where McGinley just what couldbe called a fight by Steven Seagal.
(25:19):
But the rest of us would sayit's Steven Seagal man handling John c McGinley,
where ends up with him just beingthrown into the propeller where you don't
see and the only thing you seeof that is blood splattering on the on
the plane. I mean, it'sabout as gory as that scene in Raiders,
right. Yeah, and the womantries to get away with by the
car but somehow doesn't fucking see thetruck right in front of her and immediately
(25:41):
explodes. It's ridiculous but great.It's it's great. It's ridiculous, but
it's great. I'm not I'm notgoing to sit here and say, don't
see this movie. No, thisof all of the Steven Seagal movies,
if you're gonna watch just one,this might be the one. Huh um.
I also, we kind of Ihaven't talked about him. There's a
scene where Billy Bob Thornton just likerandomly gets like a kind of funny,
(26:03):
weird monologue. Oh where he's he'sstaying, he's sitting with his friend.
They're both like trying to get asnipe on him. Yeah, they're trying
to guard they're essentially guarding ages onefrom Sile showing up. Didn't it sound
like Billy Bob was improvising those lines? Hey? To me, every time
I watched this movie, and it'slike the third or fourth time I've seen
it, that scene always stands outto me. Is just like did they
(26:26):
just like did they just say like, all right, we're just gonna shoot
the camb We're just gonna leave thecamera on you guys for a moment,
just like say some weird stuff,and Billy Bob delivers that sounded like a
Billy Bob. It sounds like BillyBob being himself. Yeah, And I
love that I did. I'm likethis movie needed him more Billy Bob,
and I wanted Billy Bob to goout in a better way than he did.
He just, um, I thinkhe's just like there's an explosive on
(26:48):
the elevator when Billy Bob tries toshoot them, and he shoots the explosive
and they blow each other away,and that's the end of Billy Bob.
I mean, I love Bob isstill pretty early in his career. Yeah,
this was a couple of years beforeSling Blade came out. Yeah,
this is two years before Sling Blade. So he was doing the show with
John Bridder at the time, sohe was he was more known as a
character actor. Um, but yeah, he's he's given little to do,
(27:14):
but what he does is stands out. That's it does he of all the
no name henchman in the film,he is the most He's the one that
stands out. Even if we didn'tknow who Billy Bob Thornton was, right,
it would still stand out because atleast he does something. Yeah,
even if his career had gone nowhere, you'd still be like, oh,
that was kind of weird. Weirdthat was That was a funny henchman.
Yeah, yeah, it's it's aweird movie because you essentially have Segal getting
(27:40):
excommunicated by the Agis Oil company.Yeah. Then he goes on his vision
quest and then he goes to theoil rig and that's it. That vision
quest scene was just so stupid.It's just again, it's just very base
level, surface bullshit interpretations of seriousthings that people actually believe in being bastardized
(28:03):
by people who don't know anything aboutit. But they basically it's not the
first of the last thing, youknow, they basically just put vastling on
the Lends have a Native American kindof do a chant um and have Sigal
come out of the water like likea baptism. Basically X Files did something
very similar in their second season.Like it's just it's very it just is
(28:27):
kind of not something that has particularlyaged. Well, no it hasn't,
um, but like so what likeyeah, it's it's a movie that's kind
of just it's there. Um,it doesn't add up too much, to
be honest with you, and themessage comes off, as you know,
disingenuous because he ends up blowing upthe fucking rig. Like I said,
(28:48):
so it kind of but that wasalways going to be the movie. Way
the movie was gonna end. Thebigger issue is Steven Seagal now seemingly doesn't
believe in any of this stuff.So why did he go out of his
way to make this movie to beginwith? Right, he was trying that
he was trying to hit on atopic that was hot at the time,
so oddly specific to pick this asyour directorial debut, and you know,
(29:11):
he thought that this was going tobe like the greatest movie ever made about
the topic. Like they spent fiftymillion on this movie. Man, that's
a lot of money. I mean, this movie is the only reason that
Understage two exists, is it?They wanted him to do under Siege two,
and his condition was that they lethim direct his own film. That
film was on deadly ground. Thismovie made under Siege two possibility happen.
(29:37):
Sorry, this movie made Understiage twohappen. Given that one of my close
friends is Richard, I can't sayI'm thoroughly upset about that, given that
without under Siege two, I'm notfriends with Richard because I probably would never
have met him. It is astrange. It's a strange movie that's a
little long in the tooth because it'stwo two and a half hours and it's
it's very dishonest. Well, whatI can't tell is did Stephen Seagal not
(30:04):
want there to be action or wasthere just no action in this movie?
Because this movie could have been beefedup with the action. It's just very
weird. I mean, one goodaction scene in this movie in that in
Richard Hamilton's cabin. That's it.If you could even call that an action
scene. I mean, I assumeyou may be able to consider the the
the action at the rig. Yeah, I guess that's just Stephen Seagal shooting
(30:27):
guns though like the movie doesn't requirehim to do much physical No, he's
more shooting guns than anything else.And in a lot of ways, it's
very similar to some of the stuffwe're seeing now with Seagal. Yeah,
um, this is the most notableum in his personality. You can tell
(30:48):
that it is his This is himbeing what he wants this public perception of
him to be. I think so, which is why I say it's dishonest
because Steven Seagal, I don't thinkbelieves us centimeter of what's being said on
the film. I don't know.Again, it's it's just very strange that
there's this whole diatribe at the endabout pollution and stuff and oh, oh
(31:10):
we need we need to talk aboutthat. That's going to be really and
he goes, yeah, this thisspeech needs to be seen to be believed.
It's very rambling all over the place, unfocused, you know, just
typical buzzword bullshit about the environment.You know, Oh, we have to
take care of the environment, andwe're destroying you know, the worst the
(31:32):
biggest threat to the environments, youknow, health is us. And it's
like God, dude, like everybuzzword in the playbook, you're just throwing
it at us. Come on,he's mentioning there's like fucking carburetors that can
have your car get gallon. Butthe Big Oil is repressing all this information
and those who speak out about itare considered conspiracy theorists and crazy. He
(31:53):
it goes off on a It's somethingyou would probably hear on info Wars,
like Alex Ownes will watch this movieand just jerk off to it. I
don't know. I mean, thereprobably is something to the idea of the
Big Oil. Yeah, but onegood point, the electric who killed the
electric car is a real thing,Like I know that, But one good
(32:14):
point in a whole big scene oframbling nonsense, just it kind of it
dilutes the good point by saying abunch of bullshit points. I mean,
I don't I don't know. Iwould have to go back and fact check
every piece of his message, butI don't remember anything particularly inflammatory. I
just my issue with this movie isjust it's such an odd choice because there's
(32:35):
you know, at the end ofCommando, you don't have Arnold Schwartzenegger,
you know, bemoaning the Oil usagehabits of the audience. It's just it's
very preachy and just it doesn't workin an action movie. This would be
something really doesn't environmentally conscious film.Environmentally conscious action films are not a subgenre.
