11: On Deadly Ground

Mmm, Hello, and welcome back to the Onstagal Podcast, where recover everything 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 talk about this movie on a recording. And what's your name?

What's your name there, Bud? If you're listening to this show, you know who I am. It's it's Chris Stash. You. It's me.

It's me, It's Chris Stash. You. God, we're here, aren't we. We're here to talk about a movie that Trevor had never seen before now I haven't and directed it. Yes he did.

He directed, Oh, he sure directed. And you can't fucking tell he directed this. Yeah. So on this episode of the Ensagal Podcast, we are going to be taking a look at nineteen self directed Steven Seagal Magnum Opus 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. People here want to talk about the poisons in their environment. Ages want please not online and operation on thirteen days 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 deadly ground. You're an oil man, but I put out the fires if I stop spills. We are being lied to by some of the most sophisticated people on 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 the problem. You mean mercenaries. Now this land has a friend and you have seen a great spirit. These people have a warrior.

Did you beat up on this sanative man and this corporation farming a buddy or farming? The man has a big problem. And who the hell is this guy? Sad say, this company company CIA? What memory is?

He's a damn problem, Steven Sagal. I'm talking him about Michael Caine. He need a miracle to stop us. Now it's can I reach out and touch somebody here on deadly ground? So the film is directed by Steven Seagal, It's written by Ed Horowitz and Robin you Russing, and it stars well who does it starts?

Stars Steven Sagal, of course, and it starts. A bunch of other great character actors, Michael Caine, Joan Chen, John c McGinley, Arley Ermy Billy, Bob Thornton, spend Only Thornson is in there as well, Mike Starr. There's a lot of really 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? I did?

Okay, she's great, she's great too. Yeah. And Sagal in this movie plays Forest Taft, a firefighter and blowout specialist who works for Agis Oil, a oil company that is going to be building an oil rig in Alaska to take advantage of the oil that's in Alaska. And they're building it was they're building this new oil rig, ages one with substandard parts and Forest finds 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 this forest wasn't this prominent. So yeah. So so Trevor, let's get right to it. You had never seen on Deadly Ground.

Before I've seen it, I had not a handful of times. Now, what did you think of sitting down to catch on Deadly Ground? This movie was fascinating in its absolute self righteousness, self aggrandizing, self praising. This was Steven Seagal at his masspratory goodness best. It is not written by Seagal, but when I was watching it, I could have sworn it had been written by Seagal, because he is portrayed as like this saint like figure that's supposed to save this Native American land against this evil corporation headed by Michael Kaine in a very, very bad die job.

I could have sworn the ship was going to just run down his face like Rudy Giuliani at a press conference. I was shocked to see Michael Kaine in this Well, and to your point, Trevor, the weird thing about this movie is for a movie not written by Seagal, it really does feel like it, yeah, because every moment of it, Seagal is never criticized. He is only lifted up as this zen like saint who who who is like the savior of mankind? But he doesn't start out that way. He starts as working for the Ages Corporation, who blows up one of the things at the beginning because the pump wasn't working or something like that.

Yeah, well they're using these they're covering the fact they're using substandard parts in their in their oil rigs and Michael, and Michael Kane wants to keep using him because he wants to get this contract and keep the land because if he hadn't, if he didn't, if he didn't drill in time, the land would go back to the tribe, and he didn't want that. If Ages one doesn't get opened on a certain day, the oil rights revert to the original owners, who were the natives. Yes, so, uh, Steven Seagal finds out about this. Actually, no, let's go let's go to earlier in the film. Should we talk about the bar scene.

There's a lot to talk about with this movie. Yeah, there is a lot there. This is a two and a half hour movie, and there are some scenes in this movie that stick out as kind of the big ones. Yeah, I mean this is one of them, the bar scene. Yeah, because if you're Steven Seagal and there's a bar in your film, you know what's going to happen.

It's not going to be just a drink. It's gonna be a fight. And he gets in a fight with Mike Star because he starts um be rating and abusing this Native American who's I think drunk. Yeah, so he starts like trying it was taunting him without goals, taunting him. I think he tripped him or something.

So Steven Seagal sees this and decides he's not going to stand for that. He just, you know, he he challenges Mike Star to the um grade school, slap my hand before I can slap yours. Fight slap fight. And you know, if if Segal misses, Mike Star gets to punch him. If Mike Star misses, Seagal gets to punch him.