It's it's not a subgenre that hasworked because when you go in environmental
(33:01):
if you're the action star and you'reblowing shit up and you know, destroying
things, that kind of negates thewhole thing about environmentalism, especially if you're
doing an outdoors action scene, right, and like I mentioned, especially if
you blowing up a fucking oil rig, letting intoxins into the air, your
message is diminished. Your message isdiluted. Yeah, I would agree.
(33:22):
Um, they tried. They triedto make environmental action into a subgenre.
I think they tried to do thatwith that movie with a Football Player.
They technically did it with another StevenSeagal movie with Fire Down. They tried
to do it with Howie Long inthis he plays a He plays a He
(33:44):
plays a guy who puts out forestfires, like one of those rangers fireman
kind of guy. Sure. Iforgot the name of the film, but
it's got William forsythe in it.Hold on I'll look it up or are
you looking it up to? Ithink it's called fire something, fire Storm,
buyer Storm. That's it. Theytried it again. It was a
movie trying to be I think,trying to be like environmentally conscious, but
(34:07):
it just doesn't work when you're whenyou're destroying the environment at you're in.
Yeah. No, I agree again. I also don't need this kind of
message in my movie, Like Ijust it doesn't. I don't. I
don't think anyone who went to seethis movie was you know, by the
end of it, they were like, no, man, I really was
here for this environmental message. People, If you're going to have someone send
(34:30):
a message of environmental environmental impact,your messenger should not be Steven Seagal.
I wouldn't think so, because he'snot someone He's not someone America took,
even back then, took very seriouslywhen it came to like important social environmental
issues. They more thought of himas just a kung fu karate action star.
(34:52):
They didn't think of him as someenvironmental advocate. No, and I
still don't think of him as that, and I don't think anybody does right
now. Did And like I said, when you're trying to send that message.
It hurts the message when you basicallyfuck up the environment for the entire
film, So doing that didn't helpyour your attempt. I think overall,
(35:13):
though, overall, I think Ienjoyed this more than most of the new
stuff of his we've watched. It'senjoyable in a way it's hard to describe.
It's enjoyable in the self righteousness.It's enjoyable in the study of a
man's psyche and his ego. It'senjoyable on that level. As a action
(35:37):
film, it's merely mediocre. Mthis is difficult, man, It really
is, because it's you need towatch it like this is this is a
Steven Seagal movie that like, it'sso weird that it deserves I mean,
Verne clearly, I think so hethinks that this is the film that you
watch to get a better sense ofwhose Seagal is. I would agree.
(36:00):
I think that this is the moviethat kind of defines Steven Seagal in a
lot of ways. And I thinkyou, if you're a fan of Steven
Seagal, or if you're curious aboutSteven Seagal, if you watch this movie
and you want to continue past thismovie, then I think you've got a
pretty firm starting place to go withSteven Seagal, because this is just kind
(36:21):
of the most Seagal movie he's evermade. But do you see where I'm
coming from and saying it's objectively abad film, but I still want its
Objectively it is a bad movie,but I still recommend people see it for
the It's just this just a weirdmovie. It needs to be seen.
It does need to be seen.So it's let me put it this way,
there's nothing else like it, soyou can't watch something else. I
(36:46):
can safely say that I've never seenanything like this film. Yeah, and
that, in my mind is afilm worth watching. If I can't even
point to things that are similar,I mean again, we could talk about
like eco thrillers, but like,yeah, that's that wouldn't be really getting
to what this is. This isits own weird thing. This is in
a class of its own. Yeah, this is its own weird thing.
(37:08):
It is very much not a filmthat I think the people who are seeing
this film in ninety four expected theywere going to get. Now, trailers
don't lead on as much. Thetrailers make this look like a very stock
and Trade boiler plate under siege styleaction film. I mean, just compare
the amount of action in this filmto under Siege or even under Siege too.
(37:29):
It's just there's very little that happensin this movie in the way of
traditional action. That's kind of whatmakes it interesting and a failure. At
the same time. This is Sigaltrying to be dramatic because there is no
let this cake and eat it too. There's no levity in this film whatsoever.
None, at least in his otherfilms, there's, you know,
some levity and some kind of funnystuff, but in this film, he's
(37:51):
trying to be dead serious and verystraight. It's a failure that is fascinating
to watch, and I really doyou think people should see it? I
do? I agree. Yeah.So it's not a good movie in any
stretch of the imagination, because itis too strange to be a good movie.
But it is successful in being absolutelyone of the strangest action movies you
(38:14):
could see, because boy, itdoes everything in its power to ignore pre
established action conventions that have been followedfor years, decades before this movie came
out. You will watch this filmand be gobsmacked It's just such a strange
studio studio film to be made forsixty million dollars. It's just such a
(38:36):
bizarre big budget movie because at thetime, this is a big budget movie.
Yeah, well this is a ninetyfour and sixty million bucks is a
lot of money. Fifty I mean, it's a lot of money to give
some I mean in today's in today'sHollywood, that budget seems quaint. But
in ninety four, that was big, big budget. I mean something like
(38:58):
what Jurassic Park was probably two hundredmillion. Let me double check Jurassic Park
at a budget. Jurassic Park hada budget the year before. To give
you an idea, Jurassic Park onlycost thirteen million dollars more than this movie.
Wow, and there's no dinosaurs inthis film? What a rip?
Yeah, this movie is I guessyou could say the only dinosaur was Michael
(39:21):
Caine. Oh and Jurassic Park madea one billion dollars. Yeah, it
was a movie made thirty eight million. Yeah, this movie didn't even you
know, Jurassic Park was sixty threeJurassic Park sixty three million dollars to make,
broke the box office. This filmaround sixty million, didn't make a
heart of a dent. I don'tthink. I don't even think it made
(39:44):
half its budget back, did it? No? So, I mean people
just weren't interested. They took agamble and they lost. But I'm glad
I saw it. I'm glad itwas made. I'm glad I got to
experience Seagal being the most Seagal he'llever be an film, unless they make
a documentary about him, which Ifor one would finance if I had the
(40:05):
money. But yeah, it's basicallythe closest to a Seagal documentary you'll find
because it's definitely one of the oneof the most insightful peaks into his mind.
Yeah, I agree. Yeah,so I think we're both ponytail on
on this one. Pony tail ondefinitely. Uh yeah. So to close
out this episode, I want toplay in its entirety the three minute and
(40:30):
forty two second diatribe from Steven Seagalto lead uside of this episode, so
that everyone can get a good listenas to what we were talking about it.
When we come back from that,we'll talk about the next episode of
On Seagal. That's right on thenext episode of the On Seagal podcast,
we're gonna be talking about Contract toKill aka contract Killer? Is that what
(40:50):
the other name for it is?That's what it says an IMDb. Oh,
dear god, Well, Contract toKill is another Keoni Waxman film starring
Steven Seagal with a goatee, Soyeah, who knows? It could be
fun? I think it will beprobably, Well, who knows. I'm
going into it with an open mindbecause that's the only way to go into
(41:13):
these kinds of things. You knowwhat. What I've learned from this podcast
is always going with an open mindbecause you might be lessensly surprised, exactly
like I was with Cartels. Noharm in going into it with an open
mind, absolutely, I think it'sit's it's terrible to assume every recent Sigal
film is going to be terrible becauseit's straight to video. I agree,
(41:34):
Um, yeah, there are somegems in there which we've seen so so
until then, Trevor, where canpeople find you? You can find me
on Twitter at bad Vertigo, Instagramat mad Vertigo. You can find me
usually at home eating my feelings,but you know that's the usual. What
about you, Chris? Where canpeople find you? You can find me
on the Internet at cstac h iW at gmail dot com. Excuse me,
(42:00):
C s t A c HW dotcom. That edge. That is
my link tree and that's where youcan go to find me. And that's
where all the stuff that I workon is so culture cast, scary stories,
all that good stuff. As forthis show on sigal dot com.
We're on Facebook and Twitter. That'swhere you can go to find this show.
Catch on the next episode. Byebye.
Mmm, Hello, and welcome backto the Onstagal Podcast, where recover everything
(00:33):
Stephen Seagal from Ponytail to Toe.I am Trevor Grumble and with me as
always is my co host. Oh, Trevor, I've talked. This is
the second time I have to talkabout this movie on a recording. And
what's your name? What's your namethere, Bud? If you're listening to
this show, you know who Iam. It's it's Chris Stash. You.
It's me. It's me, It'sChris Stash. You. God,
(00:57):
we're here, aren't we. We'rehere to talk about a movie that Trevor
had never seen before now I haven'tand directed it. Yes he did.
He directed, Oh, he suredirected. And you can't fucking tell he
directed this. Yeah. So onthis episode of the Ensagal Podcast, we
are going to be taking a lookat nineteen self directed Steven Seagal Magnum Opus
(01:22):
on environmental destruction on deadly Ground.Yes, in this land of frozen beauty,
we're a proud people make their home. Age's oil is making a killing.
(01:49):
People here want to talk about thepoisons in their environment. Ages want
please not online and operation on thirteendays then they oil rights everybody to the
mesky muscle and that I stop.But there is hope. And now he's
here. Steven Seagal is on deadlyground. You're an oil man, but
(02:15):
I put out the fires if Istop spills. We are being lied to
by some of the most sophisticated peopleon Earth. I know we had out
disagreements. How much money is enough? I don't need that kind of problem
right now. I could group theproblem. You mean mercenaries. Now this
(02:36):
land has a friend and you haveseen a great spirit. These people have
a warrior. Did you beat upon this sanative man and this corporation farming
a buddy or farming? The manhas a big problem. And who the
hell is this guy? Sad say, this company company CIA? What memory
(03:00):
is? He's a damn problem,Steven Sagal. I'm talking him about Michael
Caine. He need a miracle tostop us. Now it's can I reach
out and touch somebody here on deadlyground? So the film is directed by
(03:30):
Steven Seagal, It's written by EdHorowitz and Robin you Russing, and it
stars well who does it starts?Stars Steven Sagal, of course, and
it starts. A bunch of othergreat character actors, Michael Caine, Joan
Chen, John c McGinley, ArleyErmy Billy, Bob Thornton, spend Only
Thornson is in there as well,Mike Starr. There's a lot of really
(03:51):
good Richard Yon, great character actors. There's a lot. There's a lot
of those actors where you're like,hey, I've seen that guy somewhere.
There's a lot of that guys.Yep. And uh, John Chen,
did you mention? Yeah? Idid? Okay, she's great, she's
great too. Yeah. And Sagalin this movie plays Forest Taft, a
firefighter and blowout specialist who works forAgis Oil, a oil company that is
(04:14):
going to be building an oil rigin Alaska to take advantage of the oil
that's in Alaska. And they're buildingit was they're building this new oil rig,
ages one with substandard parts and Forestfinds out and they tried to kill
him because of it. Yep,nineteen ninety four was a hell of a
year for the name Forest Boy,wasn't it. Yeah? Only you know
(04:36):
this forest wasn't this prominent. Soyeah. So so Trevor, let's get
right to it. You had neverseen on Deadly Ground. Before I've seen
it, I had not a handfulof times. Now, what did you
think of sitting down to catch onDeadly Ground? This movie was fascinating in
(04:56):
its absolute self righteousness, self aggrandizing, self praising. This was Steven Seagal
at his masspratory goodness best. Itis not written by Seagal, but when
I was watching it, I couldhave sworn it had been written by Seagal,
because he is portrayed as like thissaint like figure that's supposed to save
(05:20):
this Native American land against this evilcorporation headed by Michael Kaine in a very,
very bad die job. I couldhave sworn the ship was going to
just run down his face like RudyGiuliani at a press conference. I was
shocked to see Michael Kaine in thisWell, and to your point, Trevor,
the weird thing about this movie isfor a movie not written by Seagal,
(05:42):
it really does feel like it,yeah, because every moment of it,
Seagal is never criticized. He isonly lifted up as this zen like
saint who who who is like thesavior of mankind? But he doesn't start
out that way. He starts asworking for the Ages Corporation, who blows
(06:02):
up one of the things at thebeginning because the pump wasn't working or something
like that. Yeah, well they'reusing these they're covering the fact they're using
substandard parts in their in their oilrigs and Michael, and Michael Kane wants
to keep using him because he wantsto get this contract and keep the land
because if he hadn't, if hedidn't, if he didn't drill in time,
(06:25):
the land would go back to thetribe, and he didn't want that.