And you know how it's gonna go. Mike Star is not gonna get any hits on him. Steven Seagal just kicks the shit out of him. And at the end, Chris, what does Steven Seagal say to him? What is like, what does it take to change a man?

What does it take to change a man? And something like that, I need time. Yeah, he starts tearing up. He goes time and walks away, pats him on the shoulder and just walks and he takes the naive American drunk, naive American takes him home. Will go on, You will be going on a spirit quest.

It's like very weird, like eight yard Line. As they're leaving the bar, it's like, you will be going on a quest soon. My friend like, what the fuck? This movie is awkward as hell. Well, the thing that cracks me up about this bar 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 in the bar. And in this movie, he beats up one guy and that's it. Well, I mean, I think they're trying to portray him as 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 very Eastern religion, like I mean, they do it with the Native characters where it's like Native spiritualism and all the Bison spirit and all that shit. Like philosophy wise, this movie is all over the place. Its junks. It's junk philosophy, it's junk pudo, it's pseudo philosophy, it's West pseudo philosophy that yeah, that bros Will watch and think it's deep. This was the thing at the time.

I mean, the X Files is guilty of doing this too. It's it's just it's very surface level interpretation, very just whitewashed interpretation. And this looks that's Stephen Seagal is a Caucasian man. It's attempting to interpret indigenous cultures through his Steven Seagal lens like that's that's just that's the way it is. I mean, and it's disingenuous as fuck.

It feels very disingenuous. Um, yeah, it's just but I don't think there's any way 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 I have a hard time reconciling that with the fact that he is now a you know, someone who hangs out with Russia and yeah, a country that doesn't care about a lot of the things that I was being led to believe Steven Seagal 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 environmental message of like, oh, yeah, you know, taking the environment seriously, we need to be taking care of the environment. The environment is is the only one that we've got. Oh, I mean all good things that I agree with. And now Steven Seagal doesn't believe in any of that, apparently, and this movie feels even more disingenuous than it may have to begin with.

H Yeah, I mean it feels like Seagal was maybe at the time believed it, but has since been more corrupted. I guess you could say it's a it's for lack of a better term, Well, part of me wonder if he ever genuinely believed it to begin with, or if it was all just an act. Well, I mean, look at the films he's done lately, Like we talked about, um, what was that? What was that film where he played a doctor, a doctor well, where he 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, and that's the character that he's gonna end up playing in the Glimmerman too. Yeah, I mean weird, Like I don't understand his career in a lot of ways because we it seems to 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 this thing, because that's the way again, me sitting here now looking at this film that he made in ninety four, which again, this message in ninety four in a big budget movie like this is it's pretty big visibility for an environmental message, and but it's not really Yeah, seventeen years later, it just it rings.

It doesn't ring very true. It's very hollow. But even in ninety four or the message 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 tacked on to the end of the movie.

Not essentially tacked on, it's completely tacked on to the end of the movie. So we considering how much shit he blows up on the oil refinery and the tankers and shit, you wouldn't know he was an environmentalist because I think of all the fumes he's letting into the air, polluting. I mean, that's that is the funny thing about it 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 what he does to the environment in the surrounding areas.

You see a big cloud of black smoke and you're like, Wow, that's going to kill a lot of birds and probably affect the sea life. So yeah, good job, Seagal, you just fucked us. But anyway, before that, Seagal meets with his friend, a co worker played by Richard Hamilton, who was probably best known for playing uh D in Men in Black, the first one, who Will Smith replaces his Tommy y Jones's partner. He alerts Siagal of the substandard um substandard pieces the parts sorry, because he got into the syst Agis's computer network and saved a file proving that they're using substandard parts for their tankers and their oil, using substandard parts, knowingly using substandard fual because every it shows that every test that the part is put through has failed.

Only like a couple I think passed. Most of them failed. So m Michael Kine finds out about this sends John C McGinley and spent Ole Thorson to his house to basically just kick his ass and kill him. U and John, can we 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 enjoyable to watch him in this performance. It's an enjoyable performance to watch because I love John C McGinley in anything, because he's a wonderful actor and he's more than just doctor Cox on Scrubs. To me and spent La Thorson, who was Lafour's in Mall Rats? I was about to say, who has been in a ton of stuff? Yeah, but I only I mean, I feel bad that I only know him from Mall Rats.