If Ages one doesn't get opened ona certain day, the oil rights
revert to the original owners, whowere the natives. Yes, so,
uh, Steven Seagal finds out aboutthis. Actually, no, let's go
let's go to earlier in the film. Should we talk about the bar scene.
(06:45):
There's a lot to talk about withthis movie. Yeah, there is
a lot there. This is atwo and a half hour movie, and
there are some scenes in this moviethat stick out as kind of the big
ones. Yeah, I mean thisis one of them, the bar scene.
Yeah, because if you're Steven Seagaland there's a bar in your film,
you know what's going to happen.It's not going to be just a
(07:08):
drink. It's gonna be a fight. And he gets in a fight with
Mike Star because he starts um berating and abusing this Native American who's I
think drunk. Yeah, so hestarts like trying it was taunting him without
goals, taunting him. I thinkhe tripped him or something. So Steven
Seagal sees this and decides he's notgoing to stand for that. He just,
you know, he he challenges MikeStar to the um grade school,
(07:33):
slap my hand before I can slapyours. Fight slap fight. And you
know, if if Segal misses,Mike Star gets to punch him. If
Mike Star misses, Seagal gets topunch him. And you know how it's
gonna go. Mike Star is notgonna get any hits on him. Steven
Seagal just kicks the shit out ofhim. And at the end, Chris,
what does Steven Seagal say to him? What is like, what does
(07:56):
it take to change a man?What does it take to change a man?
And something like that, I needtime. Yeah, he starts tearing
up. He goes time and walksaway, pats him on the shoulder and
just walks and he takes the naiveAmerican drunk, naive American takes him home.
Will go on, You will begoing on a spirit quest. It's
like very weird, like eight yardLine. As they're leaving the bar,
(08:18):
it's like, you will be goingon a quest soon. My friend like,
what the fuck? This movie isawkward as hell. Well, the
thing that cracks me up about thisbar scene is contrast this bar scene with
was it two movies ago? Yeah, and Out for Justice Beating the Ship.
Yeah, every shut out everybody inthe bar. And in this movie,
(08:41):
he beats up one guy and that'sit. Well, I mean,
I think they're trying to portray himas a peaceful man who only rehearsed to
violence as a last resort um.Like I said, a Zen like almost
Buddhist type of character. It's veryEastern religion, like I mean, they
do it with the Native characters whereit's like Native spiritualism and all the Bison
(09:03):
spirit and all that shit. Likephilosophy wise, this movie is all over
the place. Its junks. It'sjunk philosophy, it's junk pudo, it's
pseudo philosophy, it's West pseudo philosophythat yeah, that bros Will watch and
think it's deep. This was thething at the time. I mean,
the X Files is guilty of doingthis too. It's it's just it's very
(09:26):
surface level interpretation, very just whitewashedinterpretation. And this looks that's Stephen Seagal
is a Caucasian man. It's attemptingto interpret indigenous cultures through his Steven Seagal
lens like that's that's just that's theway it is. I mean, and
it's disingenuous as fuck. It feelsvery disingenuous. Um, yeah, it's
(09:48):
just but I don't think there's anyway that it wouldn't feel disingenuous. Treever
Like, that's the problem Stephen Seagal. I genuinely believe that Stephen Seagal cares
about these things. But then Ihave a hard time reconciling that with the
fact that he is now a youknow, someone who hangs out with Russia
and yeah, a country that doesn'tcare about a lot of the things that
(10:09):
I was being led to believe StevenSeagal cared about because he verbally said as
much. But I don't know.It's it's weird because this is a This
movie has a very hard core environmentalmessage of like, oh, yeah,
you know, taking the environment seriously, we need to be taking care of
the environment. The environment is isthe only one that we've got. Oh,
I mean all good things that Iagree with. And now Steven Seagal
(10:33):
doesn't believe in any of that,apparently, and this movie feels even more
disingenuous than it may have to beginwith. H Yeah, I mean it
feels like Seagal was maybe at thetime believed it, but has since been
more corrupted. I guess you couldsay it's a it's for lack of a
better term, Well, part ofme wonder if he ever genuinely believed it
(10:56):
to begin with, or if itwas all just an act. Well,
I mean, look at the filmshe's done lately, Like we talked about,
um, what was that? Whatwas that film where he played a
doctor, a doctor well, wherehe lived in No, he lived in
attrition, attrition in that film.He's very Buddhist, very centered. He's
he's like the Sigal in this film. Yeah, and that was more recent,
(11:16):
and that's the character that he's gonnaend up playing in the Glimmerman too.
Yeah, I mean weird, LikeI don't understand his career in a
lot of ways because we it seemsto oscillate between the violent guy and then
the peaceful Buddhist guy. Well,like I said, his character and Attrition,
that was a more recent film,and that was after he met Putin.
So is he like Ullye signaling yeah, pulling, pulling our dicks about
(11:39):
this thing, because that's the wayagain, me sitting here now looking at
this film that he made in ninetyfour, which again, this message in
ninety four in a big budget movielike this is it's pretty big visibility for
an environmental message, and but it'snot really Yeah, seventeen years later,
it just it rings. It doesn'tring very true. It's very hollow.
(12:03):
But even in ninety four or themessage wasn't executed very well and it just
went well at the other well,it's also it's also very surface level.
It's poorly executed. It's essentially tackedon to the end of the movie.
Not essentially tacked on, it's completelytacked on to the end of the movie.
So we considering how much shit heblows up on the oil refinery and
the tankers and shit, you wouldn'tknow he was an environmentalist because I think
(12:26):
of all the fumes he's letting intothe air, polluting. I mean,
that's that is the funny thing aboutit is what he is doing is probably
far wan what would have happened.He's destroying the environment. I mean,
at the end of the movie,he destroys the ages one oil rig and
in doing so, god knows whathe does to the environment in the surrounding
areas. You see a big cloudof black smoke and you're like, Wow,
(12:50):
that's going to kill a lot ofbirds and probably affect the sea life.
So yeah, good job, Seagal, you just fucked us. But
anyway, before that, Seagal meetswith his friend, a co worker played
by Richard Hamilton, who was probablybest known for playing uh D in Men
in Black, the first one,who Will Smith replaces his Tommy y Jones's
(13:11):
partner. He alerts Siagal of thesubstandard um substandard pieces the parts sorry,
because he got into the syst Agis'scomputer network and saved a file proving that
they're using substandard parts for their tankersand their oil, using substandard parts,
(13:31):
knowingly using substandard fual because every itshows that every test that the part is
put through has failed. Only likea couple I think passed. Most of
them failed. So m Michael Kinefinds out about this sends John C McGinley
and spent Ole Thorson to his houseto basically just kick his ass and kill
(13:52):
him. U and John, canwe talk about John C bill Ginley's performance
Something isn't it? It is something? He plays a very coded gay character
to a very coded gay character,very effeminate, very kind of over the
top, and it's kind of enjoyableto watch him in this performance. It's
(14:13):
an enjoyable performance to watch because Ilove John C McGinley in anything, because
he's a wonderful actor and he's morethan just doctor Cox on Scrubs. To
me and spent La Thorson, whowas Lafour's in Mall Rats? I was
about to say, who has beenin a ton of stuff? Yeah,
but I only I mean, Ifeel bad that I only know him from
(14:35):
Mall Rats. I mean, yeah, but he's one of those I mean,
he's one of those actors that's beenin a ton of things because he's
a stuntman. So he was inYeah, he was in Terminator two,
he was in Ghostbusters two, hewas an End of Days. He's been
in Batman and rob and like,he's been in a ton of stuff.
He's very recognizable. But yeah,the thing that similarly to yourself that I
(14:56):
know him from is Lafour's from EvenGot Two Kills. Yeah, I mean
that's what I do him, Allconvicted, Even Got two Kills. Yeah,
he's great. I mean they're great, you know, and they're great
heavies. I mean yeah, hehas an intimidating you know screen. Look,
that's I mean, that's what theyhired for. John C. McGinley
(15:18):
needs someone that isn't him. Yeah, yeah, exactly, someone that isn't
a scrawny little you know, becauseI mean he's kind of scrawny in this
movie. Well, I mean hemostly played when when they go to his
house, he's mostly playing the theIntimiday Tour, but not the the the
Assaulter, right, He's mostly playinglike, where's the disc? Tell me
where disc? Isn't just throwing shitaround trying to find the disc in his
(15:41):
house. What I think is funnyis they don't look in the most obvious
fucking place they could have looked,which is where it was in that closet
in the backpack, and they don'tsearch the backpack. I'm sorry. These
are the dumbest heavies in the historyof Hollywood. Well, I mean,
these are the same guys that endup running into trade wire in the woods
and getting themselves blown up. Sowell, I mean or shooting just wildly
(16:04):
into the trees predator style. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, stop
shooting. Why are you shooting atlike, oh my god? Yeah,
Well, it's just it goes toshow like the John c. McGinley character
is like woefully out of his deathexactly. Um, he plays it well,
he plays he plays it like he'suh, he's almost playing it like
(16:26):
he was the uh I forgot thename of the hacker in uh die Hard,
the one who doesn't do any physicalSure, I mean he's I mean,
look, he's playing at very EricBogojin in Undersiege two. He's not
He's not the intimidating He's not theintimidating character. No, he he's the
(16:47):
brain's not the bron He tries hardto be a threatening character, but he
just comes off kind of silly,ends up killing Joan Chen's father in the
process. Oh yeah, and andvision he was coming at me. The
whole Vision Quest thing at the atthe Native American tribal camp is so ham
(17:08):
fisted and unnecessary, and I thinkit would if I was a Native American,
I'd be offended by the portrayal.It's just it's just so it's so
surface level, like are you goingto take the elderly grandma or the naked
seductress? Like well, like yousaid, it's pseudo philosophy, it's pseudo
Native American philosophy. Spiritualism bullshit prettymuch, and they do the bare minimum
(17:33):
of I thought. I think atleast they did the bare minimum of research
into Native American spiritualism. I'm notsure they did any research. Let's let's
not give them even credit for that. Okay, Well, they did little
research and just wrote down whatever theysaw in like a movie back in the
fifties, that's fair. Or theyprobably just watched the movie Vision Quest and
wrote from there. And then youhave Arley Ermias in this movie. Oh
(17:56):
god, I mean he's great,but he's always underutilized. He's very underutilized.
I mean his character gets killed offso uh so, like underwhelmingly Anticlimacticum,
they make it expect anything else atthis point, like no, because
they build him up as like thisum navy seal, he's a mercenary,
(18:19):
mercenary who can just hunt anything.But when he gets to Seagal, Segal
just what fucking shoots him and thatwas it. Yeah, He's like,
I'm gonna blow your head off,and then he just grabs the shotgun and
goes no and just turns it onhim. Like well, I guess that
can be said for a lot ofthe fight scenes to film, they're very
anti climactic. There is because thereis no good action in this movie like
(18:41):
that because because we mentioned before,nothing can hurt Stephen Seagal in a Stephen
Seagal film, And this may belike the biggest offender that we've seen.
Yeah, not one scratch goes onhim, not one He just he's never
really in danger, Like even evenwhen he's taken to that kind of oil
you know, that oil pump tocheck what's going on, and that's you
(19:03):
know, it's obviously a trap totrying to blow him up. Like even
then, I'm not sitting there thinkingto myself like, oh they got him
this time, Like no, Imean, I never for once felt that
he was in any sense of dangeror I never got the sense that the
villains even had a shot that theyknew what they were doing. That moment
when they come into Richard Hamilton's houseand Seagal and Joan Channer there, there's
(19:26):
like four guys and they get justoverwhelmed by Seagal immediately. Yeah, they
get wasted almost immediately, no threatto him whatsoever. And the one the
people who get away are supposed toget away because they're supposed to go in
the next scene, and they're supposedto build up their villain, so you
want to hate him more so youwant them to die at the end even
more. And should we talk aboutthe main villain, Michael Kine. I
(19:47):
mean, we haven't talked about MichaelCaine at all. But that's because Michael
Kine is barely in this movie.What he is, it's just strange performance.
He's barely a villain he plays.He plays Michael Jennings, who's the
CEO I think of agis. Yeah, Um, there's a there's kind of
a funny scene where, um,he's doing a commercial standing behind a deer
(20:12):
and meant, you know, talkingabout how Agis will stave, the Agis
is good for the environment we protectblah blah blah. Director says cut.
Michael King immediately goes into asshole mode. Get me a fucking tell I touched
this deer blah blah blah. Anddid you notice who plays a director,
Irvan Kirshner, who is in Angusas well? Yes, he I was
(20:33):
going to mention that to you.He plays a grandpa's chess partner, yea
in this movie, in that moviein the same day. Yeah, and
he was better in the other moviein Angus with very little dialogue. Yeah.