I mean, yeah, but he's one of those I mean, he's one of those actors that's been in a ton of things because he's a stuntman. So he was in Yeah, he was in Terminator two, he was in Ghostbusters two, he was 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 know him from is Lafour's from Even Got Two Kills.

Yeah, I mean that's what I do him, All convicted, Even Got two Kills. Yeah, he's great. I mean they're great, you know, and they're great heavies. I mean yeah, he has an intimidating you know screen. Look, that's I mean, that's what they hired for.

John C. McGinley needs someone that isn't him. Yeah, yeah, exactly, someone that isn't a scrawny little you know, because I mean he's kind of scrawny in this movie. Well, I mean he mostly played when when they go to his house, he's mostly playing the the Intimiday Tour, but not the the the Assaulter, right, He's mostly playing like, where's the disc? Tell me where disc?

Isn't just throwing shit around trying to find the disc in his house. What I think is funny is 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't search the backpack. I'm sorry. These are the dumbest heavies in the history of Hollywood. Well, I mean, these are the same guys that end up running into trade wire in the woods and getting themselves blown up.

So well, I mean or shooting just wildly into the trees predator style. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, stop shooting. Why are you shooting at like, oh my god? Yeah, Well, it's just it goes to show like the John c.

McGinley character is like woefully out of his death exactly. Um, he plays it well, he plays he plays it like he's uh, he's almost playing it like he was the uh I forgot the name of the hacker in uh die Hard, the one who doesn't do any physical Sure, I mean he's I mean, look, he's playing at very Eric Bogojin in Undersiege two. He's not He's not the intimidating He's not the intimidating character. No, he he's the brain's not the bron He tries hard to 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 and vision he was coming at me.

The whole Vision Quest thing at the at the Native American tribal camp is so ham fisted and unnecessary, and I think it 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 going to take the elderly grandma or the naked seductress? Like well, like you said, it's pseudo philosophy, it's pseudo Native American philosophy. Spiritualism bullshit pretty much, and they do the bare minimum of I thought. I think at least they did the bare minimum of research into Native American spiritualism.

I'm not sure 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 they saw in like a movie back in the fifties, that's fair. Or they probably just watched the movie Vision Quest and wrote from there. And then you have Arley Ermias in this movie.

Oh god, I mean he's great, but he's always underutilized. He's very underutilized. I mean his character gets killed off so uh so, like underwhelmingly Anticlimacticum, they make it expect anything else at this point, like no, because they build him up as like this um navy seal, he's a mercenary, mercenary who can just hunt anything. But when he gets to Seagal, Segal just what fucking shoots him and that was 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 on him.

Like well, I guess that can be said for a lot of the fight scenes to film, they're very anti climactic. There is because there is no good action in this movie like that because because we mentioned before, nothing can hurt Stephen Seagal in a Stephen Seagal film, And this may be like the biggest offender that we've seen. Yeah, not one scratch goes on him, not one He just he's never really in danger, Like even even when he's taken to that kind of oil you know, that oil pump to check what's going on, and that's you know, it's obviously a trap to trying to blow him up. Like even then, I'm not sitting there thinking to myself like, oh they got him this time, Like no, I mean, I never for once felt that he was in any sense of danger or I never got the sense that the villains even had a shot that they knew what they were doing.

That moment when they come into Richard Hamilton's house and Seagal and Joan Channer there, there's like four guys and they get just overwhelmed by Seagal immediately. Yeah, they get wasted almost immediately, no threat to him whatsoever. And the one the people who get away are supposed to get away because they're supposed to go in the next scene, and they're supposed to build up their villain, so you want to hate him more so you want them to die at the end even more. And should we talk about the main villain, Michael Kine. I mean, we haven't talked about Michael Caine 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 and meant, you know, talking about how Agis will stave, the Agis is good for the environment we protect blah blah blah.

Director says cut. Michael King immediately goes into asshole mode. Get me a fucking tell I touched this deer blah blah blah. And did you notice who plays a director, Irvan Kirshner, who is in Angus as well? Yes, he I was going to mention that to you.

He plays a grandpa's chess partner, yea in this movie, in that movie in the same day. Yeah, and he was better in the other movie in 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 movie versus why was he in this movie.

I mean, well, I'm glad he was in Angus because yeah, but in this like, what was the point? What a weird? I think I think they just Steven Seagal never put a better director in your direction directorial debut, because it just goes how to show how shitty you are as a director. Because Irvan Krishner directed Empire Strikes Backs, which a lot of people believe is the better Star Wars film of the trilogy, We're not going to get into a debate about this, Chris, I'm sorry, why because you don't think it is? No.

I love Empire strikes Back. I just don't want to get I don't want to get off track too much. Empire strikes Back. There's no other, no other movie. Okay, we can go into clerks and tell talk about you know another Kevin Smith reference, Jesus Um.

You know, Empire strikes Back. That's it. It's a great film. Yeah, Star Wars. I mean I prefer Attack of the Clones.

But you know you're fucking trolling now and what how Okay you know what I'm and now you're gonna try to fucking no sell it. Not gonna happen. What light about sand That light about said? I felt that in my heart? Yeah, okay, did I 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 this movie is an unnecessary character because you essentially 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 film for Michael Kane.

Well, he said as much. Yeah, um, yes, this is I think what Cullen said when we talked about this last year was that Michael Kane said, you 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 this movie has beautiful scenery. Let's let's admit. But I don't.

But I don't think he wanted to be in fucking Frozen Alaska making a movie. I think you know, he took the paycheck for Jaws the Revenge and he was in the Caribbean. So yeah, Jos Are Revenge. His Jaws Are Revenge quote is one of my favorites of all time. Uh.

He says something like, 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 he will freely admit when he does a movie for a paycheck.

Not wrong with that, nothing wrong. You want to get you need, you need to pay your bills. I mean, you know, I need to have some cash, do a shit film. Sure. Yeah.

I mean, if Uve Bowl offered me a few thousand dollars to do a couple of days work on 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. He says that you can't understand Seagal if you haven't seen On Deadly Ground, And he said that as much when we had him on a couple episodes back, Trevor, would you agree with that sentiment now having seen it? I this is, by all accounts the Seagalist of Seagal films. Is a Siagal film to end all Seagal movies.

Yes, this is the epitome of Steven Seagal films. Because if you want 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 a director'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's full of its own. It loves the way its own fart smell like Steven Seagal.

Again, If if you wanted to have a movie where Steven seagalplay Superman, this is it. But do you see where I say it's fascinatingly, um, fascinatingly, it's just fascinating. It's not a range movie. It is a not It is not a boring film to watch. You won't know, you won't get angry at it, You'll just be fascinated by the even though there's no action, It's not a boring movie because the choices that are made are just so strange.

Yeah, I mean, I think the most ridiculous part was near the end where seagalum is chasing John C. McGinley and I forgot that woman's name who who's like the legal lawyer for Michael Caine 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 to escape, 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 could be called a fight by Steven Seagal.

But the rest of us would say it's Steven Seagal man handling John c McGinley, where ends up with him just being thrown into the propeller where you don't see and the only thing you see of that is blood splattering on the on the plane. I mean, it's about as gory as that scene in Raiders, right. Yeah, and the woman tries to get away with by the car but somehow doesn't fucking see the truck right in front of her and immediately explodes. It's ridiculous but great. It's it's great.

It's ridiculous, but it's great. I'm not I'm not going to sit here and say, don't see this movie. No, this of 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 I haven't talked about him.

There's a scene where Billy Bob Thornton just like randomly gets like a kind of funny, weird monologue. Oh where he's he's staying, he's sitting with his friend. They're both like trying to get a snipe on him. Yeah, they're trying to guard they're essentially guarding ages one from 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's like the third or fourth time I've seen it, that scene always stands out to me. Is just like did they just like did they just say like, all right, we're just gonna shoot the camb We're just gonna leave the camera 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 Billy Bob being himself. Yeah, And I love that I did.

I'm like this movie needed him more Billy Bob, and I wanted Billy Bob to go out in a better way than he did. He just, um, I think he's just like there's an explosive on the elevator when Billy Bob tries to shoot 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 is still pretty early in his career. Yeah, this was a couple of years before Sling Blade came out. Yeah, this is two years before Sling Blade.

So he was doing the show with John Bridder at the time, so he was he was more known as a character actor. Um, but yeah, he's he's given little to do, 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't know who Billy Bob Thornton was, right, it would still stand out because at least he does something. Yeah, even if his career had gone nowhere, you'd still be like, oh, that was kind of weird.