Well, I don't know why.I mean it was, I don't
know why he was in that movieversus why was he in this movie.
I mean, well, I'm gladhe was in Angus because yeah, but
in this like, what was thepoint? What a weird? I think
(20:56):
I think they just Steven Seagal neverput a better director in your direction directorial
debut, because it just goes howto show how shitty you are as a
director. Because Irvan Krishner directed EmpireStrikes Backs, which a lot of people
believe is the better Star Wars filmof the trilogy, We're not going to
get into a debate about this,Chris, I'm sorry, why because you
(21:17):
don't think it is? No.I love Empire strikes Back. I just
don't want to get I don't wantto get off track too much. Empire
strikes Back. There's no other,no other movie. Okay, we can
go into clerks and tell talk aboutyou know another Kevin Smith reference, Jesus
Um. You know, Empire strikesBack. That's it. It's a great
film. Yeah, Star Wars.I mean I prefer Attack of the Clones.
(21:37):
But you know you're fucking trolling nowand what how Okay you know what
I'm and now you're gonna try tofucking no sell it. Not gonna happen.
What light about sand That light aboutsaid? I felt that in my
heart? Yeah, okay, didI oversell it? Okay? Well,
but I'm not going to sell it. And you know who doesn't sell it
at all? Michael Caine in thismovie is an unnecessary character because you essentially
(22:02):
had the squirrelly, shitead character already. Yeah, but I think they wanted
like a like a name villain,like with a name, and I think
this film is just a paycheck filmfor Michael Kane. Well, he said
as much. Yeah, um,yes, this is I think what Cullen
said when we talked about this lastyear was that Michael Kane said, you
(22:25):
know, like, you know,I would you know, I'm going to
take a movie for a paycheck,I should at least pick somewhere that has
good scenery. Yeah, and thismovie has beautiful scenery. Let's let's admit.
But I don't. But I don'tthink he wanted to be in fucking
Frozen Alaska making a movie. Ithink you know, he took the paycheck
for Jaws the Revenge and he wasin the Caribbean. So yeah, Jos
(22:45):
Are Revenge. His Jaws Are Revengequote is one of my favorites of all
time. Uh. He says somethinglike, I've never seen the film.
By all accounts, it's terrible,but I have seen the house that it
built and it's wonderful. Yeah.Yeah, Michael Kane. That's one thing
I respect about Michael Kane is hewill freely admit when he does a movie
for a paycheck. Not wrong withthat, nothing wrong. You want to
get you need, you need topay your bills. I mean, you
(23:06):
know, I need to have somecash, do a shit film. Sure.
Yeah. I mean, if UveBowl offered me a few thousand dollars
to do a couple of days workon his film, I'd say sure,
why not. I may discriminate,but ultimately our good friend Verne of Seagology
fame, and yes, you know, just being a very well spoken writer.
(23:27):
He says that you can't understand Seagalif you haven't seen On Deadly Ground,
And he said that as much whenwe had him on a couple episodes
back, Trevor, would you agreewith that sentiment now having seen it?
I this is, by all accountsthe Seagalist of Seagal films. Is a
Siagal film to end all Seagal movies. Yes, this is the epitome of
(23:48):
Steven Seagal films. Because if youwant to understand seven Tagal, You're right,
you have to see On Deadly Ground, because that is Seagal at his
most sigal. Yeah, he's adirector's cherry even like it's it's just everything
about this movie, screamed Steven Seagal. Yes, it's overblown, it's pretentious,
it's sanctimonious, it's uh, it'sfull of its own. It loves
(24:12):
the way its own fart smell likeSteven Seagal. Again, If if you
wanted to have a movie where Stevenseagalplay Superman, this is it. But
do you see where I say it'sfascinatingly, um, fascinatingly, it's just
fascinating. It's not a range movie. It is a not It is not
a boring film to watch. Youwon't know, you won't get angry at
(24:34):
it, You'll just be fascinated bythe even though there's no action, It's
not a boring movie because the choicesthat are made are just so strange.
Yeah, I mean, I thinkthe most ridiculous part was near the end
where seagalum is chasing John C.McGinley and I forgot that woman's name who
(24:55):
who's like the legal lawyer for MichaelCaine or something, right, I don't
know she's she's given a name,is she? I don't know. They're
going they're running to the helicopter toescape, and Segal basically just shoots the
helicopter and makes it basically unusable.Yeah, Seagal and Beginley have a pretty
pathetic fight where McGinley just what couldbe called a fight by Steven Seagal.
(25:19):
But the rest of us would sayit's Steven Seagal man handling John c McGinley,
where ends up with him just beingthrown into the propeller where you don't
see and the only thing you seeof that is blood splattering on the on
the plane. I mean, it'sabout as gory as that scene in Raiders,
right. Yeah, and the womantries to get away with by the
car but somehow doesn't fucking see thetruck right in front of her and immediately
(25:41):
explodes. It's ridiculous but great.It's it's great. It's ridiculous, but
it's great. I'm not I'm notgoing to sit here and say, don't
see this movie. No, thisof all of the Steven Seagal movies,
if you're gonna watch just one,this might be the one. Huh um.
I also, we kind of Ihaven't talked about him. There's a
scene where Billy Bob Thornton just likerandomly gets like a kind of funny,
(26:03):
weird monologue. Oh where he's he'sstaying, he's sitting with his friend.
They're both like trying to get asnipe on him. Yeah, they're trying
to guard they're essentially guarding ages onefrom Sile showing up. Didn't it sound
like Billy Bob was improvising those lines? Hey? To me, every time
I watched this movie, and it'slike the third or fourth time I've seen
it, that scene always stands outto me. Is just like did they
(26:26):
just like did they just say like, all right, we're just gonna shoot
the camb We're just gonna leave thecamera on you guys for a moment,
just like say some weird stuff,and Billy Bob delivers that sounded like a
Billy Bob. It sounds like BillyBob being himself. Yeah, And I
love that I did. I'm likethis movie needed him more Billy Bob,
and I wanted Billy Bob to goout in a better way than he did.
He just, um, I thinkhe's just like there's an explosive on
(26:48):
the elevator when Billy Bob tries toshoot them, and he shoots the explosive
and they blow each other away,and that's the end of Billy Bob.
I mean, I love Bob isstill pretty early in his career. Yeah,
this was a couple of years beforeSling Blade came out. Yeah,
this is two years before Sling Blade. So he was doing the show with
John Bridder at the time, sohe was he was more known as a
character actor. Um, but yeah, he's he's given little to do,
(27:14):
but what he does is stands out. That's it does he of all the
no name henchman in the film,he is the most He's the one that
stands out. Even if we didn'tknow who Billy Bob Thornton was, right,
it would still stand out because atleast he does something. Yeah,
even if his career had gone nowhere, you'd still be like, oh,
that was kind of weird. Weirdthat was That was a funny henchman.
Yeah, yeah, it's it's aweird movie because you essentially have Segal getting
(27:40):
excommunicated by the Agis Oil company.Yeah. Then he goes on his vision
quest and then he goes to theoil rig and that's it. That vision
quest scene was just so stupid.It's just again, it's just very base
level, surface bullshit interpretations of seriousthings that people actually believe in being bastardized
(28:03):
by people who don't know anything aboutit. But they basically it's not the
first of the last thing, youknow, they basically just put vastling on
the Lends have a Native American kindof do a chant um and have Sigal
come out of the water like likea baptism. Basically X Files did something
very similar in their second season.Like it's just it's very it just is
(28:27):
kind of not something that has particularlyaged. Well, no it hasn't,
um, but like so what likeyeah, it's it's a movie that's kind
of just it's there. Um,it doesn't add up too much, to
be honest with you, and themessage comes off, as you know,
disingenuous because he ends up blowing upthe fucking rig. Like I said,
(28:48):
so it kind of but that wasalways going to be the movie. Way
the movie was gonna end. Thebigger issue is Steven Seagal now seemingly doesn't
believe in any of this stuff.So why did he go out of his
way to make this movie to beginwith? Right, he was trying that
he was trying to hit on atopic that was hot at the time,
so oddly specific to pick this asyour directorial debut, and you know,
(29:11):
he thought that this was going tobe like the greatest movie ever made about
the topic. Like they spent fiftymillion on this movie. Man, that's
a lot of money. I mean, this movie is the only reason that
Understage two exists, is it?They wanted him to do under Siege two,
and his condition was that they lethim direct his own film. That
film was on deadly ground. Thismovie made under Siege two possibility happen.
(29:37):
Sorry, this movie made Understiage twohappen. Given that one of my close
friends is Richard, I can't sayI'm thoroughly upset about that, given that
without under Siege two, I'm notfriends with Richard because I probably would never
have met him. It is astrange. It's a strange movie that's a
little long in the tooth because it'stwo two and a half hours and it's
it's very dishonest. Well, whatI can't tell is did Stephen Seagal not
(30:04):
want there to be action or wasthere just no action in this movie?
Because this movie could have been beefedup with the action. It's just very
weird. I mean, one goodaction scene in this movie in that in
Richard Hamilton's cabin. That's it.If you could even call that an action
scene. I mean, I assumeyou may be able to consider the the
the action at the rig. Yeah, I guess that's just Stephen Seagal shooting
(30:27):
guns though like the movie doesn't requirehim to do much physical No, he's
more shooting guns than anything else.And in a lot of ways, it's
very similar to some of the stuffwe're seeing now with Seagal. Yeah,
um, this is the most notableum in his personality. You can tell
(30:48):
that it is his This is himbeing what he wants this public perception of
him to be. I think so, which is why I say it's dishonest
because Steven Seagal, I don't thinkbelieves us centimeter of what's being said on
the film. I don't know.Again, it's it's just very strange that
there's this whole diatribe at the endabout pollution and stuff and oh, oh
(31:10):
we need we need to talk aboutthat. That's going to be really and
he goes, yeah, this thisspeech needs to be seen to be believed.
It's very rambling all over the place, unfocused, you know, just
typical buzzword bullshit about the environment.You know, Oh, we have to
take care of the environment, andwe're destroying you know, the worst the
(31:32):
biggest threat to the environments, youknow, health is us. And it's
like God, dude, like everybuzzword in the playbook, you're just throwing
it at us. Come on,he's mentioning there's like fucking carburetors that can
have your car get gallon. Butthe Big Oil is repressing all this information
and those who speak out about itare considered conspiracy theorists and crazy. He
(31:53):
it goes off on a It's somethingyou would probably hear on info Wars,
like Alex Ownes will watch this movieand just jerk off to it. I
don't know. I mean, thereprobably is something to the idea of the
Big Oil. Yeah, but onegood point, the electric who killed the
electric car is a real thing,Like I know that, But one good
(32:14):
point in a whole big scene oframbling nonsense, just it kind of it
dilutes the good point by saying abunch of bullshit points. I mean,
I don't I don't know. Iwould have to go back and fact check
every piece of his message, butI don't remember anything particularly inflammatory. I
just my issue with this movie isjust it's such an odd choice because there's
(32:35):
you know, at the end ofCommando, you don't have Arnold Schwartzenegger,
you know, bemoaning the Oil usagehabits of the audience. It's just it's
very preachy and just it doesn't workin an action movie. This would be
something really doesn't environmentally conscious film.Environmentally conscious action films are not a subgenre.
It's it's not a subgenre that hasworked because when you go in environmental
(33:01):
if you're the action star and you'reblowing shit up and you know, destroying
things, that kind of negates thewhole thing about environmentalism, especially if you're
doing an outdoors action scene, right, and like I mentioned, especially if
you blowing up a fucking oil rig, letting intoxins into the air, your
message is diminished. Your message isdiluted. Yeah, I would agree.
(33:22):
Um, they tried. They triedto make environmental action into a subgenre.
I think they tried to do thatwith that movie with a Football Player.
They technically did it with another StevenSeagal movie with Fire Down. They tried
to do it with Howie Long inthis he plays a He plays a He
(33:44):
plays a guy who puts out forestfires, like one of those rangers fireman
kind of guy. Sure. Iforgot the name of the film, but
it's got William forsythe in it.Hold on I'll look it up or are
you looking it up to? Ithink it's called fire something, fire Storm,
buyer Storm. That's it. Theytried it again. It was a
movie trying to be I think,trying to be like environmentally conscious, but
(34:07):
it just doesn't work when you're whenyou're destroying the environment at you're in.
Yeah. No, I agree again. I also don't need this kind of
message in my movie, Like Ijust it doesn't. I don't. I
don't think anyone who went to seethis movie was you know, by the
end of it, they were like, no, man, I really was
here for this environmental message. People, If you're going to have someone send
(34:30):
a message of environmental environmental impact,your messenger should not be Steven Seagal.
I wouldn't think so, because he'snot someone He's not someone America took,
even back then, took very seriouslywhen it came to like important social environmental
issues. They more thought of himas just a kung fu karate action star.