Weird that was That was a funny henchman. Yeah, yeah, it's it's a weird movie because you essentially have Segal getting excommunicated by the Agis Oil company. Yeah. Then he goes on his vision quest and then he goes to the oil 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 serious things that people actually believe in being bastardized by people who don't know anything about it. But they basically it's not the first of the last thing, you know, they basically just put vastling on the Lends have a Native American kind of do a chant um and have Sigal come out of the water like like a baptism. Basically X Files did something very similar in their second season. Like it's just it's very it just is kind of not something that has particularly aged. Well, no it hasn't, um, but like so what like yeah, 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 the message comes off, as you know, disingenuous because he ends up blowing up the fucking rig. Like I said, so it kind of but that was always going to be the movie. Way the movie was gonna end. The bigger 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 begin with?

Right, he was trying that he was trying to hit on a topic that was hot at the time, so oddly specific to pick this as your directorial debut, and you know, he thought that this was going to be like the greatest movie ever made about the topic. Like they spent fifty million 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 let him direct his own film.

That film was on deadly ground. This movie made under Siege two possibility happen. Sorry, this movie made Understiage two happen. Given that one of my close friends is Richard, I can't say I'm thoroughly upset about that, given that without under Siege two, I'm not friends with Richard because I probably would never have met him. It is a strange.

It's a strange movie that's a little long in the tooth because it's two two and a half hours and it's it's very dishonest. Well, what I can't tell is did Stephen Seagal not want there to be action or was there just no action in this movie? Because this movie could have been beefed up with the action. It's just very weird. I mean, one good action 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 assume you may be able to consider the the the action at the rig. Yeah, I guess that's just Stephen Seagal shooting guns though like the movie doesn't require him 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 stuff we're seeing now with Seagal.

Yeah, um, this is the most notable um in his personality. You can tell that it is his This is him being 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 think believes 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 end about pollution and stuff and oh, oh we need we need to talk about that.

That's going to be really and he goes, yeah, this this speech 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, and we're destroying you know, the worst the biggest threat to the environments, you know, health is us. And it's like God, dude, like every buzzword 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.

But the Big Oil is repressing all this information and those who speak out about it are considered conspiracy theorists and crazy. He it goes off on a It's something you would probably hear on info Wars, like Alex Ownes will watch this movie and just jerk off to it. I don't know. I mean, there probably is something to the idea of the Big Oil. Yeah, but one good point, the electric who killed the electric car is a real thing, Like I know that, But one good point in a whole big scene of rambling nonsense, just it kind of it dilutes the good point by saying a bunch of bullshit points.

I mean, I don't I don't know. I would have to go back and fact check every piece of his message, but I don't remember anything particularly inflammatory. I just my issue with this movie is just it's such an odd choice because there's you know, at the end of Commando, you don't have Arnold Schwartzenegger, you know, bemoaning the Oil usage habits of the audience. It's just it's very preachy and just it doesn't work in 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 has worked because when you go in environmental if you're the action star and you're blowing shit up and you know, destroying things, that kind of negates the whole 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 is diluted. Yeah, I would agree. Um, they tried.

They tried to make environmental action into a subgenre. I think they tried to do that with that movie with a Football Player. They technically did it with another Steven Seagal movie with Fire Down. They tried to do it with Howie Long in this he plays a He plays a He plays a guy who puts out forest fires, like one of those rangers fireman kind of guy. Sure.

I forgot 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? I think it's called fire something, fire Storm, buyer Storm. That's it. They tried it again.

It was a movie trying to be I think, trying to be like environmentally conscious, but it just doesn't work when you're when you'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 I just it doesn't. I don't.

I don't think anyone who went to see this 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 a message of environmental environmental impact, your messenger should not be Steven Seagal. I wouldn't think so, because he's not someone He's not someone America took, even back then, took very seriously when it came to like important social environmental issues. They more thought of him as just a kung fu karate action star. They didn't think of him as some environmental 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 basically fuck up the environment for the entire film, So doing that didn't help your your attempt. I think overall, though, overall, I think I enjoyed this more than most of the new stuff of his we've watched. It's enjoyable 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's enjoyable on that level. As a action film, it's merely mediocre. M this is difficult, man, It really is, because it's you need to watch it like this is this is a Steven Seagal movie that like, it's so weird that it deserves I mean, Verne clearly, I think so he thinks that this is the film that you watch to get a better sense of whose Seagal is.

I would agree. I think that this is the movie that kind of defines Steven Seagal in a lot of ways. And I think you, if you're a fan of Steven Seagal, or if you're curious about Steven Seagal, if you watch this movie and you want to continue past this movie, then I think you've got a pretty firm starting place to go with Steven Seagal, because this is just kind of the most Seagal movie he's ever made. But do you see where I'm coming from and saying it's objectively a bad 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 weird movie. 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, so you can't watch something else. I can safely say that I've never seen anything like this film. Yeah, and that, in my mind is a film 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 is its own weird thing. This is in a class of its own. Yeah, this is its own weird thing. It is very much not a film that I think the people who are seeing this film in ninety four expected they were going to get. Now, trailers don't lead on as much.

The trailers make this look like a very stock and Trade boiler plate under siege style action film. I mean, just compare the amount of action in this film to under Siege or even under Siege too. It's just there's very little that happens in this movie in the way of traditional action. That's kind of what makes it interesting and a failure. At the same time.

This is Sigal trying 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 other films, there's, you know, some levity and some kind of funny stuff, but in this film, he's trying to be dead serious and very straight. It's a failure that is fascinating to watch, and I really do you think people should see it? I do?

I agree. Yeah. So it's not a good movie in any stretch of the imagination, because it is too strange to be a good movie. But it is successful in being absolutely one of the strangest action movies you could see, because boy, it does everything in its power to ignore pre established action conventions that have been followed for years, decades before this movie came out. You will watch this film and be gobsmacked It's just such a strange studio studio film to be made for sixty million dollars.

It's just such a bizarre big budget movie because at the time, this is a big budget movie. Yeah, well this is a ninety four 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's Hollywood, that budget seems quaint. But in ninety four, that was big, big budget. I mean something like what Jurassic Park was probably two hundred million.

Let me double check Jurassic Park at a budget. Jurassic Park had a budget the year before. To give you an idea, Jurassic Park only cost thirteen million dollars more than this movie. Wow, and there's no dinosaurs in this film? What a rip?

Yeah, this movie is I guess you could say the only dinosaur was Michael Caine. Oh and Jurassic Park made a one billion dollars. Yeah, it was a movie made thirty eight million. Yeah, this movie didn't even you know, Jurassic Park was sixty three Jurassic Park sixty three million dollars to make, broke the box office. This film around sixty million, didn't make a heart of a dent.

I don't think. I don't even think it made half its budget back, did it? No? So, I mean people just weren't interested. They took a gamble and they lost.

But I'm glad I saw it. I'm glad it was made. I'm glad I got to experience Seagal being the most Seagal he'll ever be an film, unless they make a documentary about him, which I for one would finance if I had the money. But yeah, it's basically the closest to a Seagal documentary you'll find because it's definitely one of the one of the most insightful peaks into his mind. Yeah, I agree.

Yeah, so I think we're both ponytail on on this one. Pony tail on definitely. Uh yeah. So to close out this episode, I want to play in its entirety the three minute and forty two second diatribe from Steven Seagal to lead uside of this episode, so that everyone can get a good listen as 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 the next episode of the On Seagal podcast, we're gonna be talking about Contract to Kill aka contract Killer? Is that what the other name for it is? That's what it says an IMDb. Oh, dear god, Well, Contract to Kill is another Keoni Waxman film starring Steven Seagal with a goatee, So yeah, who knows? It could be fun?

I think it will be probably, Well, who knows. I'm going into it with an open mind because that's the only way to go into these kinds of things. You know what. What I've learned from this podcast is always going with an open mind because you might be lessensly surprised, exactly like I was with Cartels. No harm in going into it with an open mind, absolutely, I think it's it's it's terrible to assume every recent Sigal film is going to be terrible because it's straight to video.

I agree, Um, yeah, there are some gems in there which we've seen so so until then, Trevor, where can people find you? You can find me on Twitter at bad Vertigo, Instagram at mad Vertigo. You can find me usually at home eating my feelings, but you know that's the usual. What about you, Chris? Where can people find you?

You can find me on the Internet at cstac h i W at gmail dot com. Excuse me, C s t A c HW dot com. That edge. That is my link tree and that's where you can go to find me. And that's where all the stuff that I work on is so culture cast, scary stories, all that good stuff.

As for this show on sigal dot com. We're on Facebook and Twitter. That's where you can go to find this show. Catch on the next episode. Byebye.