(34:52):
They didn't think of him as someenvironmental advocate. No, and I
still don't think of him as that, and I don't think anybody does right
now. Did And like I said, when you're trying to send that message.
It hurts the message when you basicallyfuck up the environment for the entire
film, So doing that didn't helpyour your attempt. I think overall,
(35:13):
though, overall, I think Ienjoyed this more than most of the new
stuff of his we've watched. It'senjoyable in a way it's hard to describe.
It's enjoyable in the self righteousness.It's enjoyable in the study of a
man's psyche and his ego. It'senjoyable on that level. As a action
(35:37):
film, it's merely mediocre. Mthis is difficult, man, It really
is, because it's you need towatch it like this is this is a
Steven Seagal movie that like, it'sso weird that it deserves I mean,
Verne clearly, I think so hethinks that this is the film that you
watch to get a better sense ofwhose Seagal is. I would agree.
(36:00):
I think that this is the moviethat kind of defines Steven Seagal in a
lot of ways. And I thinkyou, if you're a fan of Steven
Seagal, or if you're curious aboutSteven Seagal, if you watch this movie
and you want to continue past thismovie, then I think you've got a
pretty firm starting place to go withSteven Seagal, because this is just kind
(36:21):
of the most Seagal movie he's evermade. But do you see where I'm
coming from and saying it's objectively abad film, but I still want its
Objectively it is a bad movie,but I still recommend people see it for
the It's just this just a weirdmovie. It needs to be seen.
It does need to be seen.So it's let me put it this way,
there's nothing else like it, soyou can't watch something else. I
(36:46):
can safely say that I've never seenanything like this film. Yeah, and
that, in my mind is afilm worth watching. If I can't even
point to things that are similar,I mean again, we could talk about
like eco thrillers, but like,yeah, that's that wouldn't be really getting
to what this is. This isits own weird thing. This is in
a class of its own. Yeah, this is its own weird thing.
(37:08):
It is very much not a filmthat I think the people who are seeing
this film in ninety four expected theywere going to get. Now, trailers
don't lead on as much. Thetrailers make this look like a very stock
and Trade boiler plate under siege styleaction film. I mean, just compare
the amount of action in this filmto under Siege or even under Siege too.
(37:29):
It's just there's very little that happensin this movie in the way of
traditional action. That's kind of whatmakes it interesting and a failure. At
the same time. This is Sigaltrying to be dramatic because there is no
let this cake and eat it too. There's no levity in this film whatsoever.
None, at least in his otherfilms, there's, you know,
some levity and some kind of funnystuff, but in this film, he's
(37:51):
trying to be dead serious and verystraight. It's a failure that is fascinating
to watch, and I really doyou think people should see it? I
do? I agree. Yeah.So it's not a good movie in any
stretch of the imagination, because itis too strange to be a good movie.
But it is successful in being absolutelyone of the strangest action movies you
(38:14):
could see, because boy, itdoes everything in its power to ignore pre
established action conventions that have been followedfor years, decades before this movie came
out. You will watch this filmand be gobsmacked It's just such a strange
studio studio film to be made forsixty million dollars. It's just such a
(38:36):
bizarre big budget movie because at thetime, this is a big budget movie.
Yeah, well this is a ninetyfour and sixty million bucks is a
lot of money. Fifty I mean, it's a lot of money to give
some I mean in today's in today'sHollywood, that budget seems quaint. But
in ninety four, that was big, big budget. I mean something like
(38:58):
what Jurassic Park was probably two hundredmillion. Let me double check Jurassic Park
at a budget. Jurassic Park hada budget the year before. To give
you an idea, Jurassic Park onlycost thirteen million dollars more than this movie.
Wow, and there's no dinosaurs inthis film? What a rip?
Yeah, this movie is I guessyou could say the only dinosaur was Michael
(39:21):
Caine. Oh and Jurassic Park madea one billion dollars. Yeah, it
was a movie made thirty eight million. Yeah, this movie didn't even you
know, Jurassic Park was sixty threeJurassic Park sixty three million dollars to make,
broke the box office. This filmaround sixty million, didn't make a
heart of a dent. I don'tthink. I don't even think it made
(39:44):
half its budget back, did it? No? So, I mean people
just weren't interested. They took agamble and they lost. But I'm glad
I saw it. I'm glad itwas made. I'm glad I got to
experience Seagal being the most Seagal he'llever be an film, unless they make
a documentary about him, which Ifor one would finance if I had the
(40:05):
money. But yeah, it's basicallythe closest to a Seagal documentary you'll find
because it's definitely one of the oneof the most insightful peaks into his mind.
Yeah, I agree. Yeah,so I think we're both ponytail on
on this one. Pony tail ondefinitely. Uh yeah. So to close
out this episode, I want toplay in its entirety the three minute and
(40:30):
forty two second diatribe from Steven Seagalto lead uside of this episode, so
that everyone can get a good listenas to what we were talking about it.
When we come back from that,we'll talk about the next episode of
On Seagal. That's right on thenext episode of the On Seagal podcast,
we're gonna be talking about Contract toKill aka contract Killer? Is that what
(40:50):
the other name for it is?That's what it says an IMDb. Oh,
dear god, Well, Contract toKill is another Keoni Waxman film starring
Steven Seagal with a goatee, Soyeah, who knows? It could be
fun? I think it will beprobably, Well, who knows. I'm
going into it with an open mindbecause that's the only way to go into
(41:13):
these kinds of things. You knowwhat. What I've learned from this podcast
is always going with an open mindbecause you might be lessensly surprised, exactly
like I was with Cartels. Noharm in going into it with an open
mind, absolutely, I think it'sit's it's terrible to assume every recent Sigal
film is going to be terrible becauseit's straight to video. I agree,
(41:34):
Um, yeah, there are somegems in there which we've seen so so
until then, Trevor, where canpeople find you? You can find me
on Twitter at bad Vertigo, Instagramat mad Vertigo. You can find me
usually at home eating my feelings,but you know that's the usual. What
about you, Chris? Where canpeople find you? You can find me
on the Internet at cstac h iW at gmail dot com. Excuse me,
(42:00):
C s t A c HW dotcom. That edge. That is
my link tree and that's where youcan go to find me. And that's
where all the stuff that I workon is so culture cast, scary stories,
all that good stuff. As forthis show on sigal dot com.
We're on Facebook and Twitter. That'swhere you can go to find this show.
Catch on the next episode. Byebye.
